Gathering

A sporting event is an ideal environment for a respiratory virus to spread. People are squished together. They may be indoors. They’re shouting. They’re chanting. Expelled in the process of those shouts and chants are droplets from an infected person’s nose and throat. These microscopic globules of saliva and mucus serve as gooey packaging for viral particles, which, in the case of measles, can remain afloat in the air for hours. Within a vulnerable person’s respiratory tract, the virus works its way to the cells lining their airways and multiplies.

Read more at The Boston Globe