"This overview of the history illustrates the pervasiveness of “belief perseverance,” the psychological tendency to maintain a belief despite clear and strong new evidence that should challenge it. In an era of amazing scientific advances, where mRNA vaccines were designed in a few days following virus sequencing also obtained in a few days, the very slow acceptance of critical new knowledge reminds us that the human aspects of science remain as pervasive as they were in past eras.

However, the intense research and debate associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has finally begun to generate a paradigm shift in the understanding of disease transmission. Not only are respiratory diseases not transmitted exclusively by droplets, but also it is likely that many or most respiratory diseases have an important airborne component of transmission. It is also clearer that for a disease to cause a fast-spreading pandemic, airborne transmission is likely to be an essential component. This does not mark a return to past miasmatic ideas, but a more informed understanding of airborne transmission as more complex and less scary than in the past, and certainly as a tractable problem."

"'We understood that washing your hands and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ wasn’t going to quite cut it,' explains Chief Operating Officer, Craig Fenton. 'Covid-19 highlighted a problem in the construction industry that buildings are designed with aesthetics and comfort in mind, not biosafety for occupants. Our goal is to help design buildings that are more biosafe and reduce the risk of disease and infections for people.'

EPCC – a world-class supercomputing centre based at the University – supported their simulation tools, while their work with UNCOVER – a network of population health researchers and information specialists providing Covid-19 evidence reviews for policymakers – helped shape the platform’s epidemiological modelling."

Earlier this year, two diners at a South Korean restaurant were infected with novel coronavirus in a matter of minutes from a third patron who sat at least 15 feet away from them. The third patron was asymptomatic at the time. After dissecting that scene from June, South Korean researchers released a study last month in the Journal of Korean Medical Science that suggests the virus, under certain airflow conditions, travels farther than six feet and can infect others in as little as five minutes. …
The study confirms, says Milton [Donald Milton, professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health], that infected people “can shed virus into the air, and it can travel long distances, and the more air movement you got, the more you might have” the kind of scenario laid out in the South Korean restaurant study.
With more the 20 years of experience in his field, Milton doesn’t think it’ll be another 100 years before the United States experiences a pandemic similar to the one we’re living through now. As such, he would like to see governments and entrepreneurs invest in technology to make buildings and public spaces safer in the future.