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While it took way way way too long for the scientific community to recognize airborne spread, it's hard to say that stuff like Diamond Princess could ONLY be ex

While it took way way way too long for the scientific community to recognize airborne spread, it's hard to say that stuff like Diamond Princess could ONLY be explained by airborne spread. It was early in the pandemic, the disease was poorly understood. It's hard to know if the quarantine was effective--passengers could have continued socializing, sick workers distributing food may have been spreading it, etc. It's a big leap from a single data point. The more damning issue is that the assumption that it wasn't airborne in the first place wasn't really well founded.

acdha 4y ago
> While it took way way way too long for the scientific community to recognize airborne spread I would make that more specifically as referring to the Western public health establishment, especially the CDC and WHO. Actual scientists were comfortable saying recognition was overdue fairly early on, reaching the point in July 2020 where a large group published an open letter: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/71/9/2311/5867798 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/71/9/2311/5867798 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7
graeme 4y ago
Ok, best explained. If you had no prior bias, airborne spread was most likely cause for Diamond Princess pattern. Western society and WHO had a 100 year prior bias against accepting that respiratory diseases spread via the air. It all comes back to the victory of germ theory over miasma theory. Germ theory is accurate but people got overzealous. Not all germs need be fomites.