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> the medical establishment's position that airborne transmission couldn't be real I remember droplets being the leading theory but do not remember a time when

by loeg 3y ago

> the medical establishment's position that airborne transmission couldn't be real I remember droplets being the leading theory but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real.

revelio 3y ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 "Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. That mistake and the prolonged process of correcting it sowed confusion and raises questions about what will happen in the next pandemic."
- loeg 3y ago
  > the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. I mean, I don't believe the WHO actually stated that in those terms. This is probably a paraphrase of a more nuanced statement that erases the nuance.
  - gowld 3y ago
    Unfortunately, you are incorrect, as a half-dozen comments in this thread have shared.
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    >In March, W.H.O. denied outright that Covid-19 was airborne, posting on social media, “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” and calling it “misinformation.” We and our colleagues, scientists and engineers who have studied airborne particles for our entire careers, met with W.H.O. in April 2020 to express our concern that airborne transmission was important in the spread of COVID-19. W.H.O. vehemently rejected our suggestion and painted us as trespassers who did not understand what was happening in hospitals. https://time.com/6162065/covid-19-airborne-transmission-confusion/ https://time.com/6162065/covid-19-airborne-transmission-conf...
    - loeg 3y ago
      I think you and others in this thread are reading that tweet significantly out of context.
      - vxNsr 3y ago
        You don’t need to think too much, just go read the tweet. It’s pretty unequivocal. At that point the WHO was very adamantly against the idea that Covid could be airborne. That tweet thread is very strongly worded to emphasize that point.
      - pessimizer 3y ago
        I think you should make that case, rather than implying that a case could be made.
      - actuallyalys 3y ago
        Here's a fuller quotation of the WHO tweet: >FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne. >The #coronavirus is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. The WHO was unequivocally stating that Covid was not airborne, apparently meaning that they (wrongly) thought it was not spread through aerosols. Instead, they were saying it was spread through droplets. So they were wrong about how it spreads, but did not go as far as saying it wasn't spread through respiratory routes/air at all, which I think might be some people's interpretation of "The WHO said it was not airborne."
GeekyBear 3y ago
> but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data. For instance, at the beginning of the pandemic, passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess continued to spread Covid from cabin to cabin while locked down. There was also the case of a church choir practice where over 50 people caught Covid. >If COVID-19 could spread so thoroughly and quickly through a choir, did that mean the coronavirus was airborne? And if the primary route for the disease’s spread was through the air, had our initial response been woefully misguided? For researchers like Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, the answer was clear: The coronavirus is airborne, and the superspreader choir proved it. Once agencies like the WHO established the position that COVID-19 was spread primarily through heavy droplets, it was a tall order to change it. “They’ll die defending their view,” one anonymous WHO consultant told the New York Times in July. Even now, “the burden of proof is much higher for aerosols than for any other route, and yet we have more evidence for aerosols in this case than for any other route,” Marr told me. https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/coronavirus-airborne-debate-choir-practice.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/coronavirus-airborne-de...
- loeg 3y ago
  > I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data. This is a much lower bar. You can always find a crank on twitter accusing something of being misinformation. The original claim I responded to was that the medical establishment claimed airborne transmission was impossible. However, the actual take from the medical establishment was significantly less confident of that claim (emphasis added): > Airborne spread was “not believed to be a major driver of transmission based on available evidence,” the report [from May 2020] stated.
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    > The original claim I responded to was that the medical establishment claimed airborne transmission was impossible. The WHO literally made a blanket statement that Covid was NOT airborne. > FACT: COVID-19 is NOT airborne. The CDC also denied airborne spread for quite some time. >As the pandemic unfolded last year, infectious disease experts warned for months that both the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization were overlooking research that strongly suggested the coronavirus traveled aloft in small, airborne particles. Several scientists on Friday welcomed the agency’s scrapping of the term “close contact,” which they criticized as vague and said did not necessarily capture the nuances of aerosol transmission. “C.D.C. has now caught up to the latest scientific evidence, and they’ve gotten rid of some old problematic terms and thinking about how transmission occurs,” said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/health/coronavirus-airborne-threat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/health/coronavirus-airbor... The CDC's flip flopping on the issue did not inspire confidence. >CDC reverses again, now says Covid-19 is 'sometimes' airborne https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-again-now-says-covid-19-sometimes-airborne-n1242167 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-agai...
dahfizz 3y ago
> FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne. - The WHO https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898

by loeg 3y ago

revelio 3y ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 "Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. That mistake and the prolonged process of correcting it sowed confusion and raises questions about what will happen in the next pandemic."

loeg 3y ago
> the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. I mean, I don't believe the WHO actually stated that in those terms. This is probably a paraphrase of a more nuanced statement that erases the nuance.
- gowld 3y ago
  Unfortunately, you are incorrect, as a half-dozen comments in this thread have shared.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  >In March, W.H.O. denied outright that Covid-19 was airborne, posting on social media, “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” and calling it “misinformation.” We and our colleagues, scientists and engineers who have studied airborne particles for our entire careers, met with W.H.O. in April 2020 to express our concern that airborne transmission was important in the spread of COVID-19. W.H.O. vehemently rejected our suggestion and painted us as trespassers who did not understand what was happening in hospitals. https://time.com/6162065/covid-19-airborne-transmission-confusion/ https://time.com/6162065/covid-19-airborne-transmission-conf...
  - loeg 3y ago
    I think you and others in this thread are reading that tweet significantly out of context.
    - vxNsr 3y ago
      You don’t need to think too much, just go read the tweet. It’s pretty unequivocal. At that point the WHO was very adamantly against the idea that Covid could be airborne. That tweet thread is very strongly worded to emphasize that point.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      I think you should make that case, rather than implying that a case could be made.
    - actuallyalys 3y ago
      Here's a fuller quotation of the WHO tweet: >FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne. >The #coronavirus is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. The WHO was unequivocally stating that Covid was not airborne, apparently meaning that they (wrongly) thought it was not spread through aerosols. Instead, they were saying it was spread through droplets. So they were wrong about how it spreads, but did not go as far as saying it wasn't spread through respiratory routes/air at all, which I think might be some people's interpretation of "The WHO said it was not airborne."

GeekyBear 3y ago

> but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data. For instance, at the beginning of the pandemic, passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess continued to spread Covid from cabin to cabin while locked down. There was also the case of a church choir practice where over 50 people caught Covid. >If COVID-19 could spread so thoroughly and quickly through a choir, did that mean the coronavirus was airborne? And if the primary route for the disease’s spread was through the air, had our initial response been woefully misguided? For researchers like Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, the answer was clear: The coronavirus is airborne, and the superspreader choir proved it. Once agencies like the WHO established the position that COVID-19 was spread primarily through heavy droplets, it was a tall order to change it. “They’ll die defending their view,” one anonymous WHO consultant told the New York Times in July. Even now, “the burden of proof is much higher for aerosols than for any other route, and yet we have more evidence for aerosols in this case than for any other route,” Marr told me. https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/coronavirus-airborne-debate-choir-practice.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/coronavirus-airborne-de...

loeg 3y ago
> I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data. This is a much lower bar. You can always find a crank on twitter accusing something of being misinformation. The original claim I responded to was that the medical establishment claimed airborne transmission was impossible. However, the actual take from the medical establishment was significantly less confident of that claim (emphasis added): > Airborne spread was “not believed to be a major driver of transmission based on available evidence,” the report [from May 2020] stated.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > The original claim I responded to was that the medical establishment claimed airborne transmission was impossible. The WHO literally made a blanket statement that Covid was NOT airborne. > FACT: COVID-19 is NOT airborne. The CDC also denied airborne spread for quite some time. >As the pandemic unfolded last year, infectious disease experts warned for months that both the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization were overlooking research that strongly suggested the coronavirus traveled aloft in small, airborne particles. Several scientists on Friday welcomed the agency’s scrapping of the term “close contact,” which they criticized as vague and said did not necessarily capture the nuances of aerosol transmission. “C.D.C. has now caught up to the latest scientific evidence, and they’ve gotten rid of some old problematic terms and thinking about how transmission occurs,” said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/health/coronavirus-airborne-threat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/health/coronavirus-airbor... The CDC's flip flopping on the issue did not inspire confidence. >CDC reverses again, now says Covid-19 is 'sometimes' airborne https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-again-now-says-covid-19-sometimes-airborne-n1242167 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-agai...

dahfizz 3y ago

> FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne. - The WHO https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898