{"id":9691,"date":"2026-02-17T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/?p=9691"},"modified":"2026-02-20T19:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:24:23","slug":"study-sars-cov-2-rna-found-in-39-of-hospital-air-samples-during-outbreaks-despite-good-ventilation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/study-sars-cov-2-rna-found-in-39-of-hospital-air-samples-during-outbreaks-despite-good-ventilation\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: SARS-CoV-2 RNA found in 39% of hospital air samples during outbreaks, despite good ventilation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>COVID-19 genetic material was frequently detected in hospital air during community outbreaks, even in well-ventilated settings, according to a new <a target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.resmedjournal.com\/article\/S0954-6111(26)00080-6\/fulltext\">study<\/a> published in <i>Respiratory Medicine<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>A team led by Kirby Institute researchers conducted air and surface sampling in the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU) of a large metropolitan hospital in Sydney, Australia, during two COVID-19 waves between November 2023 and July 2024. Their testing found that 39% (20 of 51) of aerosol samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.<\/p>\n<p>Detection was significantly more common in the ED than in the ICU. Of the positive samples, 80% were collected in the ED and 20% in the ICU. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COVID-19 genetic material was frequently detected in hospital air during community outbreaks, even in well-ventilated settings, according to a new <a target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.resmedjournal.com\/article\/S0954-6111(26)00080-6\/fulltext\">study<\/a> published in <i>Respiratory Medicine<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>A team led by Kirby Institute researchers conducted air and surface sampling in the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU) of a large metropolitan hospital in Sydney, Australia, during two COVID-19 waves between November 2023 and July 2024. Their testing found that 39% (20 of 51) of aerosol samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.<\/p>\n<p>Detection was significantly more common in the ED than in the ICU. Of the positive samples, 80% were collected in the ED and 20% in the ICU. <\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/study-sars-cov-2-rna-found-in-39-of-hospital-air-samples-during-outbreaks-despite-good-ventilation\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Study: SARS-CoV-2 RNA found in 39% of hospital air samples during outbreaks, despite good ventilation<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[416,407,18,25,23,1414,24,8,14,818],"class_list":["post-9691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-airborne-transmission","tag-australia","tag-covid-19","tag-hospital-acquired-infections","tag-hospitals","tag-kirby-institute","tag-nosocomial-infections","tag-research","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-sydney","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9694,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions\/9694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}