Thread by @Orla_Hegarty

🇮🇪HSE #Covid19 information is unscientific & unsafe. People are at risk of infection due to misleading, contradictory & out-of-date advice 1/

✅Covid19 is MOSTLY spread by aerosols from breathing & talking, NOT droplets from coughs & sneezes

✅Aerosols linger & spread >2m

✅ ‘social distancing’ of 2m is NOT a protection indoors, everyone breaths the same air

✅ virus can fill rooms & linger for hours in EMPTY rooms/lifts/vehicles

✅ risk from touching surfaces/hands/eyes is LOW

✅ respiratory virus are almost always INHALED by infected air 2/

✅ ventilation & filtration are critically important in ALL buildings & vehicles, whether crowded or not
✅ crowded indoor spaces are unsafe BEYOND 2M DISTANCE
✅ wear a mask EVERYWHERE INDOORS that isn’t your home
✅ cough & sneeze INTO YOUR MASK
✅ NORMAL cleaning is fine 3/

✅ clean hands are good for health, & may prevent some #Covid19 transmission.. but hands CANNOT (mathematically) control this pandemic

✅ Clean indoor air, good masks & vaccines CAN control this pandemic

✅COVID IS AIRBORNE (this has been known since Spring 2020) 4/

Some HSE advice is very out of date & unsafe

This is the information for children with autism (author is external to HSE, not a scientist mindheart.co/conocenos )
HSE: hse.ie/eng/services/n…

People at risk (medical conditions/disabilities/older people)
✅ nobody knows their own immune response to a vaccine.
✅everyone should LIMIT EXPOSURE to unsafe conditions
✅ Risk is about places not people
✅ ALL places can be made low risk for EVERYONE www2.hse.ie/conditions/cov…

Nursing homes
✅ Outbreaks can be PREVENTED with airborne precautions
✅ WELL FITTING MASKS should be everywhere indoors.. & ESPECIALLY in close contact/in vehicles with vulnerable people
✅ DON’T TEST IMMUNITY. Vaccines don’t block infection, people may have waning immunity now

[aside: outdoor visits & “window visits” are inhuman & completely unnecessary. I wrote advice for safe visits to nursing homes one year ago. It wasn’t adopted]

People who are infected (& sharing a home)
✅wear well-fitting masks
✅avoid shared rooms/bedrooms & cars (esp mask off to eat)
✅ventilate shared spaces (incl bathrooms/halls)
✅keep trickle of airflow at all times for cross ventilation
✅use plug-in HEPA filter fans if possible

tl;dr
Everyone wants to be safe. Tell them how

Vaccines help fight infection, but nobody knows how well a body works. Avoid exposure

All buildings can be low risk for everyone

Everything must be done to avoid lockdown

Wear a good mask (video @tudelft)