Speaker 1: It's Thursday, October eight. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The CDC has updated its guidelines once again and finally
Speaker 1: acknowledge that COVID nineteen can spread through aerosolized particles in
Speaker 1: the air. These particles can linger in a room and
Speaker 1: spread beyond six feet. This all means that it's important
Speaker 1: to have proper ventilation inside and also wear a mask.
Speaker 1: Caitlin McCabe, reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins us
Speaker 1: for how these tiny air particles can spread the virus.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Caitlin, Thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about some of the CDC guidance on
Speaker 1: how coronavirus spreads. There's been a lot of back and
Speaker 1: forth on this. It's kind of confirming now something that
Speaker 1: we really thought we knew already that the coronavirus can
Speaker 1: spread through tiny air particles known as aerosols. Before the
Speaker 1: guidance was that it spreads through bigger droplets if someone
Speaker 1: coughs or sneezes. But when somebody costs or sneezes, they
Speaker 1: also produce these tiny are particles where the virus can live.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned, there's a lot of back and
Speaker 1: forth from the CDC on the guidance on whether that
Speaker 1: was true or not. Now they are saying that, yes,
Speaker 1: coronavirus can spread by that means tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit more about it. So air soil scientists have been
Speaker 1: saying for months that the virus spreads this way by
Speaker 1: these tiny particles that can linger in the air, and
Speaker 1: we emits them at the same time that we emits
Speaker 1: these larger droplets. So when we cough, or we talk,
Speaker 1: or we sneeze, we can emit thousands of droplets and
Speaker 1: particles of various sizes. And so pretty much from day one,
Speaker 1: the CDC has said exactly what you were just referencing,
Speaker 1: that it's these large droplets that can basically land on
Speaker 1: someone's nose or their mouth when they're in close contact
Speaker 1: with someone. But all these air soil scientists were saying, well, yes,
Speaker 1: that's one mode of transmission, but these tiny air particles
Speaker 1: can also spread the virus. And so they were pointing
Speaker 1: to outbreaks and places like a restaurant or acquire practice
Speaker 1: that indicated that people who weren't touching each other, who
Speaker 1: weren't even physics near each other, we're still contracting the virus,
Speaker 1: which led them to believe that there had to be
Speaker 1: another way for this virus to spread. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: saying that some of these air particles, these tinier aerosols,
Speaker 1: can spread up to twenty six ft, So you can
Speaker 1: be in a room with somebody and if it's poorly ventilated,
Speaker 1: there's still a chance that you can get it. I
Speaker 1: think it was last month. I have no concept of
Speaker 1: time where I think it was the last month when
Speaker 1: the CDC accidentally put out guidelines saying that yes, this
Speaker 1: was true. Then they retracted it, saying that was just
Speaker 1: kind of a draft. Why all the back and forth
Speaker 1: from the CDC, So those initial guidelines it was last month.
Speaker 1: You're right on that. They went up I think late
Speaker 1: on a Friday, and no one noticed them for several days,
Speaker 1: and then late Sunday people started noticing this, especially people
Speaker 1: in the aerosol science community, were just so happy to
Speaker 1: see this because they've been advocating and pushing for this
Speaker 1: to be acknowledged for so long. And then Monday morning,
Speaker 1: kind of shortly thereafter, people started paying attention to the
Speaker 1: fact that these guidelines have been update if the guidelines
Speaker 1: were pulled and the CDC set at the time, but
Speaker 1: it was just a draft form of the guidelines that
Speaker 1: were posted in error, and our reporting showed that as well,
Speaker 1: that this was basically stemming from some confusion and some
Speaker 1: staff posted the guidelines when it was still in draft
Speaker 1: form and it hadn't been vetted by senior agency scientists.
Speaker 1: So they pulled that down and then we waited for
Speaker 1: I think about two weeks, and then we saw these
Speaker 1: new guidelines go up. They're similar, but they're a bit
Speaker 1: more nuanced, so they stressed that air sall transmission isn't
Speaker 1: the main form of the way the virus has transmitted.
Speaker 1: The initial version seemed to suggest that it was perhaps
Speaker 1: the primary course of transmission, so it does seem to
Speaker 1: address this from a more nuanced perspective. It's kind of
Speaker 1: unfortunate because the CDC has had a rough go at
Speaker 1: it during the pandemic, a lot of missteps, and as
Speaker 1: we were just talking about posting them the guidelines, taking
Speaker 1: them back and then reposting them now, the credibility the
Speaker 1: CDC is unfortunately kind of taking a hit to all
Speaker 1: of this. These guidelines are important because to say that
Speaker 1: coronavirus spreads through this type of airborne transmission leads to
Speaker 1: other effects, you know, as far as precautions for reopening
Speaker 1: businesses and schools. You know, we'll need more ventilation, proper ventilation,
Speaker 1: will need to keep wearing the masks. So it's important
Speaker 1: that they acknowledge this because it affects all of the
Speaker 1: other guidelines exactly. And I mean that's what scientists are saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, first, they're saying that airborne transmission doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we suddenly need to be super scared of this virus.
Speaker 1: It just equips us with a better knowledge of how
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves. So from the very beginning, I think
Speaker 1: we've all had driven to our heads. Take six ft apart,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the guideline for social distancing. Now that
Speaker 1: we know that these aerosol particles can travel more than
Speaker 1: six feet, we know that perhaps six feet is in
Speaker 1: a hard and fast rule, and that we need to
Speaker 1: be wearing masks, and we need to be striving to
Speaker 1: be in areas that are well ventilated. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a little bit out of our control. As a consumer.
Speaker 1: If you walk into a business, you don't necessarily know
Speaker 1: what their ventilation race are, but there are ways, you know,
Speaker 1: opening windows and other ways that we can try to
Speaker 1: boost airflow into rooms. So it's just less being scared
Speaker 1: of this and really just you know, empowering us with
Speaker 1: more knowledge of how to deal with this and drives
Speaker 1: transmission rates down. It just makes me very curious. You know,
Speaker 1: we're hearing a lot of stories about transmission at the
Speaker 1: White House, white House staffers, even on Capitol Hill staffers there,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of I'm curious, is you know
Speaker 1: this is true now that they're acknowledging it. These particles
Speaker 1: can remain in the air for some time, even if
Speaker 1: somebody goes in a room and then they leave in
Speaker 1: a new crop of people come in, which I know
Speaker 1: is happening constantly, different meetings and all that. Maybe this
Speaker 1: could be part of what's fueling the spread in these places.
Speaker 1: I think what's important to distinguish is it's not like
Speaker 1: if you pop into a room for a couple of
Speaker 1: seconds that you're going to be just inhaling so many
Speaker 1: of these particles. The health scientists continue to say it's
Speaker 1: prolonged exposure. I think people are hesitant to put any
Speaker 1: kind of time frame on that because It's not a
Speaker 1: hard and fast rule, just like the six feet to
Speaker 1: since it's not a hard and fast rule, but it
Speaker 1: really is prolonged exposure, especially if you're not wearing a mask.
Speaker 1: We know that masks do offer the person wearing them
Speaker 1: some own personal protection, so there are steps that we
Speaker 1: can take to prevent this. Caitlin McCabe, reporter at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I'm Austar Ramirez and this has
Speaker 1: been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories.
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