As three families lunched at neighboring tables in a stuffy restaurant in southern China in January, they partook of more than a New Year’s meal. They shared an invisible pathogen apparently carried aloft in an air conditioner’s breeze.
Ten diners later came down with Covid-19, but none of the waiters or other 73 patrons in the room contracted the disease. A video recording and a simulation of airflow dynamics support what scientists had feared, namely that the virus could linger in turbulent air long enough to cause multiple infections.
