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icluding dup the Remember the advice early on to wash your hands a lot and to avoid touching your face? Or the way cashiers would clean a pen each time someone used it to sign a credit card receipt? Or how you'd feel safe if you stood far enough away from someone you were talking to? It is a good idea to wash your hands, clean pens, and keep your distance: They're generally good health practices, and they help keep other pathogens like the flu and the cold at bay. And it's clear that soap and disinfectants do break down the COVID virus, rendering it harmless. But after two years of COVID, scientists know a lot more than they did in early 2020 about how this particular virus spreads. One finding stands out: The virus can linger in the air longer and travel farther than most people thought in early 2020. You may have heard some of the anecdotal evidence. In Sydney, Australia, an eighteenyear-old man singing in a church loft passed the virus to twelve others who were sitting fifty feet away.20 At a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, a single person infected nine others, including some who were sitting at the same table but also some who were seated at tables several feet away.21 In Christchurch, New Zealand, someone staying in a quarantine hotel picked up the virus through an open door nearly one minute after an infected person had walked past.22 None of this is speculation. Researchers looking at these cases have rigorously ruled out all the other ways the infection could have spread. One group of scientists who studied the Guangzhou incident used video footage to count thousands of times that waiters and customers in the restaurant touched the same surfaces; the number wasn't nearly high enough to explain all the cases. The case in New Zealand is supported by genetic analysis: By studying the genomes of the virus in both infected people, scientists determined that the second patient could only have gotten it from the person who walked past their room.