Read on Twitter
Incredible New Zealand study on a mystery transmission in a quarantine hotel. For a while, a garbage can was suspected—one of the very, very few known suspected cases of fomite transmission. Turns out... it's aerosols. What a Kuhnian year this has been. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/5/21-0514-f1
Interesting science & sociology of science at once. This year will clearly force an updating of our understanding of role of aerosol transmission for respiratory pathogens. PLUS it's almost text-book Kuhnian in how it's happening: resistance, "epicycling" and then paradigm shift.
Yes, feels like cold-comfort now as we are and have been late, but we're here. The new CDC director has already cited importance of aerosols as one of things that most surprised her—along with a good chunk of people, clearly. But this will bring in good changes for future.
Nothing wrong with a (sensible) amount of hand-washing but the issue is that our mitigations need a hierarchy of energy and resources. Deep cleaning is still a big thing, parks/beaches are still shut down. Clearly—very clearly—our stack was wrong-ordered. https://twitter.com/mr_james_c/status/1373721813058994177
Also, it’s interesting how it’s places like Japan and South Korea and Hong Kong etc., whose scientists knew from day one that airborne transmission was a key route—disregarding global official guidance essentially—that managed to beat back outbreaks to get back to near normalcy.
Yes. Exactly here, too. They “deep clean” the pool area. The incredible amount of energy and resources going into “deep cleaning” in a completely excessive manner while ventilation is essentially ignored or is an afterthought is the problem. A year in! https://twitter.com/nikir1/status/1373731838208933888
Yes. Many had been through SARS and they have top-notch infectious disease specialists and epidemiologist. Reading their documents from February/March of 2020 is mind-blowing. They went their own way. It’s all there. https://twitter.com/bilditup1/status/1373732446802415620
I think it started with "we don't know so we'll do everything we know from the past." At the guidance level, we disregarded/delayed relevant expertise (Japan etc. did not). Personal level? I think it gave people a sense of control. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/how-public-health-messaging-backfired/618147/ https://twitter.com/M1k3ySCC/status/1373740261608726528
Sometimes people say "wait, doesn't everybody know airborne transmission is important?" If you follow the right experts on Twitter, I guess? Meanwhile, a library in one of the highest-educated US counties is "quarantining" returned books for seven days. https://twitter.com/SCDC87/status/1373755582214193157
As usual, examples pouring in... Not too surprised. I already hear from people, and look at many examples across the country including where I am: with three major research universities within a small radius. Excessive hygiene theater is very much alive. https://twitter.com/LeftyLonghorn/status/1373765212856279050
I guess we can make this even worse with starting a lengthy, contentious thread on whether books can be called "isolated" or "quarantined" if we don't know about the infection status of the borrower. https://twitter.com/jeflip/status/1373767242383515656
This is what I’ve heard from all over the US and most if the world, nonstop, for a year now—exceptions are countries that went their own way from very early on, on airborne transmission risks, like Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, etc. https://twitter.com/chrisjohn_12345/status/1373825069215010819
As a reminder, until December 2020, WHO guidance said masks were NOT necessary indoors if people were separated by a mere 3 feet/1 meter. Almost every successful country defied WHO guidelines & directly targeted aerosol transmission as high risk—and/or had drastic travel limits.
(The above is a tragedy. We shouldn’t have had to go through a whole year of a once-in—a-century pandemic like this. The history is well-documented and you can find all the guidelines and news conferences—and how many countries went their own way. Only upside: if we learn).
Three things were obviously key to target mitigations: this was like SARS in two key ways—airborne and overdispersed—and not like SARS is one important way—presymptomatic transmission. Some countries had all three by March 2020. This is going to be a striking history book. Sigh.
Okay, this is the longest I’ve seen. https://twitter.com/Spectatrix23/status/1373838693023223808
