@bitchy_meats "Respiratory droplets" is what's known as a "term of art", meaning, it has implications that go beyond what we normal folk would think. It has a 100 year history in public health, and if you say "respiratory droplets" public health officials hear "not spread through air".
@bitchy_meats By which they mean, not spread by air currents, not hanging in the air for long periods of time, but in the form of droplets that quickly (a few seconds) fall to the ground, unless you're REALLY unlucky and get sneezed on.
@bitchy_meats The new guidance made it clear that being sneezed on, or picking up droplets from surfaces after they fall, isn't the current major mode of transmission. It's most likely from breathing in significant quantities of aerosolized (floating) tiny droplets < 100um.
@bitchy_meats And those can float in the air for minutes to hours, depending on environment.
And that has lots of implications for facilities relying on Plexiglass shields and wiping down surfaces + spacing as their mitigations.
@bitchy_meats It's not as infectious as measles, which can travel long distances and (seems likely) infect you with a much lower dose, so health departments don't want to panic people by saying "airborne" like they do for measles. But they've been going too far the other way.
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