This year, health experts around the world revised their views about how the coronavirus spreads. Aerosol scientists, virologists and other researchers had determined in 2020 that the virus spreads through the air, but it took until 2021 for prominent public health agencies to acknowledge the fact. The admission could have wide-ranging consequences for everything from public health recommendations and building codes to marching band practices (SN: 8/14/21, p. 24).
For decades, doctors and many researchers have thought that respiratory viruses such as cold and flu viruses spread mainly by people touching surfaces contaminated by mucus droplets and then touching their faces. That’s why, in the early days of the
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