So I read those, and at least according to the WHO document, it seems to be the case that while viral RNA is detectable in a non-aersolized state in the air, they haven't been able to find any cases of this causing infection (See section labelled "Airborne transmission").
The thing is -- why assume it can't form aerosols and that those aerosols aren't infectious? By demanding evidence for aerosol formation that is what they are stating. It makes no sense. Most viruses do form aerosols, and those aerosols do seem to be infectious.
Are you really prepared to make the bet that they aren't infectious?
> Most viruses do form aerosols, and those aerosols do seem to be infectious.
It's my understanding that most don't spread in this fashion. If you're hospitalized with cold/flu, your care team will observe droplet precautions, not aerosol ones.
If you have measles, which spreads via aerosol, they'll be using substantially more gear. The aerosol transmission is also why measles is shockingly easy to spread versus most other diseases.
>The physics of exhaled air and flow physics have generated hypotheses about possible mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through aerosols.(13-16) These theories suggest that 1) a number of respiratory droplets generate microscopic aerosols (<5 µm) by evaporating, and 2) normal breathing and talking results in exhaled aerosols. Thus, a susceptible person could inhale aerosols, and could become infected if the aerosols contain the virus in sufficient quantity to cause infection within the recipient. However, the proportion of exhaled droplet nuclei or of respiratory droplets that evaporate to generate aerosols, and the infectious dose of viable SARS-CoV-2 required to cause infection in another person are not known, but it has been studied for other respiratory viruses.(17)
What the WHO and some doctors are doing is going: "despite the fact that it seems like it can spread via aerosols and that seems fairly likely, we want hard proof and are willing to risk our lives on that basis."
> If you're hospitalized with cold/flu, your care team will observe droplet precautions, not aerosol ones.
From my understanding, part of this is because most hospitals don't have aerosol specific precautions. Pre-COVID, anything requiring more than droplet precautions was simply handled with full-airborne precautions (negative pressure room, PAPR, etc).
Ideally, we'd have the airborne-precaution PPE for all COVID care but that's extremely expensive and leadership (hospital and gov't) have become aware that healthcare workers will still show up to work even without proper protection.
