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Lazarus Long Profile picture
@LazarusLong13
Sep 6, 2025 • 8 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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Remember THAT scene from Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman - "It's Airborne." ?

SARS-COV-2 is airborne via HVAC. Just like TB is - but it is way more contagious.

Still no panic, right? We know how to be safe.

Motel 6, or AirBNB - no shared HVAC, is best.

But HOW do we know?

🧵
A recent study in South Africa used Syrian Hamsters to duplicate the study that finally convinced everyone that TB was airborne.

The TB study is interesting because the military vets in VA hospitals were getting infected disproportionately.

So, they used HVAC ducting to In 1956, tuberculosis was a major global killer, and it disproportionately affected military veterans hospitalized in the Veterans Administration hospital system. Then, as now with COVID-19, epidemiologists held that tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases were spread by large infected droplets through person-to-person contact or contaminated surfaces. But Richard L. Riley, an expert on lung physiology at the then Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and his mentor, William F. Wells, had identified another possible mode of transmission.
connect a 6 room TB ward to 150 guinea pigs.

Of those 150, only 3 PER MONTH got infected.

Illustrating that TRANSMISSIBILITY is just a CLUE to if something is airborne.

Dr. Riley went on to patent UVC tech, and develop the Wells-Riley equation which is so important in airborne Atop the Baltimore VA Hospital, they constructed an air-tight closed ventilation system that connected a six-room tuberculosis ward to an exposure chamber with 150 guinea pigs. (Among rodent animal models, only guinea pigs could cough and sneeze, making them ideal for studying how respiratory diseases spread.) The guinea pigs were exposed to the infected air over a four-year period. A second group of 150 guinea pigs acted as controls: their air ducts were irradiated with UV-C lamps to kill TB bacilli.
In the test group, an average of three guinea pigs per month contracted TB, while no controls were infected. The experiment not only proved the airborne disease transmission of tuberculosis for the first time, but also quantified how many TB infections could be expected to result from exposure to a given number of patients over a defined interval.
The insights from the Baltimore VA Hospital studies were later used to develop the Wells-Riley equation, which quantifies infection risk and informs strategies to ensure staff and patient safety in contagious clinical environments. The model can also calculate the risks of transmission for airborne infections on planes and trains, in prisons, and in other public and institutional spaces. As chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine from 1960 to 1977, Riley warned that the danger of infection from airborne diseases was increasing as people spent more time indoors and air conditionin...
So, in South Africa they have a facility designed to study airborne very similar to the TB set up.

7 C0V1D patients' breath was routed to 216 Syrian hamsters.

58% of the hamsters got COVID antibodies in 21 days.

3 TB guinea pigs versus 100+ Syrian hamsters. Impressive! 1.Floorplan schematic of the South African Airborne Infections Research clinical facility. The facility consists of a 6-bed inpatient ward, toilet facilities, and day room, all serviced by an airtight ventilation system and manifolded to 2 animal rooms housing the sentinel animals. All exhaust from the clinical area is shunted so only a portion (approximately 10% of the total flow) enters the individually ventilated animal caging units, with the remaining 90% flow bypassing the caging but passing through the animal rooms. High-efficiency particulate air–filtered flow is supplied to the pati...
"The simplest interpretation of our results is that human-generated aerosols seroconverted 58% of exposed hamsters after traveling the 7-10 meter distance through the ventilation system of the AIR facility," the authors wrote. " The simplest interpretation of our results is that human-generated aerosols seroconverted 58% of exposed hamsters after traveling the 7-10 meter distance through the ventilation system of the AIR facility," the authors wrote. "This data indicates that exposure to exhaust air from the clinical ward containing individuals actively infectious for SARS-CoV-2 can result in transmission to susceptible animals."
About this study, Dr. Osterholm:

"This one was a classic study design, and we don't often say that in science," said Osterholm. "This study should put the nail in the coffin that SARS-CoV-2 is not transmitted by airborne routes."
CIDRAP
cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/using…

Study
academic.oup.com/ofid/article/1…

TB article
publichealth.jhu.edu/2020/the-exper…

TB study
sci.bban.top/pdf/10.1093/ox…

And yes, COVID is airborne.
One more thing....these patients were NOT prime infectious agents.

That happens BEFORE symptoms show up.

This thread is starting to go viral, so I am now anticipating some minimizers will attempt to criticize prior to reading the study.

Read the study. I have, and am ready.

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More from @LazarusLong13

Lazarus Long Profile picture
Dec 21, 2025
Oh, we are cooked. Just cooked.

"Brain Mitochondrial dysfunction, known for ~20 years is finally recognized as a central upstream driver of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), not just a downstream effect."

And SARS2's targeting of mitochondria is well-known.

Even in the brain.
/1 We identified dysregulation of mitochondrial and synaptic pathways in deep-layer excitatory neurons and upregulation of neuroinflammation in glia, consistent across both mRNA and protein. Remarkably, these alterations overlapped substantially with changes in age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Our work, combining multiple experimental and analytical methods, demonstrates the brain-wide impact of severe acute/subacute COVID-19, involving both cortical and subcortical regions, shedding light on potential therapeutic targets within pat...
@LauraMiers, in case you don't have it.

nature.com/articles/s4358…
@LauraMiers This is yet another reason why I N95.

Read 6 tweets
Lazarus Long Profile picture
Dec 17, 2025
@neiljshaw - — a few tips on your excellent article from a clean air advocate

"Consider Wearing a Mask" ?

No, "It is incredibly important to wear a well-fitting mask such as a N95, KN95, or KF94, for the best protection."

You two are doing Image
public health with this article.

Public health is best done with simple clear instructions.

No:
"These masks act as a barrier, reducing the spread of respiratory droplets when people talk, sneeze or cough."

Yes:
"These masks act as a HEPA air cleaner for the face,
cleaning the air of respiratory aerosols when people breathe, talk, sneeze or cough."

The barrier carries the idea of an immovable wall. Unable to be penetrated by things like oxygen and CO2 - which feeds antimaskers.

As an who debunks antimaskers, it is
Read 9 tweets
Lazarus Long Profile picture
Dec 11, 2025
As an anonymous clean air advocate, I've put a bit of thought into how to present, well, my expertise.

If someone were to say, "How do I know you know what you are talking about? Are you a doctor, or a virologist?"

To which, I would say...."No, but that's a good thing.
/1
I have focused on aerosol and masking science. Because it is those fields that give us the most information on how airborne particles, aerosols, get from Person A to Person B.

My expertise is derived from the great studies of Dr. Lindsay Marr, MacArthur recipient. Dr. Prather,
double National Academy member, Dr Milton, inventor of the Gesundheit, aerosol scientist and medical doctor; Dr Coleman whose group found that duckbill N95s captured 98% of emitted respiratory aerosols, and more excellent individual aerosol scientists.
Read 17 tweets
Lazarus Long Profile picture
Nov 22, 2025
I am not a fan of nasal sprays to stop The 'Vid, but I respect you having it as a layer in the Swiss cheese package.

But, some people have said they got bloody noses.

While at the ER yesterday, I picked up a pretty good at home technique. Let our $1,000 lay-out
Image
save you money.

Use tongue depressors to make a nose pinch clamp.

Leave it on for 30 minutes. Still a problem? Two sprays of Afrin, and re-apply nose pinch clamp. Wait 30 minutes.

Still a problem? Cotton balls sprayed with Afrin, clamp, 30 minutes

aliem.com/trick-of-trade…Image
Image
Image
Afrin- in generic form is $3.32 at Walmart.

Also, put a ice compress at the back of the neck, while doing the above.

"Cooling the nape of the neck is said to induce reflex constriction of the mucosal vessels of the nose"

✅ I agree with the authors.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1568881/Image
Image
Read 6 tweets
Lazarus Long Profile picture
Nov 13, 2025
A study demonstrated 100% PERFECT protection against SARS2 w/ readily available KF94s

✅ 181 HCWs
✅ 1 got SARS2 antibodies, but an epi investigation -> the infection happened elsewhere.
😡 The final checkpoint was March 2021. N95s only became freely available 1 month later
/1 FDA: N95 masks, now plentiful, should no longer be reused By MARTHA MENDOZA and JULIET LINDERMAN (Associated Press) April 23, 2021 12:44 p.m. Medical providers may soon return to using one medical N95 mask per patient, a practice that was suspended during the pandemic due to deadly supply shortages
What is described in the tweets
in the USA.

Korean study:
jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10…

This is in comparison to a Swiss study during the same rough time-frame. A study which did NOT show the same excellent results, but dismal results. Why?

The Swiss had the same sort of fit testing,

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35123572/ Results: We enrolled 3259 participants from nine healthcare institutions, whereof 716 (22%) preferentially used FFP2. Among these, 81/716 (11%) reported a SARS-CoV-2-positive swab, compared to 352/2543 (14%) surgical mask users; seroconversion was documented in 85/656 (13%) FFP2 and 426/2255 (19%) surgical mask users. Adjusted for baseline characteristics, COVID-19 exposure, and risk behaviour, FFP2 use was non-significantly associated with decreased risk for SARS-CoV-2-positive swab (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.8, 95% CI 0.6-1.0) and seroconversion (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.7, 95% CI ...
PPE monitoring.

What was the big difference?

Are N95s/FFP2s inferior to KF94s?

No, it was supply - and other reasons.
Read 10 tweets
Lazarus Long Profile picture
Nov 5, 2025
@tomhanks has just been savaged by people screaming masks don't work.

All hospitals have fiduciary responsibilities to not waste money.

Here is a light sampling of hospitals mandating masks because they work.

Proving that not only do masks work, but mask mandates work.

Thread
Health PEI
Start/End: October 14, 2025 , How many hospitals: 7, employee count: 4,967,

Public hospital,

City: Various (e.g., Charlottetown, Summerside), Province: Prince Edward Island, Country: Canada, full url: princeedwardisland.ca/en/news/health…
Horizon Health Network
Start/End: September 3, 2025 How many hospitals: 12, employee count: 15,000, public or private:

Public hospital.

City: Various (e.g., Saint John, Fredericton),
Province: New Brunswick,
Country: Canada horizonnb.ca/coronavirus-co…
Read 70 tweets

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