4 ms·

Agreed. But perhaps it's not too much to ask that 1) Infectious disease experts should have known this extremely basic fact. We know all sorts of weird details

Agreed. But perhaps it's not too much to ask that 1) Infectious disease experts should have known this extremely basic fact. We know all sorts of weird details about the molecular biology of viruses (which we have used to great effect), but apparently we were still stuck in the 1800's when it came to the main route of infection, and 2) the establishment should be vocal about our mistake, take it very seriously, and perhaps reflect on whether we have spent our funding in the best possible way. Perhaps some of the billion of dollars we spend on tests and cures could be directed towards a better understanding of the true basics - how infections spread in the first place. I myself work at the national influenza laboratory, and I find it nothing less than embarrassing that our field dropped the ball this hard when it really mattered, and infuriating that we are this slow to acknowledge that we messed up that we need god damn journalists to correct us on the basic science.

sumanthvepa 5y ago
I wouldn't blame infectious disease experts too much. This is essentially multi-disciplinary research. You need to be BOTH a physics expert in fluid dynamics and a virologist with a deep understanding of how virus infect the respiratory tract to crack this. Not surprised it took a pandemic to correct the error. The combination of skills would not have been put together in other circumstances.
- dTal 5y ago
  I don't really agree. All it takes is an unwillingness to simply repeat unsourced dogma as fact, and actually ask some blindingly obvious questions. The root cause of the "mistake" wasn't a lack of fluid dynamics expertise - it was motivated reasoning, which was also terribly in evidence during the pandemic: it can't be aerosol, because that would be terribly inconvenient. Medicine strikes me as a branch of science unusually prone to dogma. I wonder if that's at all related to the punishing hazing ritual of med school, where one is required to do nothing but regurgitate dogma for many years on very little sleep - no creativity or asking questions allowed.

sumanthvepa 5y ago

I wouldn't blame infectious disease experts too much. This is essentially multi-disciplinary research. You need to be BOTH a physics expert in fluid dynamics and a virologist with a deep understanding of how virus infect the respiratory tract to crack this. Not surprised it took a pandemic to correct the error. The combination of skills would not have been put together in other circumstances.

dTal 5y ago
I don't really agree. All it takes is an unwillingness to simply repeat unsourced dogma as fact, and actually ask some blindingly obvious questions. The root cause of the "mistake" wasn't a lack of fluid dynamics expertise - it was motivated reasoning, which was also terribly in evidence during the pandemic: it can't be aerosol, because that would be terribly inconvenient. Medicine strikes me as a branch of science unusually prone to dogma. I wonder if that's at all related to the punishing hazing ritual of med school, where one is required to do nothing but regurgitate dogma for many years on very little sleep - no creativity or asking questions allowed.