1/ CDC putting aerosols under “common routes of spread” of #covid19 is a significant shift.
We have been saying “wear a mask” and “6 feet apart” for months.
Cloth masks are not designed to block aerosols. And 6 feet apart may be insufficient, esp indoors w/ poor ventilation.
2/ Many experts have understood for a long time now that both droplets and aerosols play a role in spread.
But the big public communications campaigns have *largely focused on droplets only*
This is the key issue for me.
Cc @zeynep @SaskiaPopescu @j_g_allen @jljcolorado
3/ I have yet to see any major public health comms campaigns talk about when 6 feet apart is *not* enough, the need for better ventilation, or the need for better masks in certain high-risk situations.
And many of the official entities won’t do it unless CDC says so first.
4/ And this is *not* to say that everyone in the community needs to be walking around in N95s— from our current understanding, aerosol spread is most important in crowds, closed spaces w/ poor ventilation — so we need to focus communication campaigns on avoiding these scenarios.
Cc @JInterlandi @CarolineYLChen @CaroMT @acsifferlin @carlzimmer @apoorva_nyc @RanuDhillon @nataliexdean @B_resnick @edyong209 @linseymarr @mccabe_caitlin @virginiahughes @uche_blackstock @IngridKatzMD @kakape @sciencecohen
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