Chinese Study Shows That Air-conditioning May Have Spread Coronavirus

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In the city of Guangzhou, China, a study shows that an air-conditioner may have been behind the spread of coronavirus to a number of individuals who dined at a local restaurant.

The study, conducted by researchers in China, shows that nine people who were in the windowless restaurant were diagnosed with Covid-19 on the same day, four of them from the same family.

The individuals were contaminated on January 24th and, after showing some symptoms, visited the hospital. The positive diagnosis came on February 5th, and the researchers believe that the isolated outbreak is linked to the restaurant’s airflow, which spread respiratory droplets throughout the unventilated restaurant.

Carried out by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Guangzhou, the research will be officially published in July and still needs to be reviewed by scientific community experts. However, the research was released in advance due to its informational nature in the context of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The study features a layout that traces the virus’ potential path, with the tables of contaminated individuals identified by the letters A, B, and C. Below is the floor plan of the room with references:

As represented above, one can see that the infected individuals were on the airflow path. The patient designated by A1 had already shown symptoms, which may have intensified the rate of contamination. In a note, the researchers stated that the direction of the air was the key factor: “We concluded that, in this outbreak, the droplets spread by the air-conditioning ventilation. The key factor for the infection was the direction of airflow,” write the researchers.

The research itself recognizes its limitations and reports that the spread of the virus through air-conditioning is only one of the possibilities. Further scientific evidence needs to be collected and other scenarios taken into account, such as the potential for infection to have been gradual, infecting one member of each family at a time, considering that the patients were sitting at neighboring tables.

However, experts already know that indoor air circulation spreads pathogens in the air, which may have been an aggravating factor for virus transmission. In a future stage, the conclusion of the research, scheduled to be released in July, should point out which of the scenarios was the most widely accepted by the scientific community.

Source: Exame