Tootfinder

new book about medicine history, "droplets" theory etc
"Science writer Carl Zimmer’s latest book is a brilliant history of medicine that takes us from Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of the 19th century to present day. Along the way, it offers an anthropological study of medical culture — a culture capable of ignoring science when it wants to. ...
"If COVID-19 spread in droplets, then it was worthwhile to keep people two metres apart, to put up plexiglas barriers around checkout stands, and make supermarket aisles one-way. Sanitizing countertops could break the chain of infection.
"But if COVID-19 was airborne, all those measures were pointless."
Bit of an exaggeration in that part of the article. The 2m distance does put you outside the densest clouds of exhaled breath, and sanitising countertops helps against other diseases. But yeah. A lot of effort wrongly expended due to the prevailing myth.
#CovidIsAirborne #books #history

excellent analysis of covid state of play
From Julia Doubleday.
"Each time a new wave crops up, the media scrambles to let the public know that COVID is spreading “again” ... But each time, it fails to inform the public that nearly half of COVID cases are asymptomatic, that COVID looks different in different patients, that vaccines do not prevent infections, that rapid tests have high false negative rates, and that COVID is fully airborne.
"Taken together, the virus I’m describing is much more difficult to control than the one the press presents. The press frames the virus as something that can be halted by familiarizing yourself with the symptoms, staying home once you feel sick and test positive, and avoided altogether by simply getting vaccinated or keeping ones’ distance from sick people. ...
"The misinformation that reigns in liberal spaces is not the result of accidental miscommunication. People don’t know that the virus is asymptomatic 40% of the time because there is simply no universe where that virus is controllable without an elimination strategy, or a day-to-day mitigation strategy."
#covid #misinformation #denial #CovidIsAirborne