http://archive.is/PBxkM

https://www.neha.org/sites/default/files/jeh/JEH6.18-Feature-The-Spread-of-a-Norovirus-Surrogate.pdf

The fluid dynamics of real-life situations, where AC vents or breezes through open windows or people moving through a room create large air movements, seem to be contributing to spreading aerosols or larger droplets much further than earlier advice claimed. Those early claims were based on older studies into the physics of sneezing and coughing and such, done in still air. Real life air movement was explicitly excluded fro or licking doorknobsm those study conditions, and they were conducted with less sensitive instruments than the very recent pandemic studies have used.

Who doesn’t know what it feels like to sit downwind of an AC vent, with tables of people between you and the vent? Who doesn’t know that you can smell the scents from those tables, and (when smoking was allowed) see the smoke from those tables drift across your own table – so why wouldn’t infectious bits also move with the air? Those normal observations should incline the scientifically minded to a) assume that disease transmission of a virus which attacks the upper respiratory system was very possible via air-carried bits, and b) any air-carried bits would be wafted fairly long distances by the air movement and c) work to get the funding to test whether or not those things which seemed likely were true or not.

Why are churches and loud bars such major venues for spreading SARS-CoV-2 infection? Is it likely to be people licking other people? Is it likely to be people both spraying stuff from their orifices and breathing in what other people have sprayed? Depending on the venue, both may be important. Claiming that breathing in virus particles in floating gobbets of any size will only “rarely” spread infection just encourages the idiots who want to go to church and sing or go to loud bars and hang out and shout at each other over the loud music.

And do we know yet how many virus particles you have to take in before your initial immune response is overwhelmed? No, we don’t. Some diseases take only a few, some take a lot more. We do know SARS-CoV-2 is very infectious. Is it likely that you need a big dose of virus particles to get infected?

So yes, there are some good explanations of technical terms and good warnings about making assumptions based on studies done on other diseases in this post. But Greg then seems to make too many assumptions based on studies done on other diseases, and to be too dismissive of the mounting evidence for air-spread SARS-CoV-2 infections, in his conclusion that air-carried transmission is “rare”.

I admit to thinking that the the term “airborne” meant something less precise that what Greg explained it to mean. As a geologist and as someone who spent some time in the military, the meanings with which I was familiar were quite different.

I also taught science for a few decades and I think that most anyone who has taught science and tried to understand the misunderstandings and lack of understandings by students has considered the role of scientists in sewing confusion by developing scientific terms by simply redefining words used in ordinary language. Words such as theory, mineral, hardness, stress, force, work, power, speed, velocity, and acceleration are used by scientists in a much more rigorous (nuanced, nitpicky) way than most people use those words.

Bernard J.

And stop being a prat.

You mean like Texas governor Greg Abbott:

Texas has become one of the US’s new coronavirus hotspots, with new confirmed cases surging to around 14% of the country’s total, when measured by a seven-day average. Elective surgeries were paused this week as the state tries to free up hospital beds for increasing numbers of Covid-19 patients.

Source

Meanwhile in my neck of the woods (Southern Hampshire, England) following on from the opening of pubs three schools have had to close.

MikeN, we all know here about your wretched views, but could you try and be a little less hypocritical?

That’s not all Fauci said. Nor the Surgeon General.

“Later that message changed as more was learned about the spread of the virus, and wearing a mask was the message. ”
Somehow Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore learned about the spread of the virus sooner than Fauci.

Surgeon General:
“STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
He could have just left out that half sentence.

The initial statements about masks were internally consistent. They were thought to work, but they were prioritizing their use.

Now they are not prioritizing their use.

But there was no sense of airborne transmission then, and THIS IMPORTANT POINT IS MADE IN THE POST: The possibility of airborne DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE MAJOR FORM OF TRANSMISION IS NO LONGER WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WAS. It still is, nothing has changed. Masks still help with that (and super masks would help with airborne transmission as well).