COVID-19 is an airborne hazard – we need to treat it as such.

Focusing mainly on therapeutics and vaccines, without attempting prevention of transmission at a population level, is flawed public health.

Suggesting “one-way masking” for just clinically vulnerable (CV) and high-risk groups belies a lack of understanding of public health. It is airborne. We need high-grade masks, testing for everyone, ventilation (bizarrely not mentioned at all), and support for isolation for all.

Herd immunity now seems impossible. Welcome to the age of Covid reinfection. | The Guardian, 12-Apr-2022.

“Focused protection” doesn’t work for an airborne infection. We need to make our environment safer. It is like saying, “let’s allow smoking in public, and those with respiratory disease can wear a mask to protect themselves.” SARS-CoV-2 is an airborne hazard – we need to treat it as such.

We know mask effectiveness depends massively on population uptake. And we know ventilation makes a huge difference. These measures are physical, they work irrespective of variant – because they work on the mode of spread of the virus.

Focusing mainly on therapeutics and vaccines, without attempting prevention of transmission at a population level, is flawed public health.

Also, given the mention of long COVID, what are the plans for preventing this, given vaccines don’t provide anywhere near-complete protection? Even those not clinically vulnerable get long COVID. We need to reduce transmission rather than indulge in “focused protection” narratives.

Ultimately, letting COVID-19 spread will affect the most disadvantaged groups the most, given the risk is the highest in poorer populations, those with disabilities, and frontline staff. And increases the highest in children who have been left almost completely unprotected.

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— AUTHOR — ▫ Dr Deepti Gurdasani, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology, Statistical Genetics, Machine Learning, Queen Mary University of London.   Sources Text: This piece was first published as a Twitter thread and turned into the above article on 14 April 2022 with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. It has been minorly edited and corrected, and published with the author’s consent. | The author of the tweets writes in a personal capacity. Cover: Unsplash/Adrien Delforge. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.) Share this article:       [Read our Comments Guidelines] Read more Is Reform really pulling ahead of Labour? What to really make of Farage’s supposed lead — Reform’s recent surge in polling reflects discontent with Labour’s policies and rising protest votes. While correlations suggest fragmented party dynamics, Labour must prioritise delivery to regain dominance. Ministers postpone shift to eVisas amidst systemic failure — the3million calls for a public inquiry. — Ministers will delay the eVisa transition amid criticism of its flawed implementation, safeguarding migrant rights and travel. Campaigners demand a public inquiry, citing unresolved technical failures and systemic risks. Trump 2.0 is pretty good for media types… so long as they don’t do any journalism — Donald Trump’s administration is appointing media figures like Kari Lake, Pete Hegseth, and Mehmet Oz to key roles, emphasising communication skills over journalistic integrity, raising concerns about credibility and impartiality. Front Pages 📰 13 December 2024 — Your daily roundup of the front pages of the main newspapers and magazines today in the UK... and beyond.