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Comment by apatters | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully this doesn't come across as pedantic but airborne transmission of COVID-19 is rare. Not ruled out completely but not the main way it is spread. In the initial Chinese study of 75K they said there was zero airborne transmission, I think they've found some exceptions since but it's not a common thing.

The WHO actually has a definition for this, when the droplets carrying the disease are <5μm they spread further and drift around for longer and that's when they start calling it airborne instead of droplets, COVID-19 is not in this category.

It's still good to wear a mask, I've lost count of the number of times over the years that some excited extrovert straight up spit in my face because they were worked up about something. lol.

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-t...

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If your source that airborne transmission is rare is the WHO, then all you have is a worthless source.

Recently I've read an interview with Drosten (the German virologist which came up with one of the Coronavirus tests) say that they're starting to see airborne transmission as an important transmission factor, maybe not a strong as droplets but comparable. This is especially the case in poorly ventilated spaces.

Key words: starting to see. Using that now is 20/20 hindsight.

Well, at least in the west we're starting to see it now, but we're late to the party compared to Asian countries.

We already knew for instance that SARS is transmitted through aerosols. Then a new thing comes up which is related to the above and is basically named SARS-2 and we forget about the aerosols and instead think we should wash our hands a lot. Words can't express how stupid this is.

I don't suppose you have links to any pre-prints or papers (hell even blog posts I guess) around this?

I don't have much, but maybe this contains a hint on the effects of mask usage on the German death growthrate. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157238440973015 (Masks about 25.4 - the effect should be visible around the middle of May)

After looking closely I found a small move into the wrong direction (maybe caused by something else?!??)

This is a pretty nice and very recent summary: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/02/scie...

There have been studies which have found that the virus can aerosolize, but it hasn't been established that infectious spread occurs this way. For example, it could be that viral concentrations in an aerosolized form aren't enough to cause an infection (or maybe they can get there, in prolonged close quarters, but by then you're being exposed multiple ways, so it doesn't matter or can't be determined). Either way it seems that the protocol for preventing transmission probably won't change much; the current protocols (including ubiquitous mask usage) have been enough for Korea, Taiwan etc. to control the spread.

It cannot be established without exposing healthy people to the virus, so it must be assumed.

I think it can change something: currently masks are seen as a necessary evil in stores and public transport. They could and should become ubiquitous.

As far as I have seen, currently people don't use masks for close contact talking situations (family, friends, work, chatting...).

With mask usage in Germany I see only negative trends in the growthrate of both case and death. I think to make them work something has to be changed.

There is a good chance that it now only works as a reverse placebo - it makes people feel confident and pushes them into more risky behaviour - most likely net negative.

Jena's claiming that they made a difference for them. We'll see what happens in Berlin and Munich after the protests...

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