Doug64 wrote:You do understand the difference between droplet- and aerosol-spread disease, right? The difference is why all those plastic shields businesses have put up might be worse than useless--while they protect against droplets just fine, they also interfere with air circulation and so can cause exposure to the aerosol-carried virus to be increased. And guess what is the the primary means of spread for the Wuhan virus is?
Dude, your ass is very eloquent, you seem to talk out of your ass with so much ease.
The primary method of spread of covid 19 is droplet. There is strong evidence that it can also spread via aerosol, but it is not the primary method of spreading.
Before I dive further into this nonsense of stupidity that you are forcing me into that you will simply ignore let's point out the obvious.
If your concern is that Covid-19 is an AIRBORNE pathogen and that simple masks do not protect against covid-19, then that would mean that you advocate in favor of N-95 mask wearing for everyone in public, correct? And that you do not advocate to open non-essential businesses unless they have strict isolation policies, advanced ventilation systems and negative pressure environments?
I highly suspect that this is NOT the conclusion that you want to arrive to. Let me tell you something, if you start with the premise that COVID is mostly spread over aerosol particles, this is the conclusion that is the most logical.
Now... Droplets and aerosol are not referring to any magical properties of the medium of transport. Droplets and aerosol refer to the particle size of a water-based "particle" in the air. Droplet usually refers to larger sized particles that tend to fall to the floor quickly due to gravity, while aerosol refers to very tiny "particles" that because they are so small, they can bet kept in suspension in the atmosphere for much longer periods of time due to properties such as buoyancy. As you can imagine, this is mostly a spectrum, rather than a strict cut off. For instance:
And as you can imagine. The larger the particle, the more virus it can carry. So there is an indirect correlation between the "particle size" and the "viral load" that can be delivered per "particle". Now, I am not familiar with any literature that has attempted to estimate the minimum "viral load" required to infect anyone, but we can make some reasonable assumptions nonetheless. For instance, it is not hard to imagine, that a covid patient directly coughing in your face without any sort of barrier to interfere with the droplets is more likely to result in your inoculation as compared to the same scenario with the person coughing on the other side of the room 10m apart.
Now.
There is evidence that covid can transmit via airborne, that is true, but the extent of how much this form of transmision contributes to the overall spread in the population is not really known, thought it is not thought to be the primary method.
Think about of terms of transportation.... I am capable of traveling on a submarine. But if you had to take a guess of how I commute to work, you are better off guessing im using a car, a bus or a train/metro.
To demonstrate my point. Let's look about another organism. Pseudomonas auruginosa. This is a bacteria that can cause pneumonia. There is a study suggesting that the bacteria can survive in aerosol particles
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4112489/. Do we routinely use N95 masks for p seudomonas? No. Do we routinely use regular masks for someone with pseudomonas pneumonia and/or skin infections? No. It is not the main method of transmission, and the viability of the pathogen does not necessarily mean that it can deliver sufficient quantity of viable pathogen to cause infection on healthy individuals (things might be different for other people at higher risk).
We have evidence that facemasks work, we even have evidence that faceshields work:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7891045/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7432258/Frankly, I can provide far more evidence, links and material. But there is a little voice in my ear telling me that you will just shit all over this and go spread more nonsense.