CDC Updates Guidelines Again, Says COVID-19 Can Be Airborne

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its COVID-19 guidance page to include information about potential for airborne transmission. In a statement on Monday, the CDC said people are more likely to become infected "the longer and closer they are to a person with COVID-19." The newest updates come after the CDC first updated, then reversed a similar statement about airborne transmission on its guidance page last month. In addition to transmission through small droplets that shoot through the air and fall to the ground, the CDC now warns of much smaller aerosol droplets that can remain suspended in the air. The changes to the guidelines in September suggested that the tiny aerosol particles may be the primary way the virus is spread; the agency removed the changes days later. Monday's latest revision acknowledges a role for airborne particles, but says it isn't the main way the virus spreads. Coverage from center- and left-rated outlets tended to focus on ways that the virus spreads, and analyzed the rest of the CDC's guidelines. Some right-rated outlets highlighted critics' fear that the information was being suppressed for political reasons by the Trump administration when the updates were reversed.