Tag: covid-19 transmission

Can I Get the Flu From Touching Surfaces? Rutgers Researcher Says No.

sarah JonasFeature Expert

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the coronavirus was everywhere – stuck to our cellphone screens, smeared on our mail, dangling from doorknobs, even clinging to our cereal boxes. Except that it wasn’t.

Despite public health guidance suggesting surfaces be disinfected to stop the spread of COVID-19, the virus wasn’t significantly transmitted through inanimate surfaces and objects, what microbiologists call “fomites.” As with all respiratory viruses – from the flu to the common cold – transmission was and remains almost exclusively airborne.

Emanuel Goldman, a professor of microbiology at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, was among the first scientists to challenge conventional wisdom by warning that hygiene theater – overzealous disinfection of surfaces – had “become counterproductive” for public health.

Study in Chinese City Finds Children Spread COVID-19 Easier and Lockdowns Worked

sarah JonasResearch Results

Using high quality COVID-19 data from a northern Chinese city, two UAlbany researchers concluded that young people were most responsible for an increase in direct and secondary infections, and also determined that county-wide lockdowns proved effective in stemming the spread of the virus.

Tracking COVID-19 in transmission in Chicago schools: Public health officials take data-driven approach to reopening city public schools

sarah JonasResearch Results

Data on COVID-19 transmission among Chicago youth – particularly in the city’s extensive network of Catholic schools – supports a strategy for gradual reopening of the city’s public school system, according to a report in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.