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I disagree. You need to treat the virus at the right level of concern otherwise you lose credibility. As we can all see, credibility from the experts needs to b

I disagree. You need to treat the virus at the right level of concern otherwise you lose credibility. As we can all see, credibility from the experts needs to be maintained, otherwise no one trusts them anyone. The whole fiasco with masks is because the experts told us things that were obviously wrong at the beginning (ie. masks don't work, masks won't help regular people, etc). If there is airborne droplet transmission, which I believe is the case otherwise we wouldn't get such infectious spread in bars, etc, then we need to implement better ventilation, social distancing and mask wearing and probably goggles too. If it was truly "airborne", which it isn't, then the measures would need to be much, much more draconian otherwise it would spread much quicker.

raziel2p 6y ago
> You need to treat the virus at the right level of concern otherwise you lose credibility. I agree with this but don't see how the use of the word "airborne" conveys concern. Maybe this is some american hollywood trope now that I remember reading the phrase "It's airborne!" in the original article? Wikipedia's article on airborne diseases certainly don't seem to imply that there's a strict definition of how long a pathogen has to survive in the air for it to be classified as airborne. > As we can all see, credibility from the experts needs to be maintained, otherwise no one trusts them anyone. While I agree with this, we're in an age of misinformation and macho power culture where saying "we're not sure yet so let's just be as careful as possible" apparently doesn't do much good in many places of the world. And I don't think a technically incorrect use of a word like airborne is NEARLY as significant as changing stances on masks and presidents endorsing quacks.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> If it was truly "airborne", which it isn't, then the measures would need to be much, much more draconian otherwise it would spread much quicker. You need to make up your mind here, are you talking to professionals, or lay people? To lay people the term airborne means it spreads by air... which is what it does. The fact that it doesn't linger in the air for 12 hours is secondary and would need to be addressed in whatever policy is put in place. Since we don't need lay-people to understand what the virus isn't, the term airborne is just fine.

raziel2p 6y ago

> You need to treat the virus at the right level of concern otherwise you lose credibility. I agree with this but don't see how the use of the word "airborne" conveys concern. Maybe this is some american hollywood trope now that I remember reading the phrase "It's airborne!" in the original article? Wikipedia's article on airborne diseases certainly don't seem to imply that there's a strict definition of how long a pathogen has to survive in the air for it to be classified as airborne. > As we can all see, credibility from the experts needs to be maintained, otherwise no one trusts them anyone. While I agree with this, we're in an age of misinformation and macho power culture where saying "we're not sure yet so let's just be as careful as possible" apparently doesn't do much good in many places of the world. And I don't think a technically incorrect use of a word like airborne is NEARLY as significant as changing stances on masks and presidents endorsing quacks.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> If it was truly "airborne", which it isn't, then the measures would need to be much, much more draconian otherwise it would spread much quicker. You need to make up your mind here, are you talking to professionals, or lay people? To lay people the term airborne means it spreads by air... which is what it does. The fact that it doesn't linger in the air for 12 hours is secondary and would need to be addressed in whatever policy is put in place. Since we don't need lay-people to understand what the virus isn't, the term airborne is just fine.