Lincoln, July 23 (RHC)-- A new study by the University of Nebraska suggests that COVID-19 can spread through normal speaking and breathing, and travel further than two metres, according to a report by AFP.  The findings have not yet been peer reviewed.

The Nebraska scientists collected air samples from the rooms of five patients bed-ridden with COVID-19 from about 30 centimetres above the foot of their beds. The patients were talking -- producing microdroplets or aerosols that can remain in the air for a number of hours -- and some were coughing. 

The team collected microdroplets as small as one micron in diameter, and three of the 18 samples were able to replicate in the lab.

Joshua Santarpia, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said the findings supported the idea that people can get COVID-19 through microdroplets.  "It is replicated in cell culture and therefore infectious," he told the news agency.