Tangible benefits of the vaccine

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The way I see it from the outside, there is one side in the US that follows the evidence and medical research, and there is another side that follows conspiracy theories and misinformation because their constituency has been trained to distrust evidence based authorities. Primarily because the evidence does not support their platforms. While evidenced based consensus is never perfect (which the distrusting will point at over and over again) they are right 99% of the time and well positioned to pivot when new research suggests we should.

 

Travel restrictions were absolutely the right thing. In australia we still have them in place with mandatory hotel quarantine because they are the first line to keeping our economy open and the people healthy.

If the DNC opposed it initially that was wrong. I’m not aware of any ongoing opposition to travel restrictions by the DNC as the evidence shows it works.

With regard to lockdowns I am grateful Australia followed the evidence at the time that suggested early strict lockdowns for longer periods to control spread were the right call. Now we have been enjoying a covid free society with a booming economy for over 6 months.

Last week we had our first case of local transmission in several months in NSW. The state imposed mask mandates in the greater Sydney area and everyone did their part. The case count is 2, the guy and his wife. The mask mandate is slowly being lifted and will probably be gone completely in another week or two if no more cases are found.

 

That is not what the evidence is saying at all.

The primary mechanism is still droplet spread which is why the evidence shows that distancing, masks and hand washing work.

Fomite spread which is spread through surfaces that infected people touch is rare but still occurs (usually because the virus does not survive long on these surfaces). So while cleaning surfaces might be useful to prevent that last few percentages of cases transmitted, it quickly has diminishing returns.

However there are instances where there is new evidence is about aerosol spread. And what we are finding is that it does occur, not as much as droplet spread but more than fomite spread and more than previously thought with more data. Things like singing, shouting, coughing - activities that make droplets travel further promote aerosol spread.

The hesitancy with classifying Covid19 an aerosol transmitted infection is that it increases the level of protection needed and the level of contact considered to be an at risk exposure. That would make the cost of prevention prohibitive when droplet protections have been shown to work very well for covid19, as long as you are aware they are not fool proof because of the small risk of aerosolization.