Thread by @jljcolorado

1/ WaPo: "The delta variant of the coronavirus spreads as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal Federal health document"

washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07…

2/ Chickenpox spreads as easily as measles, because both are airborne. E.g. this paper for chickenpox:

nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

3/ Early in the pandemic, @WHO & @CDCgov experts explained that COVID could not be airborne because it was much less contagious than measles (e.g. aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…)

The Delta variant has shown that argument to be complete BS, as we have been arguing for more than a year.

4/ A reminder of the overwhelming evidence, summarized in our publication in @TheLancet, that airborne is the predominant mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2:

https://twitter.com/jljcolorado/status/1383566908797059078?s=19

5/ And the argument of the lower contagiousness ruling out airborne was always flawed.

We know that pulmonary tuberculosis is ONLY airborne, yet it is less contagious than COVID.

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

6/ For pulmonary tuberculosis:

- there is no vaccine that prevents transmission
- most of us don't have immunity
- the pathogen is out there
- transmission is only airborne

And yet, we are not in a fast spreading pandemic.

7/ in summary, airborne doesn't mean very highly transmissible.

But very highly transmissible like chickenpox, as the US Federal government is now describing the Delta variant, can only be explained by airborne transmission.

8/ Let's hope @WHO and @CDCgov start explaining transmission much more clearly than until now ("like smoke") and start forcefully recommending the real precautions that are needed for this highly transmissible virus

Tinyurl.com/faqs-aerosol