one thing that has created a really major problem with our ability
as a society to deal with Covid 19
is the bad information we got early on on how to control the spread of covid
so you probably remember at the very beginning of covid
we were told to stand 6 feet away from each other
cover your cough or
sneeze, wash your hands
for a while they didn't even recommend masks
but then when they did
um they recommended surgical masks or cloth masks
all of that advice is based on the concept of droplet borne diseases
so this idea that a disease that's in your respiratory tract
spreads when you cough or sneeze on someone
that's why when you're sitting in a restaurant
like the idea was like
if you're six feet away from someone
you're not gonna get it
because it's too far away for them to cough or sneeze on you
now it turned out that this was not correct
it is not true that covid only spreads through droplets
through coughs and sneezes
it actually also spreads that someone's just breathing into the air
those um
viral particles hang in the air for hours and hours and hours and hours
and even from the very beginning in 2020
there were aerosol experts and engineers um
lobbying the WHO saying hey
we really think this is airborne
we think it's fully airborne
can you stop telling everybody that it's droplet and the WHO
was like no
we're good it's not airborne
we're sure it's not airborne
so after like
a year of studies
truth comes out it is fully airborne
and what's even Wilder is that
in the process of learning that Covid was fully airborne
they discovered that all of these other viruses RSV
flus cold
all these viruses that you were told to like
cover your mouth when you cough
and stand far away from someone and don't let someone sneeze on you
all of those viruses are also fully airborne
that means that if you're in the same room with them
you can get the virus from across the room
this explains a lot about how we all get sick in the winter
it also means that these droplet borne precautions were inadequate
to control covid
to control the flu
to control RSV
to control colds
all of these airborne respiratory viruses
and there are a lot of implications to this
first of all take hospitals for example
in hospitals they have long utilized droplet protections
to try and protect people from getting things like a flu
or RSV or cold in the hospital
so that's why you see so many doctors walking around wearing surgical masks
or you might see curtains put up
yes they're for privacy
but also extensively to help stop the transmission of viruses
now it turns out that all of these measures are just inadequate
that means people in hospitals
vulnerable people
are getting infected with viruses that now include covid 19
which is everywhere in hospitals
that means that
all of these protocols should have been upgraded when we learn this
but they weren't
and actually my most recent article on my substack called the gauntlet
is about how the who just put out a new document that finally acknowledges
there's no such thing as a droplet borne infection
that all of these viruses spread through the air
but also in that document
they stopped short
of actually advising healthcare facilities and governments
to start recommending and implementing airborne infection control
that means that all over the world
people are still getting infected with Covid 19 and killed in hospitals
so for example
a study just came out um
about an area in Australia in Victoria um
that found that thousands of patients have been infected in the hospital
and hundreds of those patients went on to die of covid
a 10% fatality rate of people who were infected in the hospital with Covid 19
but there are other implications to
how messed up it was that the WHO put out this guidance
that they were sure it wasn’t airborne um
even aside from the fact that hospitals
and doctors still don't know how to do proper infection control for Covid
there's also just a reality that people are
very confused about how covid spreads
if you're not super in the weeds on covid information
you probably still think that standing a few feet away from someone
covering your mouth
or wearing a surgical mask is a proper way to protect yourself from covid
and to be fair
those things don't do nothing
you should still cover your mouth
it's better to be further from someone who's sick
and a surgical mask does protect you from disease more than nothing at all
but if you really wanna avoid covid
you should be taking airborne precautions
so wearing a mask that forms a seal around your mouth and nose
like a K N95 or an N95 mask
another problem with this
like poor communication that has gone on between the
WHO and the public about how covid spreads
is that people are under the impression that it is just
simply impossible to control covid
so one thing you'll hear a lot is like
well we already tried
you know we did a lockdown
we did XYZ we did all this stuff in 2020
and if we couldn't defeat it then
then how could we eliminate it now
well I hate to break it to you
but all that stuff we're doing in 2020 was the wrong form of infection control
so instead of doing social distancing and telling people to wash their hands
we should have been upgrading ventilation and filtration systems
cleaning the indoor air
we also should have normalized mask wearing
instead of stigmatizing it and making it out to be something
weird or ineffective
it's not impossible to eliminate covid
we haven't even really tried to do it yet
and the alternative is getting people sick over and over and over again
because what we know now is that people have very
very short periods of time um
during which they're actually immune to covid
so after a vaccination
after an infection
some people get no immunity at all
some people get immunity that lasts a few weeks
a few months at most
like a year but for the most part
people are getting reinfected with covid every single year
that's also because covid mutates a lot faster than we had hoped it would
so right now we're coming out of this really large winter wave called J N 1
that was ongoing for months and months and months
we're finally at a point where covid cases are pretty low in the community
but they've already identified
a new variant that's beginning to take over from JN.1
it's called KP.2
and within the next few weeks
it's gonna start to become dominant
and people are gonna start getting sick again
because immunity from covid
that was acquired from the JN.1 variant that you got this winter
doesn't hold up well to K P2
so you can get covid again
all this is to say
the WHO’s failures at the beginning of the pandemic
to properly consider how covid might be transmitting
Are still with us today
people don't understand how covid transmits
they don't understand how to reduce the level of illness in their communities
or even that it can be done
and they're still being exposed to covid and hospitals
you can read more about it at the gauntlet
check it out at thegauntlet.news