Can COVID-19 Be Transmitted Through The Air?

The New England Journal Of Medicine Published An Article On This March 18, 2020

A study was performed and written up in the New England Journal of Medicine that compared the virus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic with SARS-CoV1.  This virus emerged in Wuhan, China and is now named SARS-CoV2.  They analyzed the aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV2 compared to that of SARS-CoV1.  

The five environmental conditions they tested were aerosols, plastic, copper, stainless steel, and cardboard.  They found that SARS-CoV2 did remain viable in aerosols for 3 hours.  Viable virus was detected on both stainless steel and plastic after 72 hours.  No viable virus was detected on copper or cardboard after 4 or 24 hours respectively.  

Since they found the half life was similar for SARS-CoV2 and SARS-CoV1, they suspect there were other factors driving SARS-CoV2, which causes COVID-19, to spread more quickly.  They mentioned this could be due to the high viral loads in the upper respiratory tract, and the possibility of people being infected, but asymptomatic and shedding the virus without knowing it.

They sum up their research with:

"Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, since the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours and on surfaces up to days (depending on the inoculum shed)."

Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973