A group of scientists backed by years of solid science couldn't sway the mighty World Health Organization from their path of destruction, and we've all paid the price.
I'm just highlighting Julia Doubleday's latest article on the airborne fiasco here. Her piece in The Gauntlet: "The WHO's claim that COVID wasn't airborne cost millions of lives. Now, they're changing the definition of airborne.
"After two years of argument and discussion, [the WHO] has officially rebranded airborne viral transmission as "through the air" transmission. Airborne particles aren't aerosol anymore; they're "Infectious Respiratory Particles," or IRPs. . . . The correspondence [between the WHO and the aerosol expert petitioners in 2020] shows that the WHO either failed to grasp or represented themselves as failing to grasp the points made by the aerosol experts. Multiple times, they repeat false claims about how sure they are that COVID is spread via 'droplets', that respirator-style masks only need to be worn during AGPs (aerosol-generating procedures, an incorrect claim that is still repeated by medical practitioners today). . . . They cite no studies to shore up their claims that COVID must be spread via droplets, but sneeringly point out that the aerosol scientists have not produced 'peer reviewed' studies demonstrating airborne spread. In April 2020, of course, it was impossible for any peer review to have been completed concerning a virus that was then a few months old.
Throughout the debate between the powerful WHO players and the upstart aerosol experts, the threshold of 'proof' for airborne spread was unreachably high, while the threshold of 'proof' for droplet spread was nothing at all. . . . The work of these scientists, along with dozens of others, led to the groundbreaking realization that all common respiratory viruses - colds, flus, RSV, etc. - are being spread in a manner that would have formerly fallen on the 'airborne' side of the false airborne/droplet dichotomy. Hence the need to rethink the terminology entirely - and common infection control practices. Once this was established, we stood at the precipice of a new era of disease control; imagine a clean air revolution in daycares, dreastically cutting down the now-spiking rate of childhood illness. But three years after Molteni's rundown was published, most medical institutions and government bodies are still practicing and recommending droplet infection control measures for COVID. What happened?
First, there's been a lack of consistent, public communication. . . . In order to correct all the misinformation that the public, doctors, hospital administrators, health bodies and public officials absorbed during the full-court press to mitigate COVID with insufficient droplet measures, the WHO would need to loudly and publicly repeat that all their prior guidance was wrong. Not only that, but it was wrong because they lied. . . . The WHO, rather than demonstrate humility and contrition in the face of a world-circling failure that sent us down an infection control dead-end, continues to double down on excusing itself. . . . The WHO is now encouraging medical practitioners to simply follow their hearts when it comes to the spread of COVID and other viruses. Is it an airborne 'vibe'? Is it more of a 'droplet' vibe? Whichever suits, take your pick! . . . Vague terms like 'balance of risk,' 'severity,' 'individual and population immunity,' all leave open an incredibly dangerous window for continued spread of COVID in medical setting; especially as one person's 'mild' is, quite literally, another person's 'severe'. The terms 'severity' and 'population immunity' serve as a dog whistle to let government bodies and medical institutions know, yes, we did finally have to acknowledge that COVID is airborne. But don't worry, this doesn't mean we're actually going to make you do airborne infection control. If you think it's okay for your patients to contract COVID, it's a-ok by us too! . . . The body is attempting to argue that, because poor countries cannot afford proper airborne infection control, no one should have access to proper airborne infection control; hooray, that's equity! . . .
Proper infection control guidance should do one basic thing: ensure that infections are controlled. Ensure that patients are not needlessly exposed to viruses - of any kid - while seeking medical care. The revolutionary progress we've made in understanding the behavior of viruses over the past several years, coupled with the fantastic technology that already exists to clean the air, would mean a much healthier society if that progress were applied practically. Instead, we're becoming a much sicker society as the WHO sinks further into denial. . . . Doctors and hospitals continue to infect their patients with flue, RSV, strep, and now COVID [and now tuberculosis and measles] as infection control measures like HEPA filtration go completely unmentioned in the new guidance document. . . . Most damaging of all, the public has been lulled into a sense of complacency and encouraged to believe that COVID simply cannot be controlled.
I went to a LifeLabs today. One person behind the desk wore a surgical mask, two others in line work N95s, the other ten or so in the room were unmasked. After five years of not so much as a sniffle, I'm trusting one-way masking more and more, but imagine if the air were actually cleaned in all public settings!! They had signs up that they're a scent-free facility, but not a Covid-free. We have all the technology and know how, we've just been led down a garden path that's full of giant hogweed and poison ivy.
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