Colds, flu and Covid are mainly spread through the air and not by sharing cups and getting close to one another, World Health Organisation experts have suggested in a new report. The Mail has the story.
New guidance by a coalition of nearly 50 doctors overturned the commonly believed idea that infected droplets transferred from hard surfaces and skin are the cause of respiratory viruses like colds and flu.
The decision settled a Covid-era debate about whether some viruses like Covid spread mostly through inhaling infected air, or from contaminated surfaces.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, experts in virology welcomed the conclusion that surfaces are not as vital as previously thought, which they say should have been confirmed early on in the pandemic.
Dr. Don Milton, an expert on respiratory viruses and co-author of the new WHO guidance, told DailyMail.com: “We know that for gastrointestinal infections [hand washing and being careful touching surfaces like cups] are going to be important.
“How important they are for respiratory viruses, I think is probably a lot less.”
The WHO guidance applied to all pathogens that cause lung infections, including Covid, influenza and rhinovirus.
The report did not include non-respiratory infections, such as GI infections like norovirus, which can be spread via germs on the hands.
Until late 2020, the WHO had only considered a few infections as airborne, such as tuberculosis and measles. Most of them were classified as “droplet transmission”.
Covid was classified the same way at first. That messaging prompted millions of people in early 2020 to disinfect every surface, including groceries and mail. This even drove a shortage of cleaning supplies at the time.
But evidence grew that Covid could be transmitted via aerosolised particles. Suspended particles can remain in the air for hours, casting a pathogenic cloud over an infected person that follows him wherever he goes.
Worth reading in full.
So what was the point of social distancing, keeping 2m apart and erecting billions of Perspex barriers then? Not to mention face masks, which only block larger droplets and are useless against airborne pathogens. And does it mean the WHO won’t recommend such nonsense in a future ‘pandemic’? We’ll believe it when we see it.
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