We know that the new variants spread between people more easily - but how do they do so? We’ve got some preliminary clues, but we still don’t have conclusive answers.Īngela Rasmussen, a Georgetown University virologist who agrees there’s minimal risk outdoors, nonetheless warns that there’s still much we don’t know about the new variants. What makes the new variants more contagious? But the main risk we have to worry about is still indoors. Close or prolonged contact with others (especially unmasked) or settings where there are lots of people should be avoided even if outdoors. “A variant may be more transmissible, but physics has not changed.” “The volume of distribution of gases within an outside space, particularly with a wind factor, makes this risk very low,” Cevik said. Then they have to dock up with your cells’ ACE-2 receptors and use them to enter the cells.Įven given what we’ve learned over the past months about airborne transmission, this is a pretty arduous sequence for viral particles to execute properly. The particles have to land in your upper throat or respiratory tract - or on your hands, which you then use to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth - and they have to get past all the barriers to infection in the respiratory system, like nose hairs and mucus.
The virus inside the particles has to survive as sunlight, wind, and other forces work to decay and disperse them. The passerby has to spray out enough particles to be able to kick-start an infection. That’s because, as I’ve explained before, a perfect sequence of events has to happen for a virus to move from an infected passerby outdoors to you. For example, walking on the street with no f2f contact, or passing by a jogger, the risk is very low as the duration of interaction is brief. Therefore, outdoor risk is negligible unless it involves close interaction or you are in a crowded or semi-outdoor environment. Andrews in Scotland, told me there are “many things to worry about - outdoor brief contact is not one of them.” Muge Cevik, a virologist and physician at the University of St. “Based on the evidence, we still think risk of transmission outdoors is very substantially less than indoors, and there’s no reason to believe the new variants change that equation substantially.” “There seems to be a bit of a fuss about needing to be more wary of transmission outdoors, but I don’t know where that has come from,” Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist at University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, told Vox. Which has some people wondering: Should we be more careful outdoors, too? Do we now need to stay more than 6 feet away from our friends around that fire pit? What about those joggers who seem to be perpetually running toward us, unmasked?Įpidemiologists say they’ve been seeing these questions pop up a lot, and while it’s totally understandable to wonder about outdoor risks, it’s also somewhat misguided.
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Twice a week, we’ll send you a roundup of the best ideas and solutions for tackling the world’s biggest challenges - and how to get better at doing good. Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter To do that, public health officials are recommending that people make a greater effort to avoid indoor spaces like grocery stores and double-mask when going indoors in a public setting. That means we need to be more careful about protecting ourselves. Experts say the B.1.1.7 variant could be dominant in the US by March. Meanwhile,new research finds that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are not only effective at preventing illness, hospitalization, and death, but they’re probably quite effective at preventing transmission, too.īut the optimism is tempered somewhat by the spread of more contagious Covid-19 variants, like B.1.1.7 and 501Y.V2, initially discovered in the UK and South Africa, respectively.
There have been some bright spots recently in the fight against Covid-19: Infection rates are dropping in most states, more and more Americans are becoming eligible for vaccination, and the Food and Drug Administration now says the Johnson & Johnson vaccine meets the requirements for emergency use authorization.