Unfortunately I never saw the papers on this and I'm looking for them now, so take this bullet with a grain of salt. Two lines of research were relayed to me verbally.

1. In one experiment in a hospital room detected virus on surfaces but not in the air, but it did so many (I vaguely recall it was 4) hours after the patient was in the room. I think I heard this in answer to a press question during a New Zealand official 1pm broadcast on COVID-19. They didn't categorically claim it can't be atomized, but suggested strongly that this wasn't expected to be a significant vector for transmission.

2. The other source was a paper someone linked to on Twitter. And I neglected to download it. But someone physically atomized material with the virus and then after some time period was able to detect the virus still atomized in the air. This proved it was possible to remain atomized, but not that sick people actually atomize the virus well. Again, perhaps not a significant mode of transmission.

I'll keep looking. I'll temporarily retract that bullet point.

I believe the incident you're referring to was actually an apartment building outbreak, not a study. As an event it seemed to confirm the airborne/atomized/fecal-oral spread early on. Somebody got someone in another part of their building sick.

Cheers, yeah my reading on it tended to the conclusion that it could aerosolise, but that was a limited vector compared to droplets (but limited doesn't mean none).

It was only mid March when the WHO finally admitted that SARS-CoV-2 could potentially remain airborne for an extended period of time. They still go out of their way to deny that it's common for it to spread in the air, they're clearly skeptics (when it's the only great explanation for how it spreads so rapidly and effectively among large crowds of people).

The WHO has been an epic disaster this entire time, wrong several critical times and behind on everything. They should not be regarded as to have much credibility after their failures on this pandemic.

This tweet by the WHO on Jan 14 will go down in history for the 21st century as one of the dumbest things said by anyone prominent in the medical sphere (it's astounding they left it up):

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

Here's a recent article on the topic

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/28/823292062/who-reviews-availab...

Here's a Reuters article about the experiment in question: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-study-...