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Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
@kprather88
Apr 20 • 10 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
I'm just re-read @WHO's recent report. As motivation, they state up front: ".....during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the terms ‘airborne’, ‘airborne transmission’ and ‘aerosol transmission’ were used in different ways by stakeholders in different" (1/4)
"scientific disciplines, which may have contributed to misleading information and confusion about how pathogens are transmitted in human populations."
My question which has not been addressed: (2/4)
Why did it take @WHO and ~100 experts 33 pages to conclude that SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory pathogens are airborne (replaced by they "travel through the air")? This could have been clarified & stated in 1 page max. More words lead to more confusion, not less. (3/4)?
They bury "airborne" (analogy: waterborne & foodborne). It appears that @WHO has worked really hard to avoid any acknowledgement of their central role in spreading misinfo regarding SARS-2 airborne transmission. I'm concerned as this does not bode well for future pandemics. (4/4)
What is even more crazy is they worked super hard to separate spray/droplets impacting directly from spreading "in the air" and inhalation--but they could not agree on the best method for protecting people from inhalation. Really? Masks? Filtration? (5/)
.@WHO saying infections can come from pathogens which "travel in air being inhaled" but they don't know how to protect people is equivalent to saying: We figured out there are pathogens in food & water but we don't know how to remove them before someone drinks or eats them!!(6/)
And why did @WHO not believe a major @theNASEM workshop in August 2020 was sufficient where all experts across the same disciplines agreed this virus (and likely others like influenza) is airborne?



(7/)nationalacademies.org/our-work/airbo…
And why ignore a peer reviewed Letter to Science in October 2020 entitled "Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2" which clearly describes the difs in exposure pathways for inhalation of aerosols that float like smoke vs droplets which rapidly drop?



(8/)science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
As many of us have said, this is not rocket science. The public can understand that aerosols float like smoke and can carry infectious viruses (i.e. SARS-2), but droplets drop. It is fixable via masks, filtration, and ventilation yet ironically(?) @WHO provides no solutions (9/).
@CorsIAQ

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More from @kprather88

Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
Apr 18
Oh @WHO-adding more confusion, not less. Why remove "aerosols" which means those particles that remain suspended in air (vs droplets that drop quickly) and can become inhaled?? My head hurts after reading this convoluted mess. (1/2)
Question for @who and those who remained to help on this report (I stepped away after seeing the unhelpful path it was going)--do you really believe "infectious respiratory particle" clarifies the main pathway to infection for COVID-19 and other respiratory particles??? (2/2).
Honestly? This feels like a massive cover-up for why @WHO did not state SARS-CoV-2 was airborne right up front which would have protected millions of people. They knew SARS-1 was airborne--why did they not apply the precautionary principle to SARS-2? (3/)
Read 7 tweets
Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
Apr 14
Trying to understand breakdowns in communication during the pandemic. We tried to write a publication with Saskia Popescu and Angie Rasmussen. They backed out when I refused to eliminate the word "airborne". Here are their exact words: "We believed that the goal of this" (1/)
project was to harmonize terminology across disciplines so that future communications could be clear and unified. However, we disagree that the word “airborne” should be part of this consensus nomenclature. While the word “airborne” has a broad definition (2/)
that means “borne by the air,” in reality this word has many discipline-specific connotations, & has a wide range of meanings to the general public in the context of infectious disease. Including such a vague and protean term does not unify terminology across disciplines, (3/)
Read 5 tweets
Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
Apr 14
Twitter was an incredible place to connect people globally to help get out the word on #COVIDIsAirborne. I met so many amazing people as a result. Great things happened based on these connections. My main goal has always been helping people understand how to....(1/10)
protect themselves when public health failed by denying airborne transmission was occurring. As I said on 6/1/20 in my interview with @DrLaPook , this is a fixable problem IF we acknowledge SARS-CoV-2 is airborne. Why not? SARS-1 was airborne. Precautionary principle? (2/)
At the heart of the medical field and public health, right? If there is any chance this virus could be airborne, we need to protect everyone (and we know how!). Yet, they didn't. This led to nearly 20M deaths and many more people whose lives have been harmed. To this day, (3/10)
Read 10 tweets
Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
Oct 19, 2023
This is an example of where CONTEXT should never be ignored. Note that his email to Dr. Fauci has TWO parts: 1)"Is this news" regarding a recent article on the potential for airborne? & 2) What should we be telling people about visiting the hospital if they are feeling sick? (1/)
Note that his question "What is the right message?" is in the middle of his second message (the focus of briefing the next day)--not #1. The fact is @DrLaPook was the FIRST chief medical correspondent on a major TV network to go against what public officials were saying. (2/)
He did this after he interviewed me about our @ScienceMagazine Perspective on 06/01/2020 describing the evidence supporting the fact that #COVIDIsAirborne. In fact, he went so far as to figure out how to post our full *uncut* interview on YouTube.



(3/)
Read 15 tweets
Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
Sep 17, 2023
Email I just sent to @CDCgov director after seeing their abysmal report on masking...

Hello,

I have spent the last few years helping people understand how to protect against the airborne nature of SARS-2. The pandemic should and could have ended long ago.  (1/)
Seeing CDC's latest article stating that surgical masks are as good as N95's (for an aerosol!) has made me question the motivation of CDC.  We drink 2L of water per day. We filter water to remove pathogens. We breathe 70,000 L of air per day--but we do not filter it. (2/)
Why are we are OK with inhaling pathogens from the air? Disease from all respiratory viruses could be stopped IF we filter our air-particularly indoor air where pathogens build up over time like cigarette smoke. You are on the national stage and can help get this message out.(3/)
Read 13 tweets
Kimberly Prather, Ph.D. Profile picture
Jun 27, 2023
Things are really not OK in the water or the air at Imperial Beach. State of emergency has been declared. Remember, you can pick the water you drink (or swim in) and the food you eat, but you cannot pick the air you breathe!



(1/4)nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san…
This is a serious environmental issue that shows you cannot hide waterborne pollution. Let's not forget these waterborne pollutants and pathogens can become aerosolized (and airborne) in the Imperial Beach region which exposes many more people.

(2/4)
Waterborne pathogens become aerosolized when they get trapped in the surf zone. Our group showed that up to 76% of the airborne bacteria came from sewage released into the ocean. Kids that breathe this stuff end up having more significant respiratory issues later in life.(3/4)
Read 4 tweets

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