As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread worldwide, more than 26 million people have got infected. Now, a study by the JAMA Network suggested how airborne transmission took place inside a bus in China that led to one infected person spreading the disease to 23 fellow travelers.
The study while analyzing community transmission in the Zheijiang province of China reported that 128 individuals took two different buses on January 19, 2020, 60 were in bus 1 and 68 in bus 2 during a 100 minute round trip for attending a 150-minute worship event.
The infected person was a passenger on bus 2 and both the buses had central air conditioners. Among the 128 people, 15 were men and 113 were women with a mean age of 58.6 years. On bus number 2, 24 people turned out to be infected whereas no one on bus 1 tested positive.
COVID-19 Spread in a Bus
The authors of the study stated that the people in bus number 2 had a 34.3 percent higher risk of getting coronavirus while compared to those on bus 1 and were 11.4 times more likely to have the virus in comparison with all the others who attended the event.
The primary patient was sitting in the middle seat inside the bus on the three-seat side of row eight. The people who sat close to the patient tested positive with the virus while other cases were spread across the bus. Leaving the person sitting beside the primary patient no other person sitting beside a bus window developed the infection. Two of the people who tested positive were asymptomatic while three had mild symptoms and the rest 17 had moderate symptoms.
Moreover, none of the passengers were wearing masks during the ride or at the event. The authors concluded that the passengers in bus 2 were at higher risk of contracting the virus and airborne spread likely contributed to the higher rate of attack on the exposed bus.
The deadly virus outbreak has created a major stir around the world as the methods of the transmission of the virus has been discussed for a long time. More than 875,000 people have lost their lives due to the virus and the numbers are increasing day by day. An effective vaccine to fight against the deadly disease is expected by the first quarter of 2021.
