America is about to learn about viral load, which is something scientists and epidemiologists have been shouting about but nobody is really listening.
There's a reason why people get sick more often and to a stronger degree during the winter than during the summer. There's a reason why getting the number of influenza deaths peaks during the winter before disappearing by summer.
It's because of viral load. During the winter, people are more often indoors, more often in areas with limited airflow and more often in close company with others. If one person in a household is infected, they will be exposing the other members to concentrated quantities of airborne viruses for hours upon hours.
This is why New York was shocked to discover back in April--after they ordered everyone to stay in their homes and not go out--that 60% of the new severe cases were coming from people who had sheltered in place. It didn't make sense to Cuomo and other politicians who were only considering public spread and not the influence of being locked in a home with someone who had a very mild infection (one that the body could fight off) then infecting others much more severely.
You actually want to catch a disease outside, in public, when there is sufficient airflow and distance to ensure that the viral load that drifts into your lungs on an aerosolized droplet will be as small as possible. Your body can then attack it, defeat the infection, and develop antibodies to defend against it in the future.
Right now the people who get COVID are getting such low viral loads initially that they are either completely asymptomatic or the body recovers so quickly it doesn't require hospitalization or ICU treatment (i.e. why deaths and hospitalizations are dropping despite an ever increasing number of positive cases).
This is most assuredly what happened to Hope Hicks and consequently President Trump. She was exposed somewhere in public via aerosolized droplets (anything smaller than 5 micrometers is considered aerosolized, they can stay in the air up to 3 hours and travel up to 27ft) and thus got the virus into her system. At some point she should have felt initial symptoms but it's possible she initially dismissed them as fatigue or overworking, until they got to the point where she felt sick enough to get tested.
And thus she spread it to others, again via low viral load aerosolized transmission. Catching it early before it has a chance to multiply and overwhelm a person's immune system (which is when you know you are sick, because your body is trying to fight the disease) gives you the best chance to survive the disease.
TL:DR - You can't stop a disease from spreading no matter how much you try. It's why herd immunity has been the method of choice for overcoming pandemics for all of human history.
I never understood the idea of locking people inside. You can’t hide from a virus. When it is in your area, the wave will hit you. It is inevitable.
Getting a message out for increased hand hygiene and hand awareness can absolutely slow the spread - which is all you could really do. Anyone who thinks you can prevent it is delirious.
I would hope Air Force One has some kind of massively expensive air filtration system otherwise it seems like it would be too vulnerable to biological or chemical attack.
It wouldn't stop infection from someone directly working beside him like Hope but it would hopefully keep the air/room from being super saturated.
I couldn't find the actual study, but I did find this quote about it:
In May, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shared that in a survey of 100 New York hospitals and 1,000 hospitalized C19 patients, 66% of new admissions had been sheltering at home. “This is shocking to us,” Cuomo said, “this is a surprise. Overwhelmingly the people were at home. We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but no, because these people were literally at home.”
It might have just been a more informal survey like interviewing people during admission. In any event, the point is they assumed that people would be protected in their homes and didn't consider that one infected person forced to shelter in place quickly turns into multiple infected persons if they live with others.
America is about to learn about viral load, which is something scientists and epidemiologists have been shouting about but nobody is really listening.
There's a reason why people get sick more often and to a stronger degree during the winter than during the summer. There's a reason why getting the number of influenza deaths peaks during the winter before disappearing by summer.
It's because of viral load. During the winter, people are more often indoors, more often in areas with limited airflow and more often in close company with others. If one person in a household is infected, they will be exposing the other members to concentrated quantities of airborne viruses for hours upon hours.
This is why New York was shocked to discover back in April--after they ordered everyone to stay in their homes and not go out--that 60% of the new severe cases were coming from people who had sheltered in place. It didn't make sense to Cuomo and other politicians who were only considering public spread and not the influence of being locked in a home with someone who had a very mild infection (one that the body could fight off) then infecting others much more severely.
You actually want to catch a disease outside, in public, when there is sufficient airflow and distance to ensure that the viral load that drifts into your lungs on an aerosolized droplet will be as small as possible. Your body can then attack it, defeat the infection, and develop antibodies to defend against it in the future.
Right now the people who get COVID are getting such low viral loads initially that they are either completely asymptomatic or the body recovers so quickly it doesn't require hospitalization or ICU treatment (i.e. why deaths and hospitalizations are dropping despite an ever increasing number of positive cases).
This is most assuredly what happened to Hope Hicks and consequently President Trump. She was exposed somewhere in public via aerosolized droplets (anything smaller than 5 micrometers is considered aerosolized, they can stay in the air up to 3 hours and travel up to 27ft) and thus got the virus into her system. At some point she should have felt initial symptoms but it's possible she initially dismissed them as fatigue or overworking, until they got to the point where she felt sick enough to get tested.
And thus she spread it to others, again via low viral load aerosolized transmission. Catching it early before it has a chance to multiply and overwhelm a person's immune system (which is when you know you are sick, because your body is trying to fight the disease) gives you the best chance to survive the disease.
TL:DR - You can't stop a disease from spreading no matter how much you try. It's why herd immunity has been the method of choice for overcoming pandemics for all of human history.
I never understood the idea of locking people inside. You can’t hide from a virus. When it is in your area, the wave will hit you. It is inevitable.
Getting a message out for increased hand hygiene and hand awareness can absolutely slow the spread - which is all you could really do. Anyone who thinks you can prevent it is delirious.
Their theory was that we could lockdown long enough to develop and distribute a vaccine which would then artificially provide herd immunity.
But that is a completely unproven and untested approach, one that has never been tried (let alone accomplished) in the history of the planet.
It is just an insane type of gamble when we already have a well-known, well-documented and well-understood solution via natural herd immunity.
That approach would only make sense if it was literally a Black Plague event.
Exactly right. I mean if this was an airborne version of Ebola then I would fucking be in a hazmat suit before I left my bedroom.
Yep and viruses had no trouble spreading worldwide when the population was less than 1/20th of what it is now.
What is worrying me is thatHope was on AIr Force One. He may have gotten a larger viral load. I’m praying he’s still taking HCQ.
I would hope Air Force One has some kind of massively expensive air filtration system otherwise it seems like it would be too vulnerable to biological or chemical attack.
It wouldn't stop infection from someone directly working beside him like Hope but it would hopefully keep the air/room from being super saturated.
This. 1000x
I couldn't find the actual study, but I did find this quote about it:
It might have just been a more informal survey like interviewing people during admission. In any event, the point is they assumed that people would be protected in their homes and didn't consider that one infected person forced to shelter in place quickly turns into multiple infected persons if they live with others.