I was wrong. I thought this whole aerosol vs droplets convo re: #SARSCoV2 #COVID19 was kind of pedantic...1/12 https://twitter.com/AbraarKaran/status/1307830066898849794

But a conversation on Facebook changed my mind. A mother of an elementary school child in the US Northeast (where #SARSCoV2 rates are pretty low) posted about how sad her 8 yo child was... 2/12

The child's school is all remote, but some parents organized an outdoor masked playground meetup for the kids. The child had been so excited! But, at the meetup, her friends kept trying to get closer then 6 feet. And the daughter was maintaining 6 feet of distance...3/12

The friends got frustrated with the distance and left to play with other kids. So this 8yo, who had had minimal social contact outside her family for 6 months and who'd been so excited to play with other kids, was very sad. I felt heart-broken for this child and mom... 4/12

In the comments, many other moms expressed solidarity and similar difficulties. One other mom gently suggested that the 6 foot rule might not be critical for a brief outdoor masked situation. The first mom seemed genuinely surprised by this idea! 5/12

Reading that Facebook conversation and then reading up to contribute myself, it suddenly clicked for me:

This early 6-foot rule in the US has stuck in people's heads and has them totally confused! 6/12

There are desperately lonely people afraid to get within 6 ft of another person for even a minute in low-risk situations like outdoors with masks...Then there are people inviting others into their homes unmasked who feel safe bc they think 6 ft apart protects them! 7/12

A deep dive into the @DearPandemic website led me to the dense but fabulous FAQ doc from a team of air quality scientists and engineers including @linseymarr @jljcolorado @ShellyMBoulder @PollittKrystal et al, which led me to @washingtonpost graphic adapted from their work 8/12

Another look this morning led me to this slide show from @jljcolorado, which explicitly connects the academic debate to real-life questions about transmission risk. https://tinyurl.com/aerosol-pros-cons 9/12

And then I remembered the @zeynep article, "Why Aren't We Talking More About Ventilation?," which I hadn't read because I thought, "Oh, I already know this stuff."
Note to self: Stop being an idiot. Always read @zeynep's work https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1288829829912113154?s=20 10/12

So I read the @zeynep article...it was like the clouds parted. The aerosol/droplet debate IS pedantic & confusing (terminology difs across fields a big hindrance) but also a key evidence base for understanding risk mitigation for #SARSCoV2 spread, what's high risk, what's not 11/

So I was wrong. Every person on Twitter who's been screaming for months about the differences between aerosol and droplet transmission of #SARSCoV2...I admit I rolled my eyes. But I get it now. And thank you!