The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued, or re-issued, guidance on the coronavirus, declaring that the virus can be transmitted through airborne particles, the Washington Post reports.
The new guidance reverses a repeal of an announcement that was made in September, advising people that they can catch the virus through things like droplets of water vapor and particles from coughing and sneezing.
In September, the CDC had issued the announcement, but pulled it down in a matter of days, saying that the announcement was a draft and it should not have been posted. The guidance issued Monday is essentially identical to the draft information posted last month.
“There is evidence that under certain conditions, people with COVID-19 seem to have infected others who were more than six feet away,” the updated Web page states. “These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation. Sometimes the infected person was breathing heavily, for example while singing or exercising. Under these circumstances, scientists believe that the amount of infectious smaller droplet and particles produced by the people with COVID-19 became concentrated enough to spread the virus to other people. The people who were infected were in the same space during the same time or shortly after the person with COVID-19 had left.”