One of the key research points that has guided our pandemic response over the last 13 months has been understanding aerosols and how COVID-19 travels through the air.
Dr. Kim Prather, Director of the NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment and Professor at the University of California San Diego, has been a leading researcher in the state towards understanding the airborne spread of the virus.
She has done a variety of studies on the airborne transmission of the virus and what people can do to protect themselves against it.
"My role in this is trying to get out that this virus is airborne and the way that you get infected by it is by inhaling it." Dr. Prather told KCBS Radio’s "Ask an Expert" on Monday. "I’ve been saying 1,000 times at this point that we need to clean our air more than we clean our surfaces as much as we had been doing."
Much of the initial response to the virus centered on social distancing, which Dr. Prather said was misguided.
"I’ve been studying aerosols for 30 years and how they actually don’t fall to the ground which is what we were led to believe at the beginning that we would be safe if we were 6 feet away from people," she said. "They actually escape out of people that are simply speaking and float in a room."
"Six feet? I study aerosols that go thousands of miles," Dr. Prather added.
With California set to drop most mask restrictions in just over a week and vaccinations increasing by the day, does an aerosol expert like Dr. Prather plan on continuing to wear face coverings?
"Indoors, if it’s crowded, yes, I’m still being cautious," she said. "I don’t know how long I’m going to keep doing it. Outdoors, I’ve dropped the mask as long as I’m not around a bunch of people. That was a big step for me. I also wear it almost as a statement, just to not have that confusion. I just think people need that security for a while."
Click here to read about the air quality monitor mentioned by Dr. Prather.
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