Abstract
COVID-19 was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China; however, it took international health experts another six months to establish the airborne nature of transmission of the disease. The transmission of the infection through aerosolized virus particles opens a new frontier in global pandemic control initiatives. It necessitates the need for appropriate economic policies to end the COVID-19 recession in most parts of the world. Mass vaccination and herd immunity are potent tools in combatting the challenge of COVID-19. Global vaccination against the disease is also gaining momentum. However, new variants and infection surges threaten to undermine critical gains. Furthermore, complete vaccination of the world population may be many years away. Therefore, it is essential to design public policies and business strategies in a world of great uncertainty. Understanding the airborne transmission of coronavirus will help business leaders craft meaningful operational procedures to protect their stakeholders and minimize costly business disruptions. It will also help the policymakers to avoid economically costly lockdowns. International success in indoor air purification, outdoor air pollution mitigation, widespread adoption of hand hygiene, and universal mask usage can significantly help pandemic control and increase the efficacy of various pandemic control measures. Controlling the pandemic may help countries in opening their economies and kickstarting global travel in the post-COVID-19 world. Such actions may also help in lessening the global burden of many other respiratory diseases. They may, in turn, save countless lives while dramatically reducing premature deaths. Such health gains may be conducive towards boosting GDP, decreasing healthcare costs, increasing productivity, and improving health equities. Controlling the COVID-19 pandemic remains the prime directive of all global public policy measures. Investments in aerosolized virus particle transmission mitigation offer a unique opportunity to achieve health improvement goals whose positive impacts may remain potent for generations to come.
Highlights
The 2019 Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has reached over 200 countries, infecting over 119 million people, and taking the lives of over 2.7 million individuals worldwide
Various kinds of masks have been found to be effective against airborne pathogen transmission, the efficiency of those masks can vary widely (Lai et al, 2012)
Requiring or strongly encouraging universal mask usage can considerably reduce the transmission of SARSCoV-2 even when the virus particles are aerosolized
Summary
The 2019 Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has reached over 200 countries, infecting over 119 million people, and taking the lives of over 2.7 million individuals worldwide. It is one of the most worrisome global pandemics in recent history and certainly the most severe since the 1918-20 influenza pandemic that killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide. The increasing availability of safe and highly effective vaccines will help us reduce the pandemic’s impact further. This is the third global spread of coronavirus in the 21st century. The two earlier iterations SARS-CoV of 2002 and MERS-CoV of 2012, caused severe respiratory problems among the affected, justifying their nomenclature (SARS: Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome and MERS: Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome)
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