4 ms·

I did not mean to say that you didn't provide examples, and I'm certainly not arguing for/against fomite transmission (way above my pay grade) but the question

I did not mean to say that you didn't provide examples, and I'm certainly not arguing for/against fomite transmission (way above my pay grade) but the question is where do you draw the line? > What I've never seen is a case such as "they were infected by picking up a package dropped off outside their door", or "they were infected by using the same playground equipment a few minutes later." All of the cases have some element of people sharing the same air. By the logic of "Yes, they say it's from the button, but it's logical to assume that it was actually the air", if there was a report of exactly one of the scenarios you described, would you say "Ok, it's definitely fomites", or would you automatically start thinking "They say they picked up the package after it was dropped off, but did they open the door just as the delivery person left and it was actually transmission by breathing the same air?"

cameldrv 6y ago
If there was a single report of exactly one of the scenarios I described, I would have more doubt about fomites not being an issue. Ideally there would be more than a single documented transmission event. If fomites were a thing, you should see contact tracing coming up with things like "the delivery driver dropped off 30 packages and 6 people got sick" or "the chef at a takeout restaurant packed up 30 orders and 5 people got sick." I've never seen anything like this though. At this point, a year and 100 million cases in, absence of evidence is evidence of absence.