Is coronavirus airborne? Does the stay-at-home order affect landscaping? And answers to your other COVID-19 questions
You've been asking a lot of questions about the novel coronavirus and, most recently, the stay-at-home order from Gov. Roy Cooper.
We looked into your questions and found some answers for you.
Is coronavirus airborne?
The virus that causes COVID-19 is not "airborne", however, the virus seems to be able to stay alive in aerosolized form in limited scenarios. According to current evidence, COVID-19 virus is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and contact routes. In an analysis of 75,465 COVID-19 cases in China, airborne transmission was not reported.
I share custody of my children. Can I drop them off at their other parent's house?
Yes, the stay-at-home order allows travel "to take care of others" and "to transport family members." State officials say travel to and from home for child custody and visitation arrangements is ok.
What about cleaning and repair services and landscaping?
Business activities not specifically listed as essential activities can still be done as long as social distance is maintained.
RELATED:
What is an 'essential activity' under Gov. Cooper's Stay-at-Home order?
What counts as 'essential business' in North Carolina amid COVID-19 stay-at-home order
What about in-home nannies?
Yes, you're essential if you're in a "home-based setting to provide services to certain people...including children."
Furniture stores?
Under the order, businesses that sell, make or supply office supply products or other items you need to work from home are allowed to stay open.
For essential business workers, do you need documentation to drive to work?
According to the governor's website, businesses and non-profits deemed essential don't need any documentation from the state to keep operating and their employees are not required to have specific documentation to get to and from work.
Will the pneumonia vaccine help protect me?
Whether or not it will protect you from this is hard to know. The pneumonia vaccine is protecting you from a bacterial infection. This is a virus so maybe it will help you but it's hard to know.
There's a family of viruses called coronavirus. So this is one of a family of viruses. There are 7 that can affect humans. Four of them circulate all the time. We see them year after year. Three are what we call novel or new and spread more quickly and cause more severe disease -- like SARS and MERS. Those three, what officials think happened, is that they were in animals and then they had enough of a mutation that they were able to jump from infecting animals to being able to infect humans. So at that live animal market in Wuhan, officials think there was enough animals and enough of a shift that the virus was able to move from animals to humans. And then able to spread human to human.
Does Ibuprofen worsen the virus?
Per Dr. Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson, the State Health Director and the Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, there was a report or a statement that came out of France that suggested that Ibuprofen might worsen your symptoms if you had an infection with COVID-19. Since then there hasn't really been any other scientific studies to back that up . Right now the data is inconclusive.
