At the beginning of the epidemic, joe rogan hosted M.Osterholm for an interview where he warned about a lot of the things to come: the rapid spread, the small effect of washing hands or masks, the airborne spread etc. It's sad that the epidemic seems to have turned worse than most ppl assume it would.
Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
131–140 of 292 posts
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we would have to implement extremely strict lockdowns... if we assume that the goal is not to flatten the curve but to completely stop the virus in its tracks. Most people and countries don't have this goal. Edit: To those downvoting, I'll just say that my statement is factual, so argue the facts. Long-term, we want a vaccine, yes. In the meantime, most people and countries are simply not willing to do what it take…
If the virus were truly airborne, which it isn't, then simply walking through an empty room could get you infected. The levels of people getting infected, and subsequently getting hospitalized would be far worse than the worst scenes we saw in Italy and NYC. Lockdowns absolutely would have been mandatory for months upon months. Coronavirus is not by itself a tremendously deadly disease. The problem is how infectious…
Um.. it is airborne, that is why there are multiple super-spreader events that can’t be explained by someone interacting within 3-6 feet for 10 minutes. (e.g. cases of 1 to 100, 1:500 case reported as well).
If you walked into an empty hospital room that was just used with high air-virion density, you could get infected, that is why they decontaminate with the equipment you see.
I think the main reason this isn’t being communicated is because we will never have enough N95 masks to mitigate this (would need 5-10 years of 24/6 production to fill govt. stockpiles).
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#133This is a good article. I work at a biotech company that studies virus transmission and helps others study it. It was clear from the very beginning that transmission was airborne. Why would it not be? That the WHO and some doctors were assuming it was not seriously damages their credibility as healthcare professionals. Current events should lead people to seriously question deference given to doctors. They need to be…
Why wasn't there a large spike with the recent protests in the participating demographic? https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/01/research-d... The chants "no justice, no peace"? "I can't breath"? Those were clear chants. Everyone breathing on each other while chanting. Unencumbered by a mask.
I think a key part is also the dose in which you get infected that leads to illness. When you're in the open air, breathing and chanting, the dose of the virus is so low, that the immune system can easily defend against it.
Also, the virus doesn't kill most people, the human immune (over)reaction does. This is my laymen's way of describing a (deadly) course of the virus and disease.
1.1. person breaths in microparticles (aerosols) contaminated with the virus 1.2. breaths in low or high dose (in further steps shown as L and H) 1.3. (L and H) directly deep into the lungs [1] (almost like intracellular viral infection)
2.1. (L and H) innate arm of immune system tries to combat it 2.2. (L and H) adaptive arm of immune system is being activated [2] (takes at most 7 days to mount a significant response) 2.3. (L) virus replicates slowly and is kept in check, because low dose is easier to combat by innate arm of immune system (availability of Vitamine D seems key as it exhibits direct antiviral activities [3] probably Zinc as well as it inhibits RNA replication of the virus [4]) 2.4. (H) virus replicates fast because the high dose can't be handled by the innate arm -> This is the point when most people will either get more ill and be hospitalized, or recover. This is also when it's too late for HCQ and Zinc to be effective. (Set of studies showing effectiveness for early or late treatment with HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin[5]) 3.1. (L) virus is controlled and the innate arm of the immune system can handle the virus. The adaptive arm cleans up the last bits of the virus and person is no longer ill. -> Low dose infected person might stay Asymptomatic or experience a Light Cold or minor fever. 3.2. (H) virus is out of control and the adaptive arm reacts with an overreaction of the antibodies resulting in a cytokine storm 3.3. Person gets severe inflammation and thrombosis and gets heavily ill. -> High dose infection: this is the point of no return and anyone who reaches this is bound to have a long track of recovery in front of them, or death.
I've added some sources, be aware that for each source there's multitude of other sources claiming the same thing. Research yourself!
[1]: https://www.intechopen.com/books/rhinosinusitis/aerosol-part... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_immune_system#Functio... [3]: https://youtu.be/Mdc7T2UTHBI?t=216 [4]: https://youtu.be/WZq-K1wpur8?t=447 [5]: https://c19study.com/
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree with your conclusion. Airborne is airborne regardless of whether it's 5 minutes or 12 hours. The point of the word is to tell people that you can become infected without being in direct physical contact with them. Trying to come up with words for different durations of airborne is only going to make it more confusing, even if it becomes less ambiguous to the people who know the difference between the te…
I disagree. You need to treat the virus at the right level of concern otherwise you lose credibility. As we can all see, credibility from the experts needs to be maintained, otherwise no one trusts them anyone. The whole fiasco with masks is because the experts told us things that were obviously wrong at the beginning (ie. masks don't work, masks won't help regular people, etc). If there is airborne droplet transmiss…
> You need to treat the virus at the right level of concern otherwise you lose credibility.
I agree with this but don't see how the use of the word "airborne" conveys concern. Maybe this is some american hollywood trope now that I remember reading the phrase "It's airborne!" in the original article? Wikipedia's article on airborne diseases certainly don't seem to imply that there's a strict definition of how long a pathogen has to survive in the air for it to be classified as airborne.
> As we can all see, credibility from the experts needs to be maintained, otherwise no one trusts them anyone.
While I agree with this, we're in an age of misinformation and macho power culture where saying "we're not sure yet so let's just be as careful as possible" apparently doesn't do much good in many places of the world. And I don't think a technically incorrect use of a word like airborne is NEARLY as significant as changing stances on masks and presidents endorsing quacks.
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it won't. The reason things became "partisan" is precisely because things like the article are useless and ineffective. You're assuming a shared reality that doesn't exist.
I can only assume you're being downvoted because you've confused the chicken and the egg. Partisan issues don't exist because articles like this are useless and ineffective. Partisan stances on this sort of thing is what makes people believe articles like this are useless . You have it backwards. I would absolutely agree, though, that there is no such thing as a cultural 'shared reality' anymore. That is the base of…
We seem to agree 100%. The GP expressed hope that better information (such as this article) will be able to change people's minds and alter the course of the pandemic. I find that pretty naive. The reason the pandemic took the turn it did is precisely because research, reasoning, expertise, etc is incompatible with the existing cultural divides in the US. Why would more of the same produce a different result?
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Unencumbered by a mask. That hasn’t been my experience. Every action I’ve attended has had clear messaging leading up to it about masks and social distancing, and attendees have adhered to guidelines.
This is adhering to the social distancing guidelines? https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/george-floyd-protest... The crowds are tight and packed.
Were you going to address the comments regarding your statement that people aren't wearing masks or are you just going to ignore them and try to find something else to reinforce your narrative about the 'participating demographic'?
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#137This is a good article. I work at a biotech company that studies virus transmission and helps others study it. It was clear from the very beginning that transmission was airborne. Why would it not be? That the WHO and some doctors were assuming it was not seriously damages their credibility as healthcare professionals. Current events should lead people to seriously question deference given to doctors. They need to be…
> It was clear from the very beginning that transmission was airborne. To me the only thing that was clear was the definition of airborne is not standard. By strict definition, COVID is not airborne since it seems to require a host material (e.g. water droplet). This is in contrast to measles which individual virus particles can survive without a host material. Practically speaking though, COVID seems to be able to s…
Just to be pedantic. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, Covid is the disease. The same as HIV vs AIDS.
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#138This is a good article. I work at a biotech company that studies virus transmission and helps others study it. It was clear from the very beginning that transmission was airborne. Why would it not be? That the WHO and some doctors were assuming it was not seriously damages their credibility as healthcare professionals. Current events should lead people to seriously question deference given to doctors. They need to be…
> It was clear from the very beginning that transmission was airborne. To me the only thing that was clear was the definition of airborne is not standard. By strict definition, COVID is not airborne since it seems to require a host material (e.g. water droplet). This is in contrast to measles which individual virus particles can survive without a host material. Practically speaking though, COVID seems to be able to s…
>By strict definition, COVID is not airborne since it seems to require a host material (e.g. water droplet).
You are wrong. Read:
1. https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/transmissi....
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2342-5_reference.....
Aerosol transmission is the main vector.
Consider posing your statement in the reverse: SARS-CoV-2 does not disperse in droplets, and/or is not infectious when not in a droplet. There is no reason to believe either of those things!
It's totally reasonable to assume the virus could separate from a droplet and would remain infectious by itself for enough time to infect someone. This is common in other viruses, and seems to make sense from first principles. Why would virus particles not be able to form aerosols?
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the virus were truly airborne, which it isn't, then simply walking through an empty room could get you infected. The levels of people getting infected, and subsequently getting hospitalized would be far worse than the worst scenes we saw in Italy and NYC. Lockdowns absolutely would have been mandatory for months upon months. Coronavirus is not by itself a tremendously deadly disease. The problem is how infectious…
Um.. it is airborne, that is why there are multiple super-spreader events that can’t be explained by someone interacting within 3-6 feet for 10 minutes. (e.g. cases of 1 to 100, 1:500 case reported as well). If you walked into an empty hospital room that was just used with high air-virion density, you could get infected, that is why they decontaminate with the equipment you see. I think the main reason this isn’t bei…
[deleted]
Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?
#140There is a weird disconnect. Everyone seems to acknowledge the most likely way to transmit COVID is via droplets when indoor. Yet, there is little discussion about ventilation. Maybe people felt like there was less they could do?
That's why I wish there would be more UV sterilization going on. Maybe in addition to more air flow, have a person or mini bot go down shopping aisles and sterilize the air.