Thread by @jmcrookston

Just one more study in a long line ...

Did you know we've been killing ferrets since 1945 to show viruses travel in the air?

And then others complain they're ferrets not humans, missing the forest.

https://twitter.com/jmcrookston/status/1284499750285381632?s=20

https://twitter.com/DRTomlinsonEP/status/1382290675622948866

(Different strains in animals may yes be more transmissible. They mght bind less well to the recipient cell receptor. Or bind only to a receptor deeper in the lung. But this is observing how well, not how, they transmit.)

Poor ferrets

Why ferrets?

Close correlation w human transmission patterns (at least for flu).

Maybe we should use mink for coronavirus since it already jumped to mink that once ...

Why "gold standard" all the time in this field?

Couldn't tell ya.

Some common excuses to not believe the ferret studies:

https://twitter.com/jmcrookston/status/1284515337267023873?s=20

And, to show that some ferrets get sll the luck:

... the ones in the transmission studies get used for airborne virus fodder.

... meanwhile, the lucky ones get adopted and get to watch TV with their owners.

Apparently the rate of ferret study has been increasing since 2008. There are actually shortages of influenza-free ferret

Seems we test new strains of influenza virus on them to see if they will transmit through air enough to cause a pandemic

Sounds like a job for AI one day

At my computer. Ferrets infected each other across 5 feet and UP.

Something droplets cannot even do.

1941 Andrewes.

Good luck health care, you need N95 masks even for flu.

I posted this last July and frankly my patience is exhausted, so this was knowable then and is knowable now, and I suspect there are certain interests at play obscuring things.

https://twitter.com/jmcrookston/status/1285964890725855234

I am sympathetic to what I think those interests are concerned with.

However, it is not an answer to a problem to deny it.