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CDC Finally Figures Out that COVID-10 Can Spread Via Tiny Air Particles
Related: ethics in medicine, gear, gears of the machine, health, risk assessment, SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19 aka Coronavirus
Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it — Lloyd Chambers. That applies to climate science, COVID-19, and Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Finally the CDC has grudgingly codified what was obvious to any person of ordinary intelligence: a highly transmissable virus almost by definition must be airborne*. This is why back in January I recommended N100 masks to my readers.
We might never know what the real deal is on transmissibility is, since it is a Real World thing that no laboratory test will ever replicate properly. So the science is not settled on the degree to which transmission through the air matters, but it clearly is to some degree and maybe far more than the CDC is willing to consider, since the Real World is hard to study sometimes.
Even from a risk management perspective masks made sense from day one. You don’t wait for proof when the risk assessment decision is so clear—unless you are an idiot (medical expert). So we were lied to by the CDC, WHO, Surgeon General, etc. Now people get assaulted or arrested in some cases for not wearing a mask that still won’t protect the wearer**. And of course, masks don’t matter if your Cause is Just.
To not understand basic risk management repudiates the CDC or WHO or Surgeon General as credible entities. It is also true, and not a contradiction, to say that excessive emphasis on masks is just as idiotic and heavy-handed—and politicized.
The mantra of “trust the experts, trust the science, trust the data” is political posturing designed to stifle rational debate. Experts do NOT agree about COVID-19, a consensus is never science and the data about COVID-19 is GIGO—dubious at best even for the alleged COVID-19 death count.
* In a modern society, where we can mostly rely on non-contaminated water and similar.
** I can wear a glasses-foging leaky surgical mask or a filthy bandana at a health care facility where even the nurses have gaping holes in their mask-fit (personal experience!). BUT I am precluded from protecting myself with a valved N95 or N100 mask—the sign at the door says so! Yet if everyone had a valved N95 or N100 mask to protect themselves, this whole pandemic could have been shut down in March. If all at risk people had had such self-protecting masks, maybe the death count would have been 10% as much?! That is the sordid history of what experts have done to the public.
WSJ: CDC Acknowledges Covid-19 Can Spread Via Tiny Air Particles
[emphasis added, excerpts from full interview]
The agency updates guidelines after previously deleting language on airborne particles; virus can spread to people more than 6 feet away.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said tiny particles that linger in the air can spread the coronavirus, revising its guidelines on the matter just a few weeks after the health agency had acknowledged a role for the particles and then abruptly removed it.
The guidelines on how the coronavirus spreads were initially updated last month to acknowledge a role, and possibly the primary one, played by tiny aerosol particles in spreading the virus. But the agency removed the changes only days later, saying a draft version of the proposed changes had been posted in error.
WIND: when experts lie to the public, reverse themselves, and take 9 months to figure out the obvious, anyone gullible enough to parrot “listen to the experts” and “follow the science” should stop embarrasing themselves in public with their ignorance of what has actually transpired.
In particular, the suppression of debate and viewpoints means that the so-called experts are more about politics than science and cannot be trusted to tell us anything credible. Not so long as disagreements mean intimidation and character assassination for raising extremely important issues that can save many lives.
Read the article and then realize that the utterly idiotic closures of outdoor recreation areas is exactly the OPPOSITE of the totalitarian tactics in too many states. Not to mention that health improves with exercise and sunlight.
In its new guidelines, the CDC acknowledged the need to ensure proper ventilation of indoor spaces, saying that “being outdoors and in spaces with good ventilation reduces the risk of exposure to infectious respiratory droplets.”
We’re supposed to trust confused experts?
The latest problem with the CDC’s guidelines stemmed from confusion inside the agency, not interference from the White House or the Health and Human Services department, people familiar with the matter said.
