In October 2008, researchers did a study like this in Ontario for seasonal influenza and literally stopped the study because of the 2009 influenza pandemic. Last year, the same PI was granted permission to do this during a far worse respiratory virus pandemic. What is going on?
Apparently, this is the type of research that is allowed to happen when the importance of infection through inhalation is underemphasized.
It is why systematic reviews on this topic are carefully vetted by multidisciplinary teams, such that they are not used to justify inadequate PPE for workers. 👍 thelancet.com/journals/lance…
It is why qualified experts who study this complex topic, irrespective of their field, should have been taken more seriously early on & not lumped together or portrayed to the public as just, for example, “engineers”, as if that were somehow grounds for dismissing their knowledge
It is why the airborne transmission discussion is not just, as @zeynep says, “jargon quibble”
And it underscores why what influential health experts and authorities say on social media and other platforms matters, and why it is important to correct inaccurate and impactful statements upfront and with absolute clarity.
The world needs a clear-cut and far-reaching statement about this.
What other studies like this are going on or planned at the expense of healthcare and frontline worker safety?
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In early 2020, we detected airborne SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 patient rooms (in the absence of superficial aerosol generating procedures) in a Singapore hospital. We alerted WHO and others immediately and scrambled to get the word out in a preprint on April 9, 2020. Read on...
On April 15, 2020, Singapore (where I live/work) mandated masks for everyone outside their home. Smart move. Given past experience (7 years researching airborne transmission of viruses, now 8), I could see early on that this virus was transmissible through aerosols. So, masks..👍
The simple fact that this was a *respiratory* virus causing a pandemic was really all the information that was needed. Despite this, I knew at least *some* folks would argue for evidence of viable virus in air, but we did not have permission to do the cultures yet.