Dhaka, April 22 -- Almost 500 experts contributed to the definition, including physicists, public health professionals and engineers, many of whom disagreed bitterly over the topic in the past.
Agencies have historically required high levels of proof before calling diseases airborne, which required very stringent containment measures; the new definition says the risk of exposure and severity of disease should also be considered. Past disagreements also centred around whether infectious particles were "droplets" or "aerosols" based on size, which the new definition moves away from, reports media.
During the early days of Covid in 2020, around 200 aerosol scientists publicly complained that the WHO had failed to warn people of the risk that...