Virus can stay active in the air for more than an hour, warns expert

CORONAVIRUS can survive in the air for more than an hour, a senior Government scientific adviser has warned, potentially undermining ministers’ “back to work” push.

Prof Wendy Barclay, a virologist on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the virus could remain viable even in tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere.

Her comments follow a change of position by the World Health Organisation last week, which acknowledged that so-called “aerosol” particles could be a route of transmission.

It threatens to hamper Boris Johnson’s drive to revive the economy by encouraging people to return to their places of work and the high street. For months the Government has asked workers to operate from home but on Friday he said: “It’s very important that people should be going back to work if they can now. I want to see more people feeling confident to use the shops.”

The two-metre rule is based on an understanding that the virus travels through the air on droplets. Because droplets are heavy, they fall to the surface within a relatively short distance.

Prof Barclay told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show yesterday: “What we know is that viruses can be expelled into the air from infected people in very small droplets and sometimes even in droplets that are so small we call them aerosols and these aerosols can remain suspended in the air and can travel some distance away from the person who’s breathed them out.

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Growing evidence on potential airborne transmission of the virus adds to the case for face coverings.”