[Perspectives] The troubled birth of aerobiology

“FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne”, declared a tweet from WHO in March, 2020. WHO did not officially accept until almost 2 years later that infection by SARS-CoV-2 could after all be caused by long-range airborne transmission. Throughout the worst ravages of the disease, WHO continued to insist that viral transmission happened either by fomites or by relatively large droplets emitted by people coughing and sneezing. Instead of focusing on ventilation, we (some of us) solicitously observed the 2 m distancing rule and, at least in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, assiduously washed the mail and groceries delivered at our door.