Tag: aerosol

Source:  US CDC. I added the red lines.

The A-words would be aerosol and airborne.  The difference being that, up to this time, the CDC had only said COVID-19 was spread by droplets.  Droplets are (conventionally) larger than 5 microns, rapidly fall out of the air (so-called “ballistic trajectory”),  and are the basis for our 6′ social distancing rule.  By contrast, aerosols are small (under 5 microns), can hang in the air for a long time, can travel far more than 6′, and can be inhaled.

The news here isn’t that aerosol transmission matters.  The news is that, as of last Friday, the CDC is (finally) explicitly saying that.  And that, in turn, has a lot of implications for Federal, state, and local policies for dealing with COVID-19.

You can read some news writeups at MSN, or CNN.  Someone in those organizations must have been keeping an eye out for this, because I don’t see this being reported elsewhere.  Yet. Continue reading Post #820: The CDC finally says the A-words.

If you’ve been reading this website, you know that I have harped on the issue of airborne (aerosol) spread of coronavirus.  In particular, I’ve pointed out how strong the evidence of it is, how important it is for determining how best to protect yourself.

 

And I have pointed out how ridiculously inconsistent the CDC’s guidance and analysis of events is, because they apparently cannot say the words “airborne” or “aerosol” in communications to the public.  I went so far as to speculate on why the CDC’s position is so jumbled (Post #771), and to point out how the CDC has to tie itself in knots to avoid referencing airborne transmission (Post #768).

Now it turns out that top US officials, starting with the President, have known that the coronavirus was airborne all along.

Reporting right now is focused on the President.  But I think that mainstream news is missing the big story here.  I mean, Trump lied, and people think that’s news?

What about the CDC?

We now know that top US officials were completely aware of aerosol (airborne) transmission of COVID-19 from the beginning.  And yet, the CDC guidance to citizens completely ignored aerosol spread. And continues to ignore it. 

The big stories are a) how did that happen, and b) why is that still happening right now.

Recall that the initial CDC guidance said that nobody needed to wear a mask, as long as we were all “social distancing”. That’s because they assured us that droplet transmission” was how COVID-19 was being spread. (Droplets differ from aerosols in that they fall quickly to the ground, and so do not float on air currents.)

The CDC still says that COVID-19 is spread by droplet transmission, and nowhere in their guidance to citizens do they mention aerosol (airborne) transmission.

If that is the result of political pressure, then that is the big story here.

Trump lied to the American public. Dog bites man. But if Trump’s minions forced the CDC to lie to the American public, and we had people die based on that purposefully incomplete advice? That’s the real story that we need to see some reporting on.