BREAKING—US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just tested positive for #COVID19. He recently attended the @whca dinner event with 2600+ people, where reporters from many media outlets have also now tested positive. ➡️ This Vf headline was on point. #WHCD #COVIDisAirborne
2) We epidemiologists and aerosol scientists have warned about the poor ventilation and high density being a bad setup for almost guaranteed transmission at @whca dinner if anyone in the audience had subclinical (undetected) virus. And indeed the superspreading event happened.
3) ’The nation’s most distinguished super spreader event’. @Trevornoah was spot on in his opening lines of his #WHCD speech.
4) Scientists had live updates of the CO2 levels in the the #WHCD ballroom the entire evening thanks to @nalticx’s volunteer who brought this digital CO2 meter. Anything over 1500+ ppm is really really bad ventilation.
5) In public health, there is an old joke saying— “The solution to pollution is dilution…” or ventilation. And #WHCD’s ventilation levels, indexed by CO2 levels measured by @nalticx’s attendee volunteer, was horrible no good very very bad!!! Normal outdoors is ~400. HT @JusDayDa
6) here is what happened—CO2 first rose in a private suite…. Then they exited the suite to goto the hallway before the ballroom. Then at 8pm, CO2 levels started spiking in @HiltonWash ballroom once everyone entered. And it stayed high ~2 hours except for a break.
HT @nalticx
7) Also, cases now discovered because symptom onset from Omicron can take time—see outbreak chart from an infamous Christmas Party event in Norway of 117 people. The WHCD meanwhile is a high density ballroom of 2600 people for 2 hours + many after parties. eurosurveillance.org/content/10.280…
8) some will desperately try to downplay the #WHCD outbreak. But the fact of the matter is that people are still dying of COVID. And being hospitalized and getting #LongCovid which will burden healthcare system for years.
9) the sheer size of the #WHCD superspreading outbreak is growing. I’ve learned of a couple more reporters who got it. It spans across all the outlets. So it doesn’t seem to be from any single after party. nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/…
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