I suggest, without intending to be dismissive, punching "covid aerosols primary" or the like into your search engine of choice and going to town. It's been a long debate, and by late last year every prestigious organization except CDC and WHO were in the aerosols camp. Even they have kind of low-key admitted it, while insisting that the measures to control it they promoted on an erroneous theory are still the correct ones. Which is, of course, nonsense.
A droplet is just a large blob of the same saliva that makes up the aerosols. If it gets in your lungs, it will make you sick. This is pretty easy to avoid behaviorally, and with face shields for workers who have to have contact with the public. Wearing a mask will also mitigate this, but it isn't necessary (just don't point your face at other people) and it isn't sufficient, because of aerosols, which are therefore the primary source of transmission.
When a droplet lands on a surface, it becomes a fomite. Picking these up with ones hands, and transmitting them to eyes, nose, and lips, is a major route of infection for influenza. It does not appear to be a significant route of infection for COVID.
Diseases which spread primarily through droplets do so by forming fomites. Unlike someone spitting on your face, it's very easy to touch a surface someone else spit upon, and people touch their faces a lot.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/protecting-agains...
I suggest, without intending to be dismissive, punching "covid aerosols primary" or the like into your search engine of choice and going to town. It's been a long debate, and by late last year every prestigious organization except CDC and WHO were in the aerosols camp. Even they have kind of low-key admitted it, while insisting that the measures to control it they promoted on an erroneous theory are still the correct ones. Which is, of course, nonsense.
A droplet is just a large blob of the same saliva that makes up the aerosols. If it gets in your lungs, it will make you sick. This is pretty easy to avoid behaviorally, and with face shields for workers who have to have contact with the public. Wearing a mask will also mitigate this, but it isn't necessary (just don't point your face at other people) and it isn't sufficient, because of aerosols, which are therefore the primary source of transmission.
When a droplet lands on a surface, it becomes a fomite. Picking these up with ones hands, and transmitting them to eyes, nose, and lips, is a major route of infection for influenza. It does not appear to be a significant route of infection for COVID.
Diseases which spread primarily through droplets do so by forming fomites. Unlike someone spitting on your face, it's very easy to touch a surface someone else spit upon, and people touch their faces a lot.