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Maarten De Cock Profile picture
@mdc_martinus
Nov 1, 2023 • 13 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
Published in @TheLancet on January 24, 2020 (!)

Chinese scientists warned the world:
👉“Airborne precautions..are strongly recommended”

The @WHO refused to do this & also ignored the letter👇from @GlobalNursesU to @DrTedros (Jan. 30, 2020) asking @WHO for airborne precautions. Image
Source: thelancet.com/journals/lance…
On the same day, January 24, the publication day of this important warning from Chinese scientists to take airborne precautions, @DrMikeRyan sends a message to the @WHO staff stressing that this is contact/droplet transmission “until the data says otherwise”.
@DrMikeRyan @WHO Why this could happen?…
@DrMikeRyan @WHO Even earlier…

CDC document, JANUARY 6, 2020.
“For Internal Use Only/Not For Distribution”

👉 “Health experts are locally recommending that citizens pay attention to maintaining indoor air circulation [ventilation], avoid closed and airless..crowded places, and wear masks…” Image
An early warning on airborne, asymptomatic transmission and superspreading events was published in @Time on JANUARY 30, 2020.

👉

It also features a video with Prof. Yuen👇.

Now compare this to @WHO's “let's not overreact”/“not airborne” misinformation… time.com/5774366/how-co…
@TIME @WHO From an email exchange with CDC people on January 22, 2020. The questions from a clinical webinar make clear that they at least assumed the new coronavirus was airborne.

- “Are the recommended precautions Airborne or Droplet?”
- “Airborne” Image
@TIME @WHO Since this is turning into an “Airborne in January 2020” thread, I’ll add this also:
@TIME @WHO 25 January, 2020.

South China Morning Post:

“Call for preparedness against airborne transmission including fitted respirators…”

web.archive.org/web/2020012508…Image
@TIME @WHO
@TIME @WHO x.com/mdc_martinus/s… x.com/mdc_martinus/s…
@TIME @WHO x.com/mdc_martinus/s… x.com/mdc_martinus/s…
@TIME @WHO @threadreaderapp unroll

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More from @mdc_martinus

Maarten De Cock Profile picture
Oct 20, 2024
44 aircrew flew while infectious with mpox on 177 domestic flights and 70 U.S.-bound international flights.

“CDC did not include passengers in the aircraft contact definition for aircrew with mpox; therefore, secondary cases among passengers may have also been missed.” Image
Image
“21% [of the aircrew infectious with mpox] reported having traveled with respiratory symptoms which potentially pose a greater risk for transmission…”

Source: academic.oup.com/jtm/advance-ar…
(Correction. Second image should have been this👇)

“…outcome reports for contact investigations were unavailable for all 44 aircrew members (…) therefore, secondary cases may have been unreported and missed.” Image
Read 4 tweets
Maarten De Cock Profile picture
May 13, 2024
New paper by @linseymarr & @Jon_Samet

“One..key lesson learned from the COVID19 pandemic became clear..: the need to embrace the management of indoor air as a primary tool for controlling transmission of respiratory pathogens..through ventilation, filtration and disinfection.”🧵 Image
“Studies in schools have illustrated that mitigations aimed at removing virus from the air were associated with reduced transmission of COVID-19.” Image
“The evidence accumulated since the pandemic's start is substantial. Laboratory, observational, and modeling studies are coherent in supporting strategies-ventilation, filtration, disinfection, and masking for reducing the amount of pathogens in indoor air.” Image
Read 7 tweets
Maarten De Cock Profile picture
May 10, 2024
“Strong and consistent evidence for a predominantly airborne mode of transmission emerged early in the pandemic but was denied or downplayed by WHO and national public health bodies for years.”
1/4

Image
Image
“…dominant voices in the infection prevention and control community did not grasp the basics of airborne transmission and failed to listen to people who did.”
2/4
“To have these new terms be taken up by various institutions and scholars (…) will be complex and unrealistic, requiring extensive retraining and the rewriting of hundreds of documents. Pragmatically, a new set of terms will add to existing confusion, not reduce it.”
3/4
Read 4 tweets
Maarten De Cock Profile picture
May 7, 2024
At the time when @WHO was assuring the world: “COVID-19 is NOT airborne”…

…a ‘return to office’-document for WHO staff in Geneva stated:

Ventilation system has been modified
• increased volume of external air
• no recycling of air
• filters rated as high as we can go…

🤔 Image
Source: ficsa.org/fileadmin/user…
I digged a little further in this matter, and look what I found:
Read 5 tweets
Maarten De Cock Profile picture
Apr 28, 2024
That @WHO press conference on the terminology of airborne transmission was apparently not something journalists were very interested in, to say the least…
"Handwashing..was important in SARS-CoV-2".

One of the examples during this press conference which makes clear that the @WHO will never admit that they were responsible for public health misinformation (“NOT airborne”) with disastrous consequences, let alone apologise for it.
Wait… what!??

“…influenza seemed most likely to guide us in terms of COVID..and the strongest evidence from influenza at that time was felt to be the washing of hands…”

And then:
“Actually, I think the advice changed pretty rapidly, certainly at @WHO…”

🤷‍♂️
Read 7 tweets
Maarten De Cock Profile picture
Apr 22, 2024
“…when sciences evolves, you have to change your advice.”

Well, @JeremyFarrar, then show us the evolving science that explains this change:

👉Febr. 2020: “Airborne… the pattern is clear”(@LawrenceGostin, @WHO Director)

👉March 2020: “FACT: COVID-19 is NOT airborne”
Image
FACT: this was NOT about science. It was about politics, PPE shortages and the Infection Prevention and Control leaders trying to prevent at all costs and AGAINST all scientific evidence, the recommendation of airborne precautions in hospitals.
Besides, if it was all just a matter of changing advice according to "evolving science", what then was @WHO’s "very big mistake" leading to the loss of “an enormous number of lives”, as you yourself pointed out before becoming WHO's Chief Scientist?
Read 5 tweets

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