F.D. Flam, Columnist

What Scientists Know (So Far) About How Covid-19 Spreads

We must offer smarter shelter-in-place guidance.

A socially distant runner.

Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images
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There is not yet an ironclad scientific consensus on exactly how the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 is spreading, but experts are getting a pretty good sense of it. That understanding needs to be central to our strategy of combatting the virus with minimal collateral damage.

This isn’t about over-reaction or under-reaction, but mis-reaction. For example, sending janitors rushing into closed schools and other buildings to sanitize them poses much more risk to those janitors — and anyone they later come in contact with — than leaving the buildings empty.