Thread by @HuffmanLabDU

I had a personal epiphany of sorts last night wrt my drive this year toward COVID educ. & my recent frustration wrt CDC & masks.
A 🧵 w/ a few unsolicited reflections from my separate perspectives as an aerosol scientist, lay citizen, & father of young kids w/ health needs. (1/x)

In various recent conversations & interviews, I’ve been asked my take on the new mask recommendations. First, I always fervently point out that I am not a public health expert, and I specify angles from which I feel professionally qualified to speak. 2/

Inevitably, however, people ask about my personal choices. And on that question, I’ve been somewhat conflicted, because my opinions don’t always line up with some colleagues that I deeply respect. 3/

I worried a bit that I was hesitant to endorse the CDC recommendations out of some unnecessary principle or an unrealistic academic ivory-tower. But as I’ve reflected, I don’t think that’s it. For me, I’ve realized there are three separate angles from which I respond. 4/

FIRST, as an aerosol scientist, I’ve poured huge portions of my last year+ into learning about, teaching, and researching airborne aspects of COVID transmission & prevention. I even keep a pretty comprehensive resource of links. 5/
bit.ly/3fzmB16

I’ve done what I can to raise understanding of how COVID spreads & what to do. We’ve worked for months to get agencies like the CDC & WHO to reflect sufficient messaging to keep people safe. Finally, last week the CDC released some much-need guidance. 6/

https://twitter.com/HuffmanLabDU/status/1394412505355542530

But less than a week after those updates, the CDC updated recommendations on mask-wearing by vaxxed people. While I understand the push, I felt the vax rates were still insufficient & the messaging process of the new statements was poor. 7/

But even more, I felt the short time after the CDC *finally* got their messaging right (i.e. what to about near-field and room-level aerosol inhalation risks) simply let the floor drop out from under the scaffold of support we’d work so hard to build. 8/

https://twitter.com/HuffmanLabDU/status/1394412504197910531

SECOND, as a lay citizen, I was frustrated b/c I felt the CDC shifted responsibility quickly & unnecessarily back to us, w/o any warning or help. It took us all months to set our routines so that each trip outside didn’t require a litany of questions about safety protocol. 9/

Then, all of the sudden, with no time to think or process, the CDC dropped a bombshell whose shockwave rippled widely, forcing quick, uncomfortable decisions by individuals, organizations, and state/civic governments to accept the recommendations or not. 10/

I felt like the recommendation that fully vaxxed people could avoid masks gave cover to people who wanted to avoid masks anyway, shifted responsibility to those who were doing the right thing, introduced confusion, and laid the groundwork for interpersonal conflict. 11/

For reasons more comprehensive than I’ll list here, I also felt like the messaging didn’t sufficiently address the fact that still <50% of the US is fully vaxxed, that kids <12 will be unvaxxed for months, that immuno-compromised are at risk, and other factors. 12/

BUT, none of that explained my emotions about wanting to avoid the question about my personal choices until another perspective hit me.
THIRD, as a father of small children w/ health needs, I realized I just look at the world through eyes borne of different experiences. 13/

Any parent who has spent many (many) hundreds of hours waiting by the hospital bedside of a child sees family medical risk differently. I have a child with special medical needs, and this year we’ve taken COVID precautions very seriously. 14/

Each of my children are <12 yrs and will need to wait months before they will be able to receive a COVID vaccine & won’t be able to before school starts in the Fall. Most of my personal decisions on these subjects thus collapse back to how they will affect my children. 15/

I respect that serious COVID occurrences are very rare in young children & evidence that suggests vaxxed individuals are also very unlikely to be asymptomatic carriers. Various risks still remain, and I also have to filter that through our own family health needs. 16/

I was asked in a recent interview if I am a cautious person. I said yes; I believe in the science & I am careful with COVID. But more fundamentally, I am also driven by subconscious memories of weeks in ICUs. 17/

Yesterday AM, I sat in a school auditorium for a year-end event (doors open, distanced, #CO2 monitor in-hand!). Despite the school rules against it, many people went unmasked, and I felt the frustration of not knowing & that it shouldn’t be my responsibility to carry extra. 18/

When the CDC changed recommendations without laying out how it was all going to work, I felt even more burden to carry. We’ve all frequently felt during this last year that various things weren’t our responsibility, but we were forced out of necessity to shift & carry them. 19/

I defer scholarly perspective to colleagues exp’d on questions of public health policy. As an aerosol scientist, I felt the timing & messaging was poor. As a citizen, I was confused. But as a father, I was frustrated that the news unnecessarily shifted extra burden to me. 20/