Analyzing air samples in a hospital room, Lednicky's team found infectious virus can spread through the air — up to 16 feet away from an infected patient — through tiny droplets called aerosols.

"Oh, this is the smoking gun everyone has been asking for!" said Linsey Marr, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies how viruses travel through the air. .

"We're talking about a virus that is present in very small droplets, tiny ones that we call aerosols that can travel much farther through the air and remain in the air for minutes to hours at a time," Marr explained.