I'm Dr. Saline Gounder and this is epidemic. In this episode we're going to talk about

research that raises a troubling question.

How is the novel coronavirus transmitted?

One of the most reassuring things we hear from experts is that it's not airborne.

Which we think means you can only catch it by touching something, a surface

that's got the virus on it, so you wash your hands a lot and you think you'll be

okay. But last weekend Wired magazine ran a story with the headline, They Say

Coronavirus isn't airborne, but it's definitely born by air. It turns out airborne is a very technical term in this context.

As the Wired story lays out, researchers who look hard at the details of how viruses travel in the

air, stay in the air, and potentially cause infections through the air, say there's

reason for concern.

I should say at the outset that this doesn't mean we should all be panicked about just

walking around, especially outside.

But people who spend a lot of time in indoor environments with a lot of sick people, like

health care workers, may have a lot to be concerned about, especially because this country doesn't have a great supply of respirator masks and other personal protective equipment.

In the trade, we call it PPE.

So that's a worry for health care workers and for anybody who hopes that

health care workers stay well themselves to care for people who get sick. I've got the author of that

Wired story Roxanne Com, and one of the scientists whose work she

explores, Lydia Bariba, an MIT professor who directs the Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission

Lab.

I started by asking Roxanne how she became aware of Lydia's work.

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