How to catch #Covid19? Here are the ways of growing agreement!

Three months into the coronavirus crisis in India, there’s a growing consensus about a central question: How do people become infected?

Getting the Covid-19 virus involves three steps:

1
Coughing, talking and breathing creates virus-carrying droplets of various sizes.

2
Enough virus has to make itself over to you or build up around you over time to trigger an infection.

3
The virus has to make its way into your respiratory tract and use the ACE-2 receptors there to enter cells and replicate.

It’s not common to contract Covid-19 from a contaminated surface, scientists say. And fleeting encounters with people outdoors are unlikely to spread the coronavirus.

Instead, the major culprit is close-up, person-to-person interactions for extended periods. Crowded events, poorly ventilated areas and places where people are talking loudly—or singing, in one famous case—maximize the risk.

Stressing physical distancing and masks, and reducing the number of gatherings in enclosed spaces. “We should not be thinking of a lockdown, but of ways to increase physical distance,” said Tom Frieden, chief executive of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit public-health initiative. “This can include allowing outside activities, allowing walking or cycling to an office with people all physically distant, curbside pickup from stores, and other innovative methods that can facilitate resumption of economic activity without a rekindling of the outbreak.”

Recommendations include widespread testing, contact tracing and isolation of people who are infected or exposed.

Health agencies have so far identified respiratory-droplet contact as the major mode of Covid-19 transmission. These large fluid droplets can transfer virus from one person to another if they land on the eyes, nose or mouth. But they tend to fall to the ground or on other surfaces pretty quickly.

Some researchers say the new coronavirus can also be transmitted through aerosols, or minuscule droplets that float in the air longer than large droplets. These aerosols can be directly inhaled.

An estimated 10% of people with Covid-19 are responsible for about 80% of transmissions, according to a study published recently in Wellcome Open Research.

Air travel is full of opportunities for coronavirus transmission. Touchless check-in, plexiglass shields, temperature checks, back-to-front boarding and planes with empty middle seats are all now part of the flying experience, and the future may bring even more changes.

The standard procedure for someone who tests positive is to quarantine at home. Some cities are providing free temporary housing and social services where people who are infected can stay on a voluntary basis, to avoid transmitting the virus to family members.

Guidelines for employers whose workers are returning include requiring masks, limiting use of public transit and elevators to reduce exposure, and prohibiting hugs, handshakes and fist-bumps. The agency also suggested replacing communal snacks, water coolers and coffee pots with prepacked, single-serve items, and erecting plastic partitions between desks closer than 6 feet apart.

Wiping down surfaces and putting in hand-sanitizer stations in workplaces is good, the bigger risks are close-range face-to-face interactions, and having lots of people in an enclosed space for long periods. High-touch surfaces like doorknobs are a risk, but the virus degrades quickly so other surfaces like cardboard boxes are less worrisome!

The excerpts for the following post is sourced from https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-exactly-do-you-catch-covid-19-there-is-a-growing-consensus-11592317650

—Adam Falk contributed to this article.

Write to Daniela Hernandez at daniela.hernandez@wsj.com, Sarah Toy at sarah.toy@wsj.com and Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com