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Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

nature.com

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Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#41

Post by null_object »

In Sweden people continually blow their nose by holding one nostril and blasting the mucus from the other straight out into the air. Joggers of both sexes (but mostly men) do this all the time, even with other people all around them on the street.

When I last got the subway an older guy did it on the platform, just before the train doors opened and the passengers walked out - presumably straight through the fine droplets hanging in the air.

No-one here seems to think this habit is strange, and those times I’ve said anything to the people doing it they are genuinely mystified by my complaint. Maybe this article should be more widely disseminated...

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#42

Post by timr »

evan_ wrote: post #37
timr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunetra Gupta is a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and a long-time researcher into public health policy: https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, with a long history of research into epi…

From the Wikipedia link you posted: > She is one of the primary authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-discredited paper[15] which advocated a focused response to the COVID-19 pandemic based on levels of individual risk.[16][17] The World Health Organization, as well as other numerous academic and public-health bodies, have stated that the strategy proposed by the Declaration is dangerous, unethical, a…

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#43

Post by michaelwu »

jacobkg wrote: post #27

Serious Question: I have been super paranoid about surfaces for the past year. Disinfecting groceries, quarantining packages, washing hands after touching the mail or opening takeout, etc. This is pretty draining. Should my takeaway be that all of these precautions are unnecessary?

Even if the risk of transmission from surfaces turns out to be low, I suspect it’s still >0%. Given the potential of developing chronic conditions from covid and the number of times we come into contact groceries, deliveries, etc., it seems rational to keep wiping down surfaces.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#44

Post by ceejayoz »

timr wrote: post #38
ceejayoz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gupta: "I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on the way out in [the United Kingdom]", in May 2020. Renowned people can still be full of shit. > All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology. s/are/were

> Renowned people can still be full of shit. And this tone is certainly rational and charitable.

She was demonstrably full of shit here.

A claim that renowned people can't be full of shit would be the irrational one, I'd think.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#45

Post by angry-tempest »

timr wrote: post #20
DanBC wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who on that list is a "renown epidemiologist"?

Sunetra Gupta is a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and a long-time researcher into public health policy: https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, with a long history of research into epi…

> All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology.

That was true as of January 2020, it is no longer true now. I don't know about Gupta, but both Bhattacharya and Kulldorff (and Ioannidis) are being hated by most of their colleagues at the moment.

I would even conjecture - in 10 years, if you are a recent PhD/fellow from one of those labs, you will have a very tough time in the job market.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#46

Post by just_steve_h »

ceejayoz wrote: post #29
timr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunetra Gupta is a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and a long-time researcher into public health policy: https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, with a long history of research into epi…

Gupta: "I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on the way out in [the United Kingdom]", in May 2020. Renowned people can still be full of shit. > All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology. s/are/were

…or at least could be wrong.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#47

Post by minikites »

mywittyname wrote: post #31
staunch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Was just a flat out lie by various public health officials that they justified for the greater good. It was probably the biggest and easiest-to-prevent mistake of the pandemic, and it certainly cost many lives. 2. It still makes sense to wash hands, use gloves, and wipe down anything coming into your house that was recently touched by strangers. There's no good reason to allow a known vector, even if it's lower ri…

It should have been illegal for health officials to knowingly lie to the public.

Why only health officials?

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#48

Post by hanklazard »

mordechai9000 wrote: post #8
hanklazard wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, as someone who works in a clinic where we test for COVID-19 much of the day (and have multiple positive patient tests per day), I can tell you that this editorial certainly seems correct. Even with our caution with PPE, I’m certain that we would have had a major outbreak among staff over the past year if this thing was transmitting efficiently via fomite—it’s just too difficult to use perfect form 100% o…

It seems like people have been saying this from the beginning. But no one can say for certain that there is little or no fomite risk, and hand washing and surface cleaning gives people something to do that helps them feel like they are in control.

There is still minor (1) risk of transmission via fomite, so I agree it’s still a good idea to wash hands and keep surfaces relatively clean. I just think we should rebalance our behaviors/resources based on the accumulating evidence.

1. https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099...

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#49

Post by selimthegrim »

lambda_obrien wrote: post #30
legerdemain wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donning. As in "don we now our gay apparel," and so forth.

I'm just amazed he got doffing correct but donning incorrect, most people don't know the word doffing in my experience.

Doff one's cap probably fell out of common use when people stopped wearing hats.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#50

Post by davidw »

staunch wrote: post #14
nlh wrote: post #9

I predict we’re going to look back at ourselves in a few years and find a few things particularly egregious, much as we look back at “smoking is good for your health!” ads from the 1950s: 1. Our early guidance that masks don’t help (because we needed to save the real masks for healthcare workers); and 2. Our collective obsession around Mar-Apr 2020 with surface disinfecting. The shortage on Clorox wipes, the obsessiv…

1. Was just a flat out lie by various public health officials that they justified for the greater good. It was probably the biggest and easiest-to-prevent mistake of the pandemic, and it certainly cost many lives. 2. It still makes sense to wash hands, use gloves, and wipe down anything coming into your house that was recently touched by strangers. There's no good reason to allow a known vector, even if it's lower ri…

It's especially frustrating, as places like the Czech Republic initially did pretty well by telling people to cover their faces with any old thing - cut up t-shirts, whatever. Maybe people in the US are too selfish and would have gone for the 'fancy' masks and ended up depriving doctors of them, but it seems like not even trying was pretty bad.

Looks like subsequently things went off the rails there. Wonder what happened.

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