The CDC used to be the gold standard of the entire world when it came to respected public health organizations. If the CDC said it, it was gospel. So it stands to reason that Donald Trump has decided to fully piss on it until it dies of Trump golden showers. If people respect CDC more than they respect Dear Leader, CDC must be destroyed!
Last week, we watched as HHS spokesman/Trump-Russia scandal omnipresent idiot Michael Caputo lost his literal marbles about the shadows on his ceiling after news came out that he had personally been manipulating CDC reports to bring them into line with Donald Trump's lies. Caputo is now on "medical leave."
After that, right on schedule, news broke that when the agency said out of nowhere a while back that actually people who have been exposed to the coronavirus didn't need to be tested, that guidance didn't actually come from CDC scientists at all. In fact, they were against it! Instead it came from the jerkoffs at Trump's HHS, and also the White House coronavirus task force. Somebody just stuck it on the CDC website.
(Sidenote: In that case, a CDC scientist explained that for those who knew what to look for, the guidance on NO TESTING, NO TESTING, YOU ARE THE TESTING! was pretty obviously not written by CDC scientists, because of how it had "elementary errors" like talking about "testing for Covid-19," as opposed to testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes it. So next time CDC issues some new guidance that looks like bullshit — which might just be today! — have a scientist read and see if it rings any of their bells.)
Anyway, by Friday, having gotten caught again, CDC decided it was a good idea to get tested for coronavirus after all. Who knew? (Everyone.)
AND NOW HERE WE ARE AGAIN!
You see, also on Friday, CDC published guidance suggesting coronavirus is much more transmissible in the air, much more aerosol-ized, than we knew. It said the "six feet" thing may be kinda bullshit, which makes sense to anybody who has ever thought the "three ounce" rule on airplanes was kinda bullshit. It's performative security nonsense meant to give people a guideline to follow. As the Washington Post reports, it said because the virus can spread in tiny aerosol droplets more easily than they once understood, indoor ventilation is very important.
But now that's not on the website anymore, because DOY DOY DOY DOY DOY:
On Monday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention edited its Web page describing how the novel coronavirus spreads, removing recently added language saying it was "possible" that the virus spreads via airborne transmission. It was the third major revision to CDC information or guidelines published since May. [...]
Where the agency previously warned that the virus mostly spreads through large drops encountered at close range, on Friday it had said "small particles, such as those in aerosols," were a common vector.
But Jay Butler, the CDC's deputy director for infectious disease, said the Friday update was posted in error. "Unfortunately an early draft of a revision went up without any technical review," he said.
The edited Web page has removed all references to airborne spread, except for a disclaimer that recommendations based on this mode of transmission are under review. "We are returning to the earlier version and revisiting that process," Butler said. "It was a failure of process at CDC."
Oh fiddlesticks, the CDC had another accident. Please disregard the new thing what got put on the CDC's website that bothered the Trump administration for whatever reason! Just go get tested and you'll be fine, just kidding don't get tested, just kidding again, maybe get a test.
But why is this happening, though? As the Post notes, experts have been thinking along these lines for a while now. And if you want to, you know, beat the pandemic , you should have the most accurate information and guidance possible, so people know how to keep it from spreading.
Then again, if it's truly that easy to transmit in the air, then it really might not be safe for kids to be back at school, or for deplorables to breathe all over each other at Trump rallies. So maybe that's why.
It was a "major change," Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies how aerosols spread the virus, told The Washington Post before the CDC reversed itself. "This is a good thing, if we can reduce transmission because more people understand how it is spreading and know what to do to stop it."
To be clear, the difference we are talking about is like — OK, so when you sneeze and a bunch of snot comes out, that's where six feet matters. It is just highly unlikely that you are snotting really far, unless you are the Jackie Joyner Kersee of snotting, and you aren't. So if the highest risk is your snotting, then at six feet, you're fine. It's going to fall to the ground much closer to the person who committed the snotting. If however, it really comes out in much littler droplets in your breath, which can then travel longer distances, then six feet ain't gonna help you if you're in a confined space for an extended period of time with a corona-breather.
Here, read a thread from a science person:
1/ CDC putting aerosols under “common routes of spread” of #covid19 is a significant shift. We have been saying “w… https: //t.co/Uytd8cA8YZ
— Abraar Karan (@Abraar Karan) 1600653517.0
Note that the science person is discussing the new, and now-deleted, guidance, and saying fellow science people have been talking about this for a while.
The World Health Organization recognized the threat of aerosols in July, after hundreds of scientists urged the international body to address airborne spread. [...]
"Evidence has been accumulating for some time," Jimenez said. "Those of us who have been studying this were frustrated that the change was slow, but it finally came."
But now the CDC isn't talking about it because DOY DOY DOY DOY DOY, it did a boo-boo.
What in the actual fuck is going on at CDC, and how long will it take for it to regain its gold standard reputation under President Biden, if that is even possible?
Forty-three days. We are just counting down in every post we write now.
[ Washington Post ]
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I’m sure confusion is the point (or a happy coincidence), but does this mean cloth masks are pointless altogether? The thought of using one for PPE working in a healthcare situation is obviously terrifying, or in a situation where I would be in an enclosed room with someone for very long (like in a classroom situation), but are they useless for a quick trip to the grocery, or passing people on a crowded sidewalk? I’m talking about the types of cloth masks that have been tested and show a good containment rate, not someone with a gauzy scarf wrapped around their face. Also, I was under the impression that they were never meant to block it altogether, but primarily to reduce viral load which...last I read was important but now ???
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