Is the Novel Coronavirus Airborne?

More than 200 scientists from 32 countries are asking this question: Is the novel coronavirus actually an airborne virus, meaning that it leaves infection in the air after a person coughs or sneezes?

A recent update published by the World Health Organization (WHO), featured in Prevention, features discussion by medical experts about how the novel coronavirus is transmitted, and what our understanding of it could mean, both for treatment of COVID-19 and efforts to control its spread.

Richard Watkins, M.D., a Northeast Ohio Medical University associate professor of internal medicine who specializes in infectious disease, tells Prevention readers that further scientific evidence and studies are needed to see if the virus is naturally airborne (like the measles).

Read more opinions from experts like Dr. Watkins in Prevention.