Thread by @jljcolorado

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh The experiments are very elegant, but I think the conclusions are overstretched. We have many superspreading events where we see shared-room airborne transmission (

https://twitter.com/jljcolorado/status/1479250147330637825

). And superspreading is very common (10% of infected --> 80-90% of new infected)

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh One issue is that they are not real respiratory aerosols but surrogates, and we know that the chemical composition of the droplets is very important (nytimes.com/interactive/20…).

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh Also this study suggests that infection should go down A LOT in dry periods. But e.g. we found in a study in Argentina (led by @apinedarojas and @KropffLab) that DRY periods were the ones that had the most infection.

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh @apinedarojas @KropffLab So I would argue that while the technique is amazing and has huge promise, the implications for the real world are not consistent with the epi data.

Would be curious to hear what others think, such as @linseymarr @VirusesImmunity @dylanhmorris

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh @apinedarojas @KropffLab @linseymarr @VirusesImmunity @dylanhmorris Also if infection was dominantly in close proximity, contact tracing (which assumes that) would be successful a large majority of the time. But there are many many cases where the source of infection is not clear:

usatoday.com/story/news/hea…

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh @apinedarojas @KropffLab @linseymarr @VirusesImmunity @dylanhmorris Unfortunately, I suspect that some people who have ignored almost every aerosol and airborne publication so far, may start quoting this paper...

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh @apinedarojas @KropffLab @linseymarr @VirusesImmunity @dylanhmorris There is also a possible issue with electric charge. To keep the aerosols suspended in their experiment, they need to be strongly charged (a electrical force pulls against gravity to keep them in place). But virus is susceptible to moderate elec. field:

dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467…

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh @apinedarojas @KropffLab @linseymarr @VirusesImmunity @dylanhmorris We've been discussing this electric field damage possibility today. The field in the trap is higher than the damage threshold in the Nature Comms. paper, so it is possible that some of the fast virus decay could be due to that.

Also field inside particle, stronger when dry

@JudeJack @trishgreenhalgh @apinedarojas @KropffLab @linseymarr @VirusesImmunity @dylanhmorris One other thought: even if preprint's results applied to the world (unclear at present), they are still compatible with superspreading (by shared room air doi.org/10.1021/acs.es…) driving much of the pandemic, as observed (nature.com/articles/d4158…):

https://twitter.com/PrasadKasibhat1/status/1480986421049450497