Coronavirus can travel up to 13 feet, droplets can remain airborne for hours: Study

High levels of virus were also found on frequently touched surfaces like computer mouse, trashcans, bed rails and door knobs. ‘Furthermore, half of the samples from the soles of the ICU medical staff shoes tested positive,’ the team wrote.

As almost the whole world is under lockdown so that the spread of the Coronavirus could be stopped from spreading, a new study examining air samples from hospital wards with COVID-19 patients has found the virus can travel up to 13 feet (four meters), twice the distance current guidelines say people should leave between themselves in public while implementing social distancing.

An investigation by Chinese researchers, the preliminary results of which were published on Friday, in ‘Emerging Infectious Diseases’, a journal of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) add to a growing debate on how the disease is transmitted, with the scientists themselves cautioning that the small quantities of virus they found at this distance are not necessarily infectious.

While, testing surface and air samples from an intensive care unit and a general COVID-19 ward at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the researchers, led by a team at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing, tested surface and air samples from an intensive care unit and a general COVID-19 ward housing a  total of 24 patients between February 19 and March 2.