Thread by @LazarusLong13

@MeganMolteni and @HelenBranswell -This is an excellent article, yet science is not fixed, and there are other ways of interpreting the data.

I hope to convince you we need more data.

Because #MonkeypoxisAirborne - just not very transmissible yet. No matter the vector.

https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1557369161843621889

Taking a look at the reasoning for it not being airborne in the article.

Household attack rate for Monkeypox looks like about 8% looking at the quote below.

nCov-19 initial estimates were 3 to 10%. It was argued not airborne for the same reason.
who.int/docs/default-s…

Yet, I found this 50% attack rate easily in literature.

"The household attack rate (i.e., rate of persons living with an infected person that develop symptoms of MPXV infection) was 50%. "

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Next - swabs were done with MPX - they directly swabbed the lesions (full of virii) and swabbed the throat.

Were there any lesions in the throat? We
don't know. But we do know that lesions in the throat were not swabbed, or they would have said that.
thelancet.com/action/showPdf…

It would be like swabbing the skin 6 inches from the lesion. It would test positive - but it's not really a very good comparison.

In addition, aerosols do not need to be in large amounts. For example, it takes far less of aerosolized medicine than other forms.

The UK Human Challenge for CoVid declined to test aerosolized SARS-COV-2 for safety reasons.

And that's it, in terms of ruling out airborne.

So, let's take a look at what else we do know.

We do know that infection via fomites is very rare.

From the article:
"Only about 0.2% of people have caught the virus through contact with contaminated material..."

worldhealthorg.shinyapps.io/mpx_global/

Section 3.3.3 - I'm assuming they downloaded the csv and calculated it.

At this point, you are jumping up and down in your chair pointing at that big red bar across the top. Sexual transmission.

Seems like a foregone conclusion, right? Well...

Per the article - "But within a sexual encounter, multiple mechanisms for transmissions are possible — contact with lesions, exchange of bodily fluids, inhalation of respiratory droplets — and disentangling them is difficult. "

And indeed it truly is difficult to disentangle.

During one hour of sex, about 2000 breaths would be exchanged between two tennis ball court-sized sets of lungs.

Much less the multiple sets of lungs at the 2 big sex festivals that were the source of much of the initial explosion of cases. Those locations had bad ventilation.

So, hard to disentangle, indeed.

Especially given that viable virus was harvested from the air in the UK.

And even more so given this latest study:
UK office worker in an office where everyone masks. She goes in for one day. She has NO lesions.

https://twitter.com/LazarusLong13/status/1558200742971789312?s=20&t=7XYuwVyHqp3gMD4_f6kknA

She goes home. During that day, in an office with no other cases, she contaminates it enough that it has to be decontaminated.

The only source of MPX in that office? Her respiratory system.

And she was wearing a surgical mask that provides roughly 42% source control.

The importance of that? It eliminates droplets.

Can't be fomites because she was the source. Can't be lesions, because she had none. Can't be droplets, because she had on a surgical mask.

The only possible explanation? Aerosols.

Hopefully, @MeganMolteni and @HelenBranswell

you are still with me, as I am not trying to attack, but trying to persuade you that more data is needed.

I'm worried that we are once again drawing conclusions before conclusion can be drawn.

Many of the infected have shown examples of localized infection. Others have shown

examples of generalized infections. Starts infecting the respiratory system, goes to the lymphatic system, and ends up going to the skin (and all the other usual organs).

When we take a look at the questions being asked by the CDC, we can see that they very much focus on sexual

questions. Not on determining if aerosols are part of the transmission equation.

Below I show the disregard of airborne transmission by the CDC.

https://twitter.com/LazarusLong13/status/1557537226254258177?s=20&t=7XYuwVyHqp3gMD4_f6kknA

Finally - something to consider. Yes, MSM is the biggest number of cases.

But isn't that preselecting as well? The gay community is very much aware of monkeypox. They are also very comfortable going to clinics.

On the other hands, heterosexual cisgender men and women have

been told it's a "gay disease," and so are less likely to seek out testing and treatment.

This is not the first time this has happened. Most have forgotten about the 2008 drug-resistant MRSA outbreak. It was labelled, too.

nytimes.com/2008/01/15/hea…

So, what I am asking is for more questions to be added to the form being used by the CDC to gather data.

Those being asked the questions are already being asked some very invasive questions.

What would it hurt to ask - "Did you touch them or just talk? If talk, how

many minutes did you talk to them? If talk, how close were you to them in feet? (10 feet, 9 feet, etc).

What is the harm to once and for all eliminating this concern? Because-right now, my community? The immunocompromised community? We are very concerned - and we can see

the CDC is not asking the right questions to alleviate that concern.

Thank you very much for your time - no matter the response.

(Below are some of those sexual questions that are being asked:

https://twitter.com/LazarusLong13/status/1557775403552350208?s=20&t=7XYuwVyHqp3gMD4_f6kknA