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Heck, scientific consensus used to be that airborne diseases were transmitted by droplets. Whoops. The interesting thing about every single one of these exampl
by BryantD 5y ago
Heck, scientific consensus used to be that airborne diseases were transmitted by droplets. Whoops.
The interesting thing about every single one of these examples is that consensus was able to change without anyone having to advertise on Twitter.
- iamthemonster 5y agoGenuine question: are airborne diseases not spread by droplets? I always assumed that it was the water droplets that carried viruses and bacteria, rather than them just floating freely in dry air.
- BryantD 5y agoExcellent question! The distinction here is between droplets and aerosol transmission. As I understand it, droplets are relatively large chunks of water (or whatever), and aerosols are particles in suspension in a gas. At the beginning of the pandemic, most scientific professionals assumed that COVID-19 was transmitted by droplets; the 6 foot distancing advice comes from that assumption, since droplets don't have much range. (Which is not to say that increasing distance didn't help, but 6' wasn't a magic number.) This article goes into useful depth on our new understanding: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd9149?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd9149?url_ver=...