www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-15/will-i-get-coronavirus-at-the-grocery-store-unlikely
TLDR: We need to spend less time worrying about picking up the virus in open air spaces or even in shops, and more time thinking about how to smash transmission chains in households, workplaces etc.
The virus is fanned out into the population mainly through super-spreading events: "In the real world, most people transmit the disease to nobody, or one person, and a minority infect many others in so-called super-spreading events. It's those we must learn how to avoid."
"The disease is apparently very infectious but only for a short window, and perhaps only in some cases. "
"Sharing a home or office does make transmission more likely, since length of exposure matters as much as distance from other people. People passing by you in a supermarket are unlikely to infect you. Outdoor environments appear much safer as well. In one study, which followed hundreds of cases, all but one transmission occurred indoors.
“I’d like people to stop wasting mental energy on the wrong things,” Bromage says. “To stop worrying about outdoors and bike riders since it’s such a low risk.”"
www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/20/coronavirus-does-not-spread-easily-surfaces-objects-cdc/5232748002/
The CDC in the US has now updated its statements on surface transmission. Surface transmission appears to be difficult and rather unusual. We absolutely should wash our hands very thoroughly in any case, but it doesn't prevent many infections. Stopping droplets being breathed onto uninfected people is the really big game-changer here. This suggests ways to open up things like restaurants and businesses---moving operations outside when possible, spacing people out, and ventilating spaces well, may be enough.
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Covid
How the virus spreads and doesn't spread (or: "Stop worrying about the wrong things")
25 replies
Kokeshi123 · 21/05/2020 14:39
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