WHO: Indoor airborne spread of coronavirus possible
By: AP NEWS
General Director Tedros of the World Health Organization has been blasting national leaders for a lack of global leadership. Tedros went so far as to claim that the largest threat the world is confronting is not the coronavirus but, rather, the lack of leadership at the national and global levels.
Yet the WHO deliberately avoids providing global leadership. A group of international scientists have forced the WHO to address the possibility of airborne spread of the coronavirus as shown by empirical evidence. But, as usual, the WHO is dragging its feet as if we had time to perform controlled studies, do more research, and wait for some sort of statistical certainty before taking action.
General Director Tedros is more concerned about avoiding responsibility for providing any leadership.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization is acknowledging the possibility that COVID-19 might be spread in the air under certain conditions — after more than 200 scientists urged the agency to do so.
In an open letter published this week in a journal, two scientists from Australia and the U.S. wrote that studies have shown "beyond any reasonable doubt that viruses are released during exhalation, talking and coughing in microdroplets small enough to remain aloft in the air."
The researchers, along with more than 200 others, appealed for national and international authorities, including WHO, to adopt more stringent protective measures.
WHO has long dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus is spread in the air except for certain risky medical procedures, such as when patients are first put on breathing machines.
In a change to its previous thinking, WHO noted on Thursday that studies evaluating COVID-19 outbreaks in restaurants, choir practices and fitness classes suggested the virus might have been spread in the air.
Airborne spread "particularly in specific indoor locations, such as crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons cannot be ruled out," WHO said.
Still, officials also pointed out that other modes of transmission — like contaminated surfaces or close contacts between people in such indoor environments — might also have explained the disease's spread.
WHO's stance also recognized the importance of people spreading COVID-19 without symptoms, a phenomenon the organization has long downplayed.
WHO has repeatedly said such transmission is "rare" despite a growing consensus among scientists globally that asymptomatic spread likely accounts for a significant amount of transmission. The agency said that most spread is via droplets from infected people who cough or sneeze, but added that people without symptoms are also capable of transmitting the disease.
"The extent of truly asymptomatic infection in the community remains unknown," WHO said.
Tags
Who is online
68 visitors
The only leadership the World Health Organization has provided with any certainty is 'we don't know'. And since no one knows, the WHO refuses to provide any substantive guidance. General Director Tedros is practicing politics but not practicing medicine.
Most of the general population are experts in 'we don't know'. The credentialed experts aren't contributing anything meaningful by continuing to make recommendations based upon what they don't know. The experts don't want to be political scapegoats, so drag their feet and use the general public as laboratory rats. However, unlike the medical and scientific experts, the general population is trying to cope with a pandemic they did not create the best way they can. The experts are only adding to the general public's misery by playing professional academic politics.
Perhaps more people are simply in closer contact indoors, having gone there to get out of the heat and humidity.
I would think that an infusion of filtered and cooled fresh air from outside, by itself, would not be so likely to spread the virus.
Like the mask thing, this seems like another thing that the rest of us had already figured out with a just a general understanding of disease transmission and a little common sense.
Funny thing about common sense is that it is most useful when the experts don't know. The CDC guidelines for social distancing are really just common sense obtained from practical experience. There isn't any need to believe in science to trust common sense.