COVID 19 - How it is spread

COVID 19 - How it is spread

Like other corona viruses that cause colds and flu, the viruses attach to tiny droplets that are expelled from the mouth and nose of an infected person, mainly though coughing, and sneezing.  They are also spread by singing and breathing.  Imagine it being like when you see your breath in the winter or how your breath can steam on a cool smooth surface like eye glasses.

Coughing and sneezing are obvious spreaders of the virus.  Speaking and singing spread more tiny droplets than most people think.  We've all seen speakers that we do not want to stand too near because of how much saliva actually comes out of their mouth as they speak.  Of course most of us do not talk that way, but anyone who speaks with animation or strength certainly passes into the air microscopic droplets of moisture from their mouths.  

Singing, as a great opera star once said, is controlled screaming!   Most of us do not have to produce such volumes as would be required for an operatic performance.  But, none the less, singing like speaking produces tiny droplets containing the virus.  This was tragically discovered when, within a few days of a choir rehearsal, 40 of the sixty members began to get sick from COVID 19.  

Originally, it was thought that all cases occurred because someone was in personal contact with an ill person in China where the epidemic broke out.  And then it was realized that being close to someone who traveled from China could explain how they got the disease.  This kind of transfer of an illness is the most common form of infection of many viruses like for flu and colds.

But then people began to be infected without either having traveled to China or having contact with someone from there.

That kind of infection is called "community transmission."  The most likely cause, according to scientists, is that the virus does not die once it falls on surfaces that people commonly touch.  So tabletops, counters, and any other surface that infected people may have touched and left their droplets from sneezing, etc., could be where the infection was passed to the hands of others and then from their hands to their faces.

Tests have shown that when a person coughs or sneezes, droplets from their mouth and nose can travel up to twenty feet in a closed, quiet room.  

Are there other possibilities such as viruses that have fallen to the floor in a store or even on the street have stuck to the bottom of people's feet thus getting onto our hands when we get home and remove our foot coverings (if any).  Or maybe the viruses are stirred up like dust when we are walking in public and it rises to the level of our faces.  Or are there other possible ways the virus gets into our systems that we haven't discovered yet?

So far, this early in the pandemic, we can only guess, based on how similar viruses have been infecting people in the past.  It may be a year or more before we discover all of the ways COVID 19 gets into our system. 

Update:  In early May, the following article described how the virus clings to the droplets in the very mist of our breath so that it can hover in the air like cigarette smoke where a person who is spreading the virus has been.  And as with cigarette smoke, an air conditioner can move puffs of droplets together across a room, infecting many in their path. https://erinbromage.wixsite.com/covid19/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them?fbclid=IwAR3UKvh_GBki7YBnSlrmpVNyIEWNa8iOO7dNza-i0mft-mNeeVlHB-U7uEQ

This article does an excellent job indicating what the risk is in various situations people normally find themselves.

(Disclaimer: I am not a trained medical person, just an observer and reporter.  Doctors and other scientists will give more accurate information as they have a chance.)