It's Thursday, October eight. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. The CDC has updated its guidelines once again and finally acknowledge that COVID nineteen can spread through aerosolized particles in the air. These particles can linger in a room and spread beyond six feet. This all means that it's important to have proper ventilation inside and also wear a mask.
Caitlin McCabe, reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins us for how these tiny air particles can spread the virus. Thanks for joining us, Caitlin, Thanks for having me. I wanted to talk about some of the CDC guidance on how coronavirus spreads. There's been a lot of back and forth on this. It's kind of confirming now something that we really thought we knew already that the coronavirus can
spread through tiny air particles known as aerosols. Before the guidance was that it spreads through bigger droplets if someone coughs or sneezes. But when somebody costs or sneezes, they also produce these tiny are particles where the virus can live. And as I mentioned, there's a lot of back and forth from the CDC on the guidance on whether that was true or not. Now they are saying that, yes, coronavirus can spread by that means tell us a little
bit more about it. So air soil scientists have been saying for months that the virus spreads this way by these tiny particles that can linger in the air, and we emits them at the same time that we emits these larger droplets. So when we cough, or we talk, or we sneeze, we can emit thousands of droplets and
particles of various sizes. And so pretty much from day one, the CDC has said exactly what you were just referencing, that it's these large droplets that can basically land on someone's nose or their mouth when they're in close contact with someone. But all these air soil scientists were saying, well, yes, that's one mode of transmission, but these tiny air particles
can also spread the virus. And so they were pointing to outbreaks and places like a restaurant or acquire practice that indicated that people who weren't touching each other, who weren't even physics near each other, we're still contracting the virus, which led them to believe that there had to be
another way for this virus to spread. Yeah, and they're saying that some of these air particles, these tinier aerosols, can spread up to twenty six ft, So you can be in a room with somebody and if it's poorly ventilated, there's still a chance that you can get it. I think it was last month. I have no concept of time where I think it was the last month when the CDC accidentally put out guidelines saying that yes, this was true. Then they retracted it, saying that was just
kind of a draft. Why all the back and forth from the CDC, So those initial guidelines it was last month. You're right on that. They went up I think late on a Friday, and no one noticed them for several days, and then late Sunday people started noticing this, especially people in the aerosol science community, were just so happy to see this because they've been advocating and pushing for this
to be acknowledged for so long. And then Monday morning, kind of shortly thereafter, people started paying attention to the fact that these guidelines have been update if the guidelines were pulled and the CDC set at the time, but it was just a draft form of the guidelines that were posted in error, and our reporting showed that as well, that this was basically stemming from some confusion and some staff posted the guidelines when it was still in draft
form and it hadn't been vetted by senior agency scientists. So they pulled that down and then we waited for I think about two weeks, and then we saw these new guidelines go up. They're similar, but they're a bit more nuanced, so they stressed that air sall transmission isn't the main form of the way the virus has transmitted. The initial version seemed to suggest that it was perhaps the primary course of transmission, so it does seem to
address this from a more nuanced perspective. It's kind of unfortunate because the CDC has had a rough go at it during the pandemic, a lot of missteps, and as we were just talking about posting them the guidelines, taking them back and then reposting them now, the credibility the CDC is unfortunately kind of taking a hit to all
of this. These guidelines are important because to say that coronavirus spreads through this type of airborne transmission leads to other effects, you know, as far as precautions for reopening businesses and schools. You know, we'll need more ventilation, proper ventilation, will need to keep wearing the masks. So it's important that they acknowledge this because it affects all of the other guidelines exactly. And I mean that's what scientists are saying.
I mean, first, they're saying that airborne transmission doesn't mean that we suddenly need to be super scared of this virus. It just equips us with a better knowledge of how to protect ourselves. So from the very beginning, I think we've all had driven to our heads. Take six ft apart,
that's kind of the guideline for social distancing. Now that we know that these aerosol particles can travel more than six feet, we know that perhaps six feet is in a hard and fast rule, and that we need to be wearing masks, and we need to be striving to be in areas that are well ventilated. I mean, that's a little bit out of our control. As a consumer.
If you walk into a business, you don't necessarily know what their ventilation race are, but there are ways, you know, opening windows and other ways that we can try to boost airflow into rooms. So it's just less being scared of this and really just you know, empowering us with more knowledge of how to deal with this and drives
transmission rates down. It just makes me very curious. You know, we're hearing a lot of stories about transmission at the White House, white House staffers, even on Capitol Hill staffers there, and it just kind of I'm curious, is you know this is true now that they're acknowledging it. These particles can remain in the air for some time, even if somebody goes in a room and then they leave in a new crop of people come in, which I know
is happening constantly, different meetings and all that. Maybe this could be part of what's fueling the spread in these places. I think what's important to distinguish is it's not like if you pop into a room for a couple of seconds that you're going to be just inhaling so many of these particles. The health scientists continue to say it's
prolonged exposure. I think people are hesitant to put any kind of time frame on that because It's not a hard and fast rule, just like the six feet to since it's not a hard and fast rule, but it really is prolonged exposure, especially if you're not wearing a mask. We know that masks do offer the person wearing them some own personal protection, so there are steps that we can take to prevent this. Caitlin McCabe, reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks for having me. I'm Austar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every money for Friday, so follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast