3 ms·

We know no such thing. There was a recent letter to the editor that claimed that the virion concentrations used in the surface contamination studies were orders

We know no such thing. There was a recent letter to the editor that claimed that the virion concentrations used in the surface contamination studies were orders of magnitude too high - but itself could not cite any study offering strong evidence of the correct concentration of virions per droplet. It’s on the basis of this letter that a recent Atlantic article was written, and the meme was born that we’ve been far too cautious about surface contamination. This remains a known unknown, and asserting a conclusion in either direction at this time is a victory of emotion over knowledge.

Camillo 6y ago
Informed people have been downgrading the importance of surface transmission for weeks, if not months. It didn't start with that letter or with that article.
- wittyreference 6y ago
  You mean like the CDC publishing a statement that they are considering the likelihood of surface transmission 'low', in the same time that there were no new studies to support a change, they cited no research or reasoning, but we had multiple independent government sources contemporaneously complain that their monitoring efforts were being interfered with to downplay the seriousness of the outbreak? I somehow failed to take that statement to heart. There have been repeated claims that we haven't detected surface transmission - but ruling out fomite transmission in a droplet-transmitted disease such as this is a joke. The best you can do is rule out fomite transmission after long periods of time. Which is fine for something like "do I have to worry about my amazon package's contents, which hasn't been touched by human hands in at least 24 hours?" but not in a scenario like the OP's, where a high traffic area like a store means you can have surface contact within minutes of contamination. The most conservative papers I've seen regarding surface transmission consider the safe period 'after a couple of hours', which is not the threat model of OP's post.

Camillo 6y ago

Informed people have been downgrading the importance of surface transmission for weeks, if not months. It didn't start with that letter or with that article.

wittyreference 6y ago
You mean like the CDC publishing a statement that they are considering the likelihood of surface transmission 'low', in the same time that there were no new studies to support a change, they cited no research or reasoning, but we had multiple independent government sources contemporaneously complain that their monitoring efforts were being interfered with to downplay the seriousness of the outbreak? I somehow failed to take that statement to heart. There have been repeated claims that we haven't detected surface transmission - but ruling out fomite transmission in a droplet-transmitted disease such as this is a joke. The best you can do is rule out fomite transmission after long periods of time. Which is fine for something like "do I have to worry about my amazon package's contents, which hasn't been touched by human hands in at least 24 hours?" but not in a scenario like the OP's, where a high traffic area like a store means you can have surface contact within minutes of contamination. The most conservative papers I've seen regarding surface transmission consider the safe period 'after a couple of hours', which is not the threat model of OP's post.