More than 100 coronavirus infections in South Korea have been linked to a fitness instructor workshop as of mid-February, researchers found.
The infections are not new - they were all identified on March 9 - but the new research provides insight into how quickly the coronavirus can spread in confined spaces.
What happened: Nearly 30 instructors participated in the original workshop, which was held in Cheonan, South Korea. They trained intensively for four hours, and while none showed symptoms at the time, eight instructors were eventually tested positive for the virus.
More cases discovered: Less than a month later, researchers had identified 112 cases of coronavirus linked to dance lessons in a dozen different establishments. Half of the cases were the result of direct transmission from instructors to students, and some people continued to infect others outside of class.
Why did the virus spread this way? Several factors may have facilitated the spread of the virus, according to Sukbin Jang and colleagues at the Dankook University College of Medicine in Cheonan. They published their results in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The humid and warm atmosphere in a sports facility coupled with a turbulent air flow generated by intense physical exercise can cause a denser transmission of the isolated droplets," they wrote.
Transmission-related courses had five to 22 students and took place in small spaces for almost an hour. Out of 217 students exposed to infected instructors, 57 - about one in four - tested positive.
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