Coronavirus Update 11

Since my last update some weeks ago, a couple of things have popped up recently that merit a few comments.

It’s airborne! Maybe.

Several sources are reporting on a new study with evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can remain airborne indoors for a significant period of time and still infect a person. The WHO is resisting accepting the evidence as sufficiently conclusive because it operates by a rigid evidence standard that may be hard to meet. A growing number of experts are arguing that the WHO should be more pragmatic by accepting the increasing evidence as probably valid and requiring changes in its recommendations to deal with the SARS-CoV-2 indoors.

The New York Times writes:

“The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby. 

If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially-
distant settings.  

The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor.[1] 

But in an open letter to the W.H.O., 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations.”

Based on the new information about possible aerosol infections, the scientists suggest keeping a mask on indoors in public, even with social distancing. They also believe that places with better ventilation are safer than poorly ventilated places because ventilation tends to dilute aerosols out, making them less likely to cause an infection.

As usual, the situation is complicated and unfortunately, politics is relevant. The NYT reports that the WHO is constrained by a rigid view of scientific evidence, making it slow and risk-averse in changing its guidance in view of new evidence. Also, its operating procedures allow a few conservative voices to shout down dissent. One WHO consultant commented on the WHO’s rigidity: “They’ll die defending their view.”

Yeah, and some of us might also die from them defending their view.

This is a link to the 9 page accepted manuscript, which is scheduled to be published next week.

The US response failure

Although most people already know this, it is worth repeating in view of accumulating evidence. The US response to the pandemic has been a failure. Evidence is mounting that shows (1) how bad the US failure has been, (2) how badly needed competent, coordinated federal guidance was, and (3) how badly needed competent, coordinated federal guidance still is. In all of this, our president is simply clueless and completely out of his depth. His sociopathy makes him is incapable of even seeing the problem and its human, social and economic magnitude, much less having (i) any empathy about the suffering, or (ii) any recognition of his own responsibility and failures.

Evidence of the failure includes daily new infections in the US (population ~330 million) compared to the European Union (population ~446 million). In recent days, the number of new infections in one day in some states such as Arizona (population ~7.3 million) has been higher than the number of new infections in one day in the entire EU. Daily US vs EU infections differ by tens of thousands per day, with the US now hovering around 43,000 new infections/day.

Any politician who is saying that the US response has been anything other than a failure of government and political leadership is lying, ignorant or both. Any false statements about competence in the US response are likely to involve the psychological element of virtue signalling of the speaker’s misplaced loyalty to Trump and the Trump tribe. What this says, if anything, about the morality people who assert such falsehoods is open to debate.


Footnote:
1. Regarding aerosols vs droplets: Aerosols and droplets are the same thing except that they differ in size. Droplets that are smaller than five microns in diameter are called aerosols. For context, a red blood cell is about five microns in diameter and a human hair is about 50 microns wide. A micron is one millionth of a meter in length.