0.1. What is the goal of these FAQs?
The goal of these FAQs is to provide information to the general public in an efficient manner about how to prevent aerosol transmission of COVID-19, with the hope that this will allow more informed decision making by individuals or organizations. All of this information has been posted in Twitter and other forums, but can be difficult to find. Having multiple experts working together, and having the ability to update this information also improves its quality. These FAQs represent our best understanding at this time, and should always be similar or more stringent than information provided by CDC, WHO, and most regional & local health authorities. If your authority has a more stringent guideline than discussed here, follow that more stringent guideline.
0.2. Who has written these FAQs?
Scientists and engineers with many years of collective research experience related to indoor air quality, aerosol science, aerosol disease transmission, and engineered control systems for aerosols. Our contributors are active researchers investigating aerosol transmission of COVID-19 (see e.g. 1, 2, 3, and 4). Five of us were speakers at the recent Workshop on Airborne Transmission of COVID-19, organized by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the highest level scientific organization in the US). Three of us are members of a COVID-19 WHO expert group. Specifically, the writers of these FAQs include Professors :
- Linsey Marr (Virginia Tech, Fellow ISIAQ)
- Shelly Miller (CU Boulder, Fellow ISIAQ)
- Kimberly Prather (UC San Diego, Fellow AAAS & AGU, NAE & NAS, CAICE Director)
- Charles Haas (Drexel University, Fellow AAM & SRA)
- William Bahnfleth (Penn State, Fellow ASHRAE, ASME & ISIAQ, Chair of ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force)
- Richard Corsi (Portland State, President ISIAQ Fellows)
- Julian Tang (Univ. of Leicester & UK National Health Svce, Clinical/Academic Virologist/Physician, Fellow RCP-Virology)
- Hartmut Herrmann (Dept. Head, Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), University of Leipzig; Head Joint Working Party ‘PM’ of GDCh, KRDL and ProcessNet).
- Jose-Luis Jimenez (CU Boulder, Highly Cited Researcher, Fellow AAAR & AGU).
Several additional scientists are also working with us to contribute to this document. If other experts are interested in contributing to these FAQs or other related efforts, please contact Jose.
We think that unfortunately WHO and CDC are being too slow to accept aerosol transmission, hence the need for these FAQs directly from the scientists.
0.3. I found a mistake, or would like something to be added or clarified, can you do that?
We will update these FAQs in response to feedback, to fix any mistakes, or to expand them in response to questions (as time allows). Please complete the form at this link with any updates, errors, suggestions etc. Please do not send questions via email or Twitter, as it is too cumbersome to try to keep track of those.
0.4. Are these FAQs available in other languages?
At present we are making or planning a lot of updates, in response to a lot of questions and requests. But Google can translate it into many languages automatically. See
- Traduccion al espanol: https://tinyurl.com/preguntas-espanol
- Traduction au français
- German translation
- For other languages, go to this page and change the language at the top
0.5. Can I use the information here in other publications etc.?
You are welcome to use any of this as you see fit. There is no need to contact us for permission. We only ask that you give the link http://tinyurl.com/faqs-aerosol as the source of the information. Please include the date and version number given at the top, if possible. If you need an author list, just list the people above.
Version: 1.60, 14-Sep-2020
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