Philip J Fry said:
But this is something Birk absolutely harped on in the early days. Back then it was almost certainly to be spread by touching common objects. It really seems like more and more, we've been duped out of our way of life.
I really don't think here intent was to "dupe" anyone. This was a brand new virus that no one knew anything about. There was research being done quickly, of various quality, and all over the place. Eventually the vectors will add up to a common direction, but initially they will seem to point all kinds of directions.
texan12 said:
BiochemAg97 said:
Droplet transmission can be either inhaled or fall out of the air. He combination of masks, 6 ft, and <15 min is about preventing the inhalation of droplets.
The original studies that suggested the virus was long lived on surfaces involved drying the virus on the surface and then wetting the surface to get the virus off. They used enough liquid to simulate licking. While droplets that have fallen on a surface should dry pretty quickly, most of us don't go around licking random surfaces.
Are you serious? Why even conduct an experiment if it's not even relevant to the general population? What a **** show
Science works in increments. Not everything will be immediately applicable to the general population. And people don't know what science will be used to further other science, and what will fizzle out. Car manufacturers make concept cars that'll never see a showroom floor. Drug manufacturers test thousands of compounds that'll never make it beyond the earliest stages. You don't know what information will be useful in the future.
And specifically to the concept of "enough liquid to simulate licking," I think BiochemAg used that term to paint a picture. I don't think the researchers were there trying to actually simulate licking. They were just likely trying to test viability of the virus on various surfaces, and needed a transfer media to pick up virus after it had been sitting on surfaces.
To further that point, I don't think they answered the question as to whether they were picking up infectious particles, or if they were merely picking up enough residual viral RNA to detect the virus. Perhaps someone researched if they could culture the virus from those surfaces, but all the early research I saw was more about detecting it, not culturing it.
