Looking Back: What We Learned From the Pandemic
The worldwide viral challenges of the past few years have brought into sharp focus the importance of my research field: the study of bioaerosols, the microbiome, genomics and bioinformatics.
With the sudden global breakout of COVID-19 in early 2020, these academic disciplines were no longer theoretical, but had real-life consequences for the safety of people in workplaces, public spaces and at home. For the first time, the scientific specialties that I have studied and researched for many years gained greater visibility, and new appreciation.
My post-doctoral research into whole-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 was particularly relevant as the sudden appearance of COVID-19 led to searches for answers to some fundamental questions, including how the virus was transmitted, how long it could linger in the air, how wide its distribution pattern was, and what effective measures could be taken by individuals, institutions, businesses and governments to protect the population.
My work has examined whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of SARS-CoV-2 from patients' swabs and environmental samples, and the quantitative assessment of viral dispersion associated with respiratory support devices in a simulated critical care environment.
After several months of study, specialists in aerosol and atmospheric science concluded that this new virus could stay suspended in the air for hours, and that social distancing protocols were limited in their ability to prevent inhalation of these dispersed particles in indoor public settings.
Aerosol scientists have long known that many hazardous particles can linger for protracted periods in the air. This includes bacteria, viruses, fungi and man-made substances such as asbestos that may cause cancer. Despite this, in the early days of the pandemic the director general of the World Health Organization insisted that COVID-19 could not be spread via airborne transmission. That was in March of 2020. Within months, populations across the globe were masking up and paying close attention to their indoor environments.
It was not until July of that year that WHO public health officials began to concede that airborne transmission might be a possibility. By early 2021 key medical journals, including the Lancet and the Journal of the American Medical Association, began to publish articles describing and quantifying methods of airborne COVID transmission.
By April of 2022, WHO acknowledged what aerosol scientists had long known. A WHO spokesman told the media: “The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern with increased transmissibility and greater binding affinity to the host entry receptor, ACE2, highlights the need to reiterate the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, including airborne transmission at both short- and long-ranges, depending on the settings.”
The lessons of COVID underline the importance of not just applying the full body of scientific knowledge when analyzing the emergence of a deadly new pathogen, but also the necessity of understanding airborne threats in general, and the imperative of addressing them quickly and mitigating them effectively.