Thread by @HuffmanLabDU

1/ Article summarizing a letter recently sent to the White House, CDC, NIAID, by a group of trusted colleagues.

“It’s time to stop pussyfooting around the fact that the virus is transmitted mostly through the air” said @linseymarr

Letter & quotes below.
nytimes.com/2021/02/17/hea…

2/ Read the short, important letter yourself:

"Immediate Action is Needed to Address SARS-CoV-2 Inhalation Exposure"
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3/ "There is a pressing and urgent need for action. COVID-19 infections and deaths recently reached record levels. The roll-out of vaccines that started out in December rocky and slow is now improving, but it will be months before most of the population is vaccinated."

4/ " In the meantime, more transmissible variants are projected to become the dominant strains by March and may pose significant challenges to the efficacy of first-generation vaccines and monoclonal antibodies."

5/ "While COVID-19 infections and deaths have started to decline in recent weeks, they remain at a very high level and, unless strengthened precautionary measures are implemented, the new variants will likely bring an explosion in new infections."

6/ "Stronger protective measures are needed immediately to limit exposure and transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to control and end the COVID-19 pandemic."

7/ "For many months it has been clear that transmission through inhalation of small aerosol particles is an important and significant mode of SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission. The gravity of this problem was emphasized this week by an editorial in the journal Nature."

8/ "Numerous studies have demonstrated that aerosols produced through breathing, talking, and singing are concentrated close to the infected person, can remain in air and viable for long periods of time and travel long distances within a room and sometimes farther."

9/ "Gatherings in indoor spaces without adequate ventilation place participants at particularly high risk, an important component of which is driven by asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic viral shedding of infected individuals."