The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spontaneously reverted to its previous guidance regarding how coronavirus is transmitted on Monday.
Reason For The Choice
Jason McDonald, a CDC spokesman, stated in an email to CNN:
“A draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website. CDC is currently updating its recommendations regarding the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Once this process has been completed, the update language will be posted.”
The guidance was posted on the subject of the way the coronavirus can spread.
Though we already knew that it could spread via droplets among people standing closer than six feet to each other, research kept analyzing how it applies in aerosolized particles in the air, transmitted by people over six feet away.
The CDC guidance regarding airborne transmission was published silently on Friday, according to the CDC’s website.
A federal official claimed that no political pressure was involved in the change.
“Somebody hit the button and shouldn’t have.”
The official said that the agency tried to explain what aerosol transmission means:
“It can occur, but it’s not the way the virus is primarily being transmitted,” the official said. But in the effort to say that, it was written in such a way “that it’s being understood to mean it’s more transmissible than we thought, which is not the case.”
Possible Comeback
The official also claimed that the guidance is “getting revised,” but did not mention when it would be posted on the agency’s website again.
Stay tuned to learn more about the situation as soon as other modifications appear on the CDC website.
