3 ms·

I think you should not make such a statement without a citation. With a quick search I could not find any research that supports that claim and the CDC is stil

I think you should not make such a statement without a citation. With a quick search I could not find any research that supports that claim and the CDC is still recommending surface transmission prevention measures (at the top of the list even). I suspect you are confusing surface transmission potentially being the cause of a relatively small number of infections with it not being a significant risk.

jrochkind1 6y ago
How could it be a significant risk if it is the cause of very very few infections? I don't understand what you mean by this. > In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines to clarify that while COVID-19 spreads easily among speakers and sneezers in close encounters, touching a surface “isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads.” Other scientists have reached a more forceful conclusion. “Surface transmission of COVID-19 is not justified at all by the science,” Emanuel Goldman, a microbiology professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told me. He also emphasized the primacy of airborne person-to-person transmission. (july 27) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hy... "Hygiene theater", like "security theater", is focused on appearances rather than actual calculated risk.
- joveian 6y ago
  The question is how few cases. I would agree at some point extremely few cases would mean not a significant risk, but because single cases can potentially case the virus to be spread widely before they are noticed even fairly small numbers of cases could have a significant impact. Many potential surface exposures would overlap with potential airborne exposure and most places with many cases don't have sufficient contact tracing to really have any idea how a large portion of the cases are occuring. I don't even disagree that much with you, Goldman, or the Atlantic article. Surface disinfection giving a false sense of security does seem like a major issue to me (and surface coatings and a number of other more extreme measures seem like a bad idea to me). However, I think you, the Atlantic author, and Goldman (unless misquoted, it seems he makes a different argument here than his Lancet article) are being unreasonably certain about it not mattering at all. It seems like the author could only find two people, both from Rutgers, willing to publicly support that argument. It seems like a pure ego thing to be so certain based on so little evidence and potentially quite harmful if not correct.

jrochkind1 6y ago

How could it be a significant risk if it is the cause of very very few infections? I don't understand what you mean by this. > In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines to clarify that while COVID-19 spreads easily among speakers and sneezers in close encounters, touching a surface “isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads.” Other scientists have reached a more forceful conclusion. “Surface transmission of COVID-19 is not justified at all by the science,” Emanuel Goldman, a microbiology professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told me. He also emphasized the primacy of airborne person-to-person transmission. (july 27) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hy... "Hygiene theater", like "security theater", is focused on appearances rather than actual calculated risk.

joveian 6y ago
The question is how few cases. I would agree at some point extremely few cases would mean not a significant risk, but because single cases can potentially case the virus to be spread widely before they are noticed even fairly small numbers of cases could have a significant impact. Many potential surface exposures would overlap with potential airborne exposure and most places with many cases don't have sufficient contact tracing to really have any idea how a large portion of the cases are occuring. I don't even disagree that much with you, Goldman, or the Atlantic article. Surface disinfection giving a false sense of security does seem like a major issue to me (and surface coatings and a number of other more extreme measures seem like a bad idea to me). However, I think you, the Atlantic author, and Goldman (unless misquoted, it seems he makes a different argument here than his Lancet article) are being unreasonably certain about it not mattering at all. It seems like the author could only find two people, both from Rutgers, willing to publicly support that argument. It seems like a pure ego thing to be so certain based on so little evidence and potentially quite harmful if not correct.