“ While it may seem obvious, and some researchers have pushed for this acknowledgment for more than a decade, an alternative dogma persisted — which kept health authorities from saying that Covid was airborne for many months into the pandemic.
Specifically, they relied on a traditional notion that respiratory viruses spread mainly through droplets spewed out of an infected person’s nose or mouth. These droplets infect others by landing directly in their mouth, nose, or eyes — or they get carried into these orifices on droplet-contaminated fingers. Although these routes of transmission still happen, particularly among young children, experts have concluded that many respiratory infections spread as people simply breathe in virus-laden air.
“This is a complete U-turn,” said Dr. Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who advised the WHO on the report. He also helped the agency create an online tool to assess the risk of airborne transmission indoors.
Peg Seminario, an occupational health and safety specialist in Bethesda, Maryland, welcomed the shift after years of resistance from health authorities. “The dogma that droplets are a major mode of transmission is the ‘flat Earth’ position now,” she said. “Hurray! We are finally recognizing that the world is round.”
The change puts fresh emphasis on the need to improve ventilation indoors and stockpile quality face masks before the next airborne disease explodes. Far from a remote possibility, measles is on the rise this year and the H5N1 bird flu is spreading among cattle in several states. Scientists worry that as the H5N1 virus spends more time in mammals, it could evolve to more easily infect people and spread among them through the air.
Traditional beliefs on droplet transmission help explain why the WHO and the CDC focused so acutely on hand-washing and surface-cleaning at the beginning of the pandemic. Such advice overwhelmed recommendations for N95 masks that filter out most virus-laden particles suspended in the air. Employers denied many health care workers access to N95s, insisting that only those routinely working within feet of Covid patients needed them. More than 3,600 health care workers died in the first year of the pandemic, many due to a lack of protection.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/who-airborne-disease-cdc-updated-guidelines-rcna149843
That is why good masks work. I still wear one indoors in public places, with few exemptions and I do travel and go around and everywhere..I did get Covid back last September in my own house as I had a couple come over for dinner who thought they had “allergies” but were full of virus, no masks of course for 4 hours indoors, in 36 hours I started coughing. They called the next morning to say they were positive after a rough night. Wife got sick the day after me. Paxlovid killed my high fever in a day, two days later when I started taking it. Gone. In 7 days I was negative, wife in 8. We did not have and haven’t got the booster last September that we were due to get at that time as the last one was almost a year old so few antibodies left. Mask had worked all these years, and still does.
Ventilation is key. A good mask is key indoors when shit is happening. Survival of the fittest.
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