There is only one absolute truth in this world and that is that it doesn’t exist. We can have perceived truths and they may stand the test of time but when we stop questioning our perceived reality, we run the risk of error. We must continue to challenge our knowledge of all things important. Without getting into the philosophical sciences, we have empirical sciences that require evidence.
In a recent Wired article titled, The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill, author Megan Molteni details the importance of science and how critical it is to continually challenge or question assumptions. In this article, a researcher who started life in the physics arena moved into studying the spread of infectious diseases. Among the topics of atmospheric physics was the means of disease transmission. The WHO (World Health Organization) and the American-based CDC (Centers for Disease Control) used as fact a rule that declared a 5-micron threshold for a disease to be “airborne.” It ruled that particles larger than 5-microns quickly fell to the ground or to surfaces. The early assumption was that this was how SARS-CoV-2 was being transmitted, i.e., in close proximity to infected sources or in contact with contaminated surfaces. Recommendations early in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic were based on it not being “airborne.” This meant that the washing of hands and social distancing of 6 feet was the primary mandate.
It had widely been accepted as a fact that all respiratory infections transmit through expelled droplets in coughs and sneezes. The exceptions to date were measles and tuberculosis that were known to be “airborne” where microscopic particles (aerosols) could remain infectious and stay suspended for many hours and travel long distances. This distinction was important. The larger than 5-micron droplet spread of infection rule, meant hand washing and social distancing recommendations were all that would be required, where acceptance of airborne (aerosol) transmission, would mean a more expensive recommendation involving the use of N-95 masks and isolation wards.
Researcher Linsey Marr would challenge the physics of these assumptions based on this 5-micron philosophy. She knew that such assumptions were flawed and that the actual science was much less finite. Heat, humidity, and airspeed would all be factors in the spread of disease. In 2011 she did research in airplanes and daycare centers that showed influenza spreading by airborne transmission where infectious particles stayed suspended for hours. Her manuscript was rejected by all but one medical journal.
She delved further into the origins of the 5-micron assumption and found it was based on a few studies from the 1930s and 40s. A deeper dive into the citations of these publications and one published in the 50s found that critical research had determined that 100-micron particles sank within seconds but that smaller particles floated much longer. Somewhere along the line, the 5-micron size had been picked up and used as gospel and became the finite distinction between the droplet and aerosol transmission of disease.
Eventually, Marr and a colleague signed an open letter addressed to the WHO, and they were joined by 237 other scientists that advised stronger recommendations for masking and ventilation to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. A few days later the WHO updated their brief and acknowledged that aerosols couldn’t be ruled out and added masking to their guidelines. They weakened this to apply only where you couldn’t distance indoors. Both the WHO and the CDC did a CYA and, while now admitting that SARS-CoV-2 could be airborne, they said they knew this all along and that hospitals had been treating it this way from the beginning. On April 30, 2021, the WHO finally quietly updated its website to acknowledge the virus could spread via aerosols.
I am a big believer in science and the scientific method which relies on skeptical observation. It is a continual cycle of observation, research, hypothesis, testing, analysis, conclusions, and more observation. Using the basics of this scientific method in all manner of research and critical thinking will generally be of great benefit. Unfounded assumptions are the antithesis of this scientific method but especially so when we rely on such assumptions without challenging them with skeptical observation.
If only we could convince the good people who still fear science and continue to promote wild unfounded and unproven theories regarding vaccinations, we could cautiously move beyond the disaster of this pandemic. If only we could educate the QAnon clan, perhaps they would no longer follow those coprolite-for-brains leaders and spreaders of misinformation, we could advance as a society. Science is not perfect, but it is a self-regulating body that acknowledges its imperfections, albeit sometimes slowly. This is certainly better than the “knowledge” disseminated as absolute fact and truth that is based on the whims and creative guesswork of self-proclaimed Nostradamus-like folks. These are the followers of that “like, really smart” and “a very stable genius” fellow who is convinced of his own infallibility.
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