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Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

cdc.gov

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Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#71

Post by [deleted] »

garmaine wrote: post #36
kevml wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debate? I’d rather rely on scientific guidance and updates as more information becomes available. Within the first few weeks we received updates that it was highly unlikely to be transmitted through surface contact. That information became more and more detailed as time went on. There is little debate in the matter.

> Debate? I’d rather rely on scientific guidance and updates as more information becomes available. Within the first few weeks we received updates that it was highly unlikely to be transmitted through surface contact. That information became more and more detailed as time went on. How do you think the science is done? The first step is to debate these things, to figure out possibilities and design experiments.

[deleted]

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#72

Post by flukus »

staticassertion wrote: post #49
rainyMammoth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you nailed it. It is virtue signaling. A theater to display to everyone that you are on the right side of the debate and that you are taking covid seriously. I would even bet that most people issuing the cleaning guidance know that it is almost useless, but we live in a world in which it is more important for your actions to make you perceived the way you want rather than being effective.

Cleaning is now virtue signaling, HN is on a roll tonight

I think they're right for the wrong reasons. It wasn't that it was done to be "on the right side", it was done because it was cheap, visible and allowed everything to continue as it was with as long as we all "just wash our hands". Instead of being a method to control the spread it became "the" method and other far more effective measures (masks, WFH) were ignored.

Months into the pandemic they were deep cleaning public transport in my city several times a day but not mandating masks. The cleaning probably wasn't a waste, but it was by far the less effective option. A year on the opposite is true because it took so long for science/guidance to update and for that to filter through to public policy.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#73

Post by alkonaut »

dominostars wrote: post #4

I’m fairly certain information like this or similar was communicated very early on in the pandemic. A lot of people I know were sanitizing things from the grocery store for the first few weeks but then it quickly spread that surface transmission was very rare so everyone stopped.

I don't know (or heard about) anyone who wiped down a cereal box or similar in the last year. This probably varies by country and the communication that was there early last year.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#74

Post by _Microft »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #62
stinos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone call this early on Not in my area. That is, scientists here would beasically say: we don't know yet how well surface transmission works, so better take precautions. Which in hindsight still is the best approach in my opinion. Took a couple of months (IIRC) before it became well-accepted that chances (while existing) were fairly low. Not sure, but 'free and open' debate sounds like you want to have laymen h…

I remember trying sort things out early on. Unlike most people I used to work in the contract sterilization industry. Need 100 pallets of catheters sterilized a week? No problem we got gas chambers the size of bus. So I know a little little bit about killing bugs. All that really bought me was seeing the 'debate' was between people that knew far less than the little I knew. Worse what most of what they thought they k…

Asymptomatic transmission was indeed suspected but a german doctor actually discovered a case and published the first paper about it. A chinese business woman with no symptoms had infected co-workers while visiting the company's headquarters in Bavaria. She developed the disease only after returning to China (but had reported jet-lag which might have covered up some early symptoms).

Paper: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468

Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/europe/coronavirus-...

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#75

Post by Roark66 »

kevml wrote: post #8
peytn wrote: post #3

Did anyone call this early on? Would’ve been nice to hear a free and open debate from the start—I don’t recall seeing one. There are costs to doing things everywhere on the planet “just in case.”

Debate? I’d rather rely on scientific guidance and updates as more information becomes available. Within the first few weeks we received updates that it was highly unlikely to be transmitted through surface contact. That information became more and more detailed as time went on. There is little debate in the matter.

>Debate? I’d rather rely on scientific guidance and updates as more information becomes available.

And how this new information is supposed to reach everyone without being twisted? I heard so much crap being said by doctors, scientists, professors etc. Not just hyperbole, and assumptions, but downright misinformation. I'm in Poland and since the beginning of the pandemic there were multiple lies coming from both government ministers and all the people representing "science" I mentioned. Some examples of lies:

"Masks don't work to protect normal people",(later)"a piece of cloth is all you need", "children don't transmit the virus(then when a new wave of infections was partially caused by children returning to in person learning - ok we fucked up, children were infecting people all along, but we need parents at work not sitting with their children at home) ", "incidence of infection in the workplace is low (then after few months data came out showing 40% of all infections are in the workplace) etc etc.

Now a year later same" leading scientists" are still being invited by the media to answer questions. All available media lie more or less. In this environment how a "typical" person is supposed to know the truth?

I can find published research articles in reputable journals, and actual data to find out what is true, but I have no idea what advice to give to my friends and family who don't have that capability. When they ask me how do you know what is true. All I can say is "read everything and make up your own mind" which is pretty poor.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#76

Post by cblconfederate »

If you needed to know everything about the pandemic, all you needed to listen was Michael Osterholm's interview in Joe Rogan podcast before the pandemic began. I m sure people would be a lot better prepared about the duration of the pandemic, the mode of transmission, the death rates etc if the epidemiologists had been frank about what to expect from a SARS pandemic. "Do not exchange air" should be an international slogan. Washing hands and groceries is just another security theater

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#77

Post by twooster »

fsloth wrote: post #17
peytn wrote: post #3

Did anyone call this early on? Would’ve been nice to hear a free and open debate from the start—I don’t recall seeing one. There are costs to doing things everywhere on the planet “just in case.”

One in 10k per contact is still non-neglible imo. Everyone can do the math. With 100 contacts to contaminated surfaces the chance of infection grows to 0.01. If the chance to become infected per contact are just 1/2000 with 100 contacts the chances of getting infected are now 40%. It makes perfect sense to maintain surface hygiene since those contacts accumulate statistically.

You're right on your first estimation:

P(getting infected per touch) = 1/10000 = .0001

P(not getting infected per touch) = 1 - P(getting infected per touch) = .9999

P(not getting infected after 100 touches) = P(not getting infected per touch) ^ 100 = .9999 ^ 100 =~ .99

P(getting infected after 100 touches) = 1 - P(not getting infected after 100 touches) =~ .01 = 1%

Or, in other words:

1 - ((1 - .0001) ^ 100) =~ .01 = 1% chance of infection

By the same logic, your second estimation is a bit off:

1/5000 = .0002

1 - ((1 - .0002) ^ 100) =~ .02 = 2% chance of infection

That's a far cry off 40%.

To think about it another way, if the chance to get infected per touch is 1/10, and you touch a surface 20 times, is your chance of infection 200%? No, that doesn't make sense. It's 1 - ((1 - 1/10) ^ 20) =~ 87.8%.

That's the problem with statistics -- "everyone can do the math", but it's pretty easy to mix it up and reach the wrong conclusions and spread misinformation.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#79

Post by idoubtit »

asplake wrote: post #20

Not a great headline. What if I touch thousands of surfaces? Better (and based on the text): Few SARS-Cov-2 transmissions reported to have been via surface transmission. And note: However, it is not clear what proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections are acquired through surface transmission. Probably not many.

If someone touched infected surface every day during the past year, their risk of being contaminated would be about 3.6% according to this study (10^-4 at each contact). Touching twice per day would not double the risk, since the process is not linear. So 3.6% is a a kind of absolute maximum.

Note the paper suggest the real rate could be lower. For instance, a 10^-5 risk per contact would mean <0.4% risk for 365 contacts.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#80

Post by postingawayonhn »

cblconfederate wrote: post #76

If you needed to know everything about the pandemic, all you needed to listen was Michael Osterholm's interview in Joe Rogan podcast before the pandemic began. I m sure people would be a lot better prepared about the duration of the pandemic, the mode of transmission, the death rates etc if the epidemiologists had been frank about what to expect from a SARS pandemic. "Do not exchange air" should be an international s…

I like the term 'public health theatre'.
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