Clues to COVID-19's indoor spread
Many new infections trace back to indoor bars and restaurants, and a study from the Univ. of Florida may help us understand why: the virus travels up to 16 feet indoors.
Many of the new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks across the USA have been traced to bars and restaurants, including ones where recommended public health recommendations were followed.
Recent indications of slowing the COVID-19 surge could be because testing rates have declined.
Infectious virus found nearly 16-feet away from COVID-19 patients: A paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed says that active virus — not just genetic traces — was measured in two different hospital rooms as far as almost 16 feet away from its source, including one in which the patient had not been treated with any procedures that generate aerosols. This may help explain COVID-19 spread, although other experts say this study does not establish that enough virus to infect others is emitted.
A newly disclosed July 31, 2020, letter signed by 34 past or current members of the federal government’s Health care Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee warns that the decision to shift hospital data reporting from CDC to HHS jeopardizes a “complex patient safety and quality improvement system.”
The Cherokee County, Georgia, school district closed the high school where now over 1,100 students have been told to quarantine because of possible COVID-19 exposure. The district does not require masks. School opened last week.