washington a person on a poorly ventilated chinese bus infected nearly two dozen other passengers with coronavirus even though many werent sitting close by according to research published on tuesday that offers fresh evidence the disease can spread in the airhealth authorities had initially discounted the possibility that simply breathing could send infectious microdroplets into the air but did a uturn as experts piled on pressure and evidence mountedthe article published tuesday in jama internal medicine probes the threat of airborne infection by taking a close look at passengers who made a 50minute trip to a buddhist event in the eastern chinese city of ningbo aboard two buses in january before face masks became routine against the virusresearchers believe a passenger whose gender was not identified was likely patient zero because the person had been in contact with people from wuhan the city where the contagion emerged late last yearthe scientists managed to map out where the other passengers sat and also test them for the virus with 23 of 68 passengers subsequently confirmed as infected on the same buswhat is notable is that the sickness infected people in the front and back of the bus outside the perimeter of 12 meters threesix feet that authorities and experts say infectious droplets can travelon top of that the sick passenger was not yet showing symptoms of the disease such as a cough when the group made their trip to a religious eventresearchers also noted the air conditioning simply recirculated the air inside the bus which likely contributed to spreading of the virusthe investigations suggest that in closed environments with air recirculation sarscov2 is a highly transmissible pathogen they wrote referring to the name of the virusour finding of potential airborne transmission has important public health significancetheir study which includes a diagram showing where each infected passenger sat adds to the evidence of airborne transmission including research into how the virus spread between diners tables at a restaurant in the southern chinese city of guangzhou