📍The coronavirus is airborne. Very airborne. Even if you don’t see anyone—doesn’t mean the aerosols aren’t in the air. WATCH📺
➡️ you need high quality N95 / KN95 / KF94 / FFP2/ FFP3 masks.
➡️ also please ventilate, get HEPA filters, get upper room UV.
2) VENTILATION is key. Both ventilation and masks needed to reduce risk indoors. But most buildings not ventilated well enough.
3) AEROSOLS ARE AIRBORNE.
“Until we recognise that #COVID19 is airborne we are setting ourselves up for repeated failure”
4) How is aerosol different from large droplets? aerosol study indicates that coronavirus is persistent and stable for many hours. Typical air exchange every 20 min to 4 hrs, depending on ventilation. #COVID19
5) Now that aerosol transmission of the coronavirus is established, we need to disperse aerosols quickly. Key is ventilation. 🇯🇵 assumed it was airborne from the beginning. Here is how to ventilate your school classrooms if unable to open window. #COVID19
6) One neat trick about masks… they are AGNOSTIC / DON’T CARE about which variant it is! #Omicron resilient! Cool eh? #MaskUp
7) not only is it airborne, but #Omicron also is 70x faster in viral replication in your windpipe! Seriously - any small dose could yield a much faster infection. 👇
8) Lots of blame to go around, but the IPC department of the WHO deserves a lot of blame according to aerosol expert @jljcolorado below 👇 who.int/teams/integrat…
9) Also, while airplanes do have good HEPA filters — they aren’t running when parked at the gate! And if you know how long delays and boarding time can be, I think this is a serious issue. People need to definitely masks on planes.
10) AIRBORNE transmission in a hotel — look 👀 how the virus floated across the hallways to two other rooms and cross infected them without any direct contact. We only know about it because of security cameras recoding brief door openings—that carried an wind 💨 draft. 👇
⚠️PFAS IS BACK—recall the EPA plan to ban dangerous forever chemicals from drinking water ➡️Well, Trump WH just cancelled it… once again allowing big corporations to discharge PFAS into rivers. PFAS cause cancers & many diseases. Does this make American healthy again?
2) “There really isn’t a system within the human body that isn’t affected by PFAS. They are toxic in many ways, but they’re also very long-lived. They’re designed not to break down in the environment or not to break down to heat and chemical stress.” michiganpublic.org/politics-gover…
3) CDC also just got banned from seeking any advice or input from the WHO — CDC can’t communicate or even enter any WHO building anymore. Perfect way to politically isolate CDC from outside science.
NEW—CDC officially ordered by Trump WH to cease working with the @WHO, effective immediately. This is the first time in almost 77 years since WHO’s founding after World War 2. This is a dark day.
2) the memo said the stop-work policy applied to “all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means — in person or virtual.”
3) It also says @CDCgov staff are not allowed to visit @WHO offices.
CDC ordered to stop working with WHO immediately, upending expectations of an extended withdrawal
🛑JUST CANCELLED—Trump HHS has just cancelled key meetings of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) & CDC’s Environmental Public Health Threats meeting—➡️all because of Trump WH’s new blackout of all HHS external comms. My god.
2) Trump WH is literally blocking all of this… including all CDC science reports and all FDA public alerts!
NEW—Trump WH has blocked all CDC science reports (eg MMWR) & suspended all CDC / FDA / NIH external communications of all HHS agencies until further notice... including all FDA & CDC Health Alert warnings & all social media. Public health be damned.
⚠️BREAKING—ICU Hospitalized human bird flu case in Canada now officially confirmed as H5N1. Worse, it is the same 2.3.4.4b virus clade (variant group) as the one found in BC🇨🇦 poultry and in Washington state🇺🇸! The hospitalized teenager (with no pre existing conditions) had no animal contact, does not live on farm, had “deterioration quite rapid” and now critical in ICU with ARDS. Canada officials says infectious period is 2 days **prior to symptoms** (ie asymptomatic transmission) and infectious up to 10 days.
2) Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg confirmed that the individual has avian influenza H5N1 canada.ca/en/public-heal…
3) details…
⚠️BAD UPDATE—BIRD FLU HOSPITALIZATION IN CANADIAN TEEN
Summary 🧵 of the live press conference with Canada’s British Columbia health officer.
📌The teen is in intensive care.
📌Condition is ARDS
📌Teen was healthy prior; no underlying conditions