popsci.com/health/survivo… A thread on long term impacts of polio for the survivors.
TLDR: Post polio syndrome warns us of what post covid/long covid could look like in the years to come. 1/ Polio, a dreaded disease during the 1940s, 1950s is a distant memory for most of us now. "By the 1940s and early 50s, the polio terror was killing or paralyzing more than a half million people globally each year."
2/

#PollensAreAirborne
Average pollen size 25 microns, i.e., about 125 times larger than respiratory aerosols carrying pathogens. He investigated over 80 types of pollens, concluding grasses caused the greatest reaction. He was in correspondence with Darwin:
Darwin asked if there is a difference between plants that pollinate by wind and those that pollinate by insects.

A 🧵on mitigating against heatstrokes, especially during heatwaves but generically, during the entirety of summers.
This is based on a bit of my experience of 25+ Indian summers and a bit of my research background 1/ Locations previously unacquainted with hot summers now have to face them. And in the tropics, you have longer periods of high temperatures. Both things can be scary when it comes to a heat stroke. 2/

[nature.com/articles/d4158…](nature.com/articles/d4158…)

****Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne****
In short: hubris, conservative thinking, group thinking, and the group defending its own. A 🧵 on the Nature article 1/ 2. WHO categorically tweeted in March 2020, “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” - shouting out how sure they were about the statement

The obsession with returning to "normal" has more to do with collective inertia than any love for "normalcy".
What was so special about the normal we want to return to? And in our fetish for a return, we missed so many opportunities of making things better. A dynamic thread 🧵1/ 2/ Flushing toilets is a significant aerosol generating process. The pandemic should have opened our eyes to this. Just put the lid down when flushing, even at your own home. Even if those are your germs, do you really want them all through the home?
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toil…

One more attempt at making a visual engagement for emphasizing the importance of better masks. This effort was led and culminated by @Its_Airborne - I am too lazy otherwise.
What started with a thread, is now interactive:
bettermasks.its-airborne.org This is a schema intended for two purposes -
1) To give a visual depiction of how much better respirators can be than cloth or surgical masks due to their better fit and filtration.

On reaerosolization of stuff from surface of FFPs/N95s
(Stuff being pathogens) in hopital settings
Short thread - sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
For HCWs, the sampled masks did not show presence of SARS-CoV-2 (both inside and outside).
For infected patients, virus detected almost solely on the inside.

Let me tell you how "excess deaths" sound in everyday life:
"You know that home around the corner with a name plate of 'XX'?"
"Yes."
"It was named after the lady 'XX'. She passed away last month."
"Covid?"
"Not sure. She might have had Covid some time back" "You remember your father's colleague 'YY'?"
"Yep, very well. What happened now?"
"He passed away about a week back. Heart failure."
"Ooh, that's sad."
"Oh yes, he had Covid a couple months back, recovered from that but now had a cardiac arrest."

#Covid_19 and #Karma
Let me describe to you the concept of #Karma, as per Hindu philosophy, using Covid - 🧵 1/ 2) Karma is not as simple as "as you sow, so you reap". Karma is a lot about causality, along with chaos. Most importantly, actions have consequences.

This is a false dichotomy.
Once you accept the possibility of aerosolized transmission/transmission by inhalation, you must strive for the highest grade of respiratory protection 1/ How to achieve that is a valid question considering we had been leaving in a droplet dogma world for long and respiratory protection has not seen as much innovation as it should have. 2/

A quiet inclusion that #Covid19 is #airborne and trying to move on is not enough. It is okay to admit you were wrong if you want people to trust you ever again. Not doing so leads to unfair situations 1/ I am focusing on one such situation here that I shall refer to as droplet masking vs aerosol masking 2/

A short thread explaining #airborne precautions for a #layered approach of mitigation against #COVID19
Keep in mind that multiple layers is a key need. The more layers, the lower your risk 1/ 2) Source elimination is always the first step we think of when dealing with an #airborne problem - no risk without an actual source in the space.
Again, these steps need not be perfect, but they reduce the chances of an infectious person being in the room.

Dose makes the risk - more the inhaled dose, more the risk of infection. These are screenshots of a slide deck made with pointers from @CorsIAQ and @ayushumd
A 🧵 1/ 2) Risk of infection can be related to the inhaled dose. This helps to understand mitigation measures at a very simple and basic level. The slides were intended for high school students

A few days back, I posted this graphic that created quite some interest and confusion too. So, trying to put it together in more than 240 characters now - 🧵 1/ 2) The original idea came from ACGIH, trying to stress the point that essential worker, beyond healthcare, also need better masks, better respiratory protection.

acgih.org/covid-19-fact-…

Oh, thank you for disillusioning us. I thought modern medicine already had solved the problem of immortality and all of us were just too smug to consider it 1/

https://twitter.com/rwjdingwall/status/1410177465029365768

The problem with statements like this is they want to reduce medicine into disease care and forget about health care. 2/

Few days back, came across the thought that future generations will be surprised that we could manage a vaccine for a pandemic so quickly and yet could not manage equitable distribution for the vaccine. A 🧵 on potentially what else about the pandemic would surprise 1/ 2) That it took so long for public health bodies to accept the fact that a respiratory tract infection, that can be exhaled by infected individuals, can also be inhaled by vulnerable individuals.

The word Swaraj is a sacred word, a Vedic word, meaning self-rule and self-restraint, and not freedom from all restraint... - M K Gandhi
"Freedom" should mean freedom to wear a mask to protect the society you are part of "Freedom" should mean the self-restraint to stay indoors if you do not need to go out

I will tell you the story of an open #window which did not work, from personal experience. Short 🧵on prescriptive vs performance based guidance 1/ 2) Over the past 8-10 months, I have force-fed family members and close friends my opinion on how #COVID19 is #Airborne and so irrespective of govt. or public health bodies guidance, they are more or less aware of preventive measures that could work.

The Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India
@PrinSciAdvGoI came out with guidelines on mitigation yesterday. A short 🧵delving further into them 1/

https://twitter.com/PrinSciAdvOff/status/1395243482541813762

2) This is not the first mention of ventilation related guidance from Govt. of India
mohfw.gov.in/pdf/SOPonpreve…

A quick 🧵 highlighting some points from the brilliant @TheLancet article authored by @trishgreenhalgh @jljcolorado @kprather88 @zeynep @DFisman @chipatucsd 1/ 2) This will be biased since I admire and respect the authors - so that is my admission.

Situational #Airborne is not a real thing if the so-called situations are the norm! A 🧵 of these situations, likely to contain many places or situations you too frequent 1/ 2) In a long bus journey - quite normal for many people commuting between home and work places

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…