This new work from @blakemurdoch.bsky.social is spot on. Denial of airborne transmission was the great crime (yes, crime) of the pandemic. It changed, and broke, everything healthydebate.ca/2025/03/topi... - ThreadSky

dfisman.bsky.social • 15 days ago

This new work from @blakemurdoch.bsky.social is spot on. Denial of airborne transmission was the great crime (yes, crime) of the pandemic. It changed, and broke, everything

https://healthydebate.ca/2025/03/topic/denial-airborne-covid-transmission/

Comments

jonathanconp.bsky.social•15 days ago

I do think the following dark thought…we created intense reactance with lockdowns and the vax mandate, which I definitely supported. But now I think that we overplayed our hand, and created the conditions for the convoy. 1/

jonathanconp.bsky.social•15 days ago

When we lifted the rules, we failed to replace them with passive interventions like clean air regulations, and intense public education about the ongoing risks. Now we’ve got everyone convinced the rules did more harm than good, and we’re set up for disaster—as well as fascism. 2/

jonathanconp.bsky.social•15 days ago

And part of that is because we arrogantly imposed rules, instead of cajoling compliance with education. And I feel like I own a piece of that error, even tho I know that rules are the only way to ensure massive and immediate behaviour change.

cholitaperuana.bsky.social•15 days ago

Long lasting consequences 😔

pawsandpoutine.bsky.social•14 days ago

So you trying to say mass infections to promote immunity? I hope I'm reading this wrong?

dfisman.bsky.social•14 days ago

You are

pawsandpoutine.bsky.social•14 days ago

👍🏻

alisonjones.bsky.social•15 days ago

📌

col4bin.bsky.social•15 days ago

I'll never forget an email from my employer early in 2020 saying basically don't worry, covid is not airborne.

kbyrd.bsky.social•15 days ago

In 2022, my workplace had signs in the elevators saying that the best way to prevent COVID was to wash hands. Nothing about it being airborne, nothing about masks or ventilation. I complained that such misinformation made me doubt EVERYTHING they said.

wandavanisle.bsky.social•14 days ago

And Bonnie Henry still lives on as BC’s public health officer.
No change here, despite promises to do better, eh @davidebybc.bsky.social ?

briantwalters.bsky.social•14 days ago

Thank you for your work. You amongst other continue to be the north star on this.

hamishbuchanan.bsky.social•14 days ago

They lied that it didn't affect school kids, they refused to spend the needed money to improve air quality in schools, hospitals, care homes, offices, factories — or anywhere, really: yes, it was a crime.

mjjoy.bsky.social•14 days ago

Thank you for saying it like it was and is

tarahfx.bsky.social•15 days ago

📌

lucindacatchlove.bsky.social•14 days ago

And it was such a deliberate crime and literal conspiracy (with the GBD being a big part but the call was definitely also coming from inside the WHO and it was guys like this making it...) https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-doctor-world-health-organization-airborne-1.5994889

tiggerrd.bsky.social•15 days ago

📌

daemonaac.bsky.social•14 days ago

📌

concussed1.bsky.social•14 days ago

Excellent piece

blakemurdoch.bsky.social•14 days ago

Thanks very much for amplifying this David, and for everything you do.

I've learned a lot from the work you have done. But perhaps most of all from the video of you arguing with Conly about mask acne.

I put way too many "indeeds" in there, oops, copyediting.

dfisman.bsky.social•15 days ago

The “might have beens” he outlines here are correct, and heartbreaking
-Control of the disease with less economic disruption
-Depriving the virus of evolutionary space to mutate and adapt
-Collective action to reduce transmission rather than the burdens/conflict resulting from individual action

cozamarsh.bsky.social•14 days ago

Why is no one at @who.int held accountable? Why do their current "Standing Recommendations for COVID-19" for member countries STILL exclude airborne mitigation, even in healthcare?
https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/standing-recommendations-for-covid-19-issued-by-the-director-general-of-the-world-health-organization-(who)-in-accordance-with-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-(ihr)

clear55.bsky.social•15 days ago

The "might have been" for my mother in a retirement home would be to not destroy the last years of her life as her mobility and socialization was cancelled.

clear55.bsky.social•15 days ago

I will never forget her agony.

dfisman.bsky.social•15 days ago

Indeed, hindsight is 20/20, but this was an AVOIDABLE pandemic with action on indoor air. Early sars 2 had an R0 of 2.4, over-dispersed (most cases were dead ends)

robertmcmillan13.bsky.social•14 days ago

Is there any way to explain hospital cross-contamination of patients other than COVID is airborne? Italy led the way early in identifying cross-contamination was a huge problem

NS ignored this resulting in 56 deaths in one long term facility

Masks & properly filtered ventilation works

artsyhonker.bsky.social•15 days ago

Plus mitigation against airborne transmission would mean:
- less influenza
- less TB
- less measles and chicken pox in undervaccinated populations
- probably fewer common colds tbh, I haven't had one since Feb 2020
- maybe less norovirus? Harder to say on this one.

sonjahartl7.bsky.social•15 days ago

📌

dfisman.bsky.social•15 days ago

We know from early in the pandemic that opening windows and using hepa filters reduced transmission by 50%. Mask use for a couple of months would have done the rest. This would be an eradicated disease (2.4 x 0.5 x 0.4 =0.48, which is << 1)

amberg.bsky.social•15 days ago

Yes. How long did we have mandatory masking in Ontario?

dfisman.bsky.social•15 days ago

We had mandates from health units through fall of 2020. It made a big difference. But by then the cat was out of the bag. Elimination would have had to happen in February and March, and it would have required collective action and leadership on a global scale. It would have focussed on air.

amberg.bsky.social•15 days ago

And I remember starting with cloth masks and not my current N95

andrewbarss.bsky.social•15 days ago

IIRC, a great concern was that mask production was nowhere near society-wide levels and govts were concerned that a “run” on them by the public at large would limit their availability to HC professionals who were being exposed daily to active-case patients.

Not an excuse, but mitigating factor?

dfisman.bsky.social•15 days ago

But here are our estimates of mask mandate effects after adjustment for swings in testing frequency

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/2/pgae065/7606553

ohforfarkssake.bsky.social•14 days ago

The eradication piece is the part that makes me completely furious. We could have done this!!

gabituto.bsky.social•15 days ago

This basic denial of the airborne effects and nature of the virus WAS a crime to humanity and continues to be so today... just look around most health care/ school/ theatre/ airports..on and on settings..no masks, and do they filter/ventilate the air? Who really knows..