...work do need to do a better job of communicating clearly and consistently, via social and mainstream media and their own published materials. I hope in the pandemic post-mortem this is addressed. It would be tremendously useful to all the experts here as well.
-
-
Replying to @angie_rasmussen @zeynep and
I think the key question in any postmortem, was the lack of or insufficient discussion about aerosol transmission a significant contributor to spread? Regardless of the platform (only a small proportion of the population uses twitter), was this a *massive failure* or not?
2 replies 1 retweet 4 likes -
Replying to @samhorwich @angie_rasmussen and
It's December 1st & today the WHO *finally* updated guidance to say "if ventilation is poor wear masks indoors even if separated by 1m/3ft." Until now—eleven months!—WHO didn't advise people to wear masks indoors if one was a mere meter away from others. Very much a failure imo.
5 replies 29 retweets 114 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @samhorwich and
I wrote a single article on ventilation and still constantly contacted by desperate people whose workplace guidance has huge emphasis on deep cleaning (with bleach! indoors! without ventilating it out!) but either no or vague advice on ventilation. We didn't get here by accident.
2 replies 2 retweets 38 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @samhorwich and
So Twitter help aside, people needed simple, actionable guidelines and proper intuition about transmission. In my view, some concerns here about the word aerosol/airborne/analogies may apply to healthcare settings but were not a problem with public discussion.
4 replies 2 retweets 17 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @samhorwich and
I think it critical to stress that the issue of onward transmission and areosolization is extraordinarily complex w/in epi dynamics and there is no robust consensus, particularly w/ C19. Likewise, we have little data on public response to risk comms in C19. Caution is warranted.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @DrJaimeAnne @samhorwich and
I don't think there's much disagreement that aerosol transmission occurs, and it is critical especially in superspreading events which are widely documented to be key drivers of the epidemic. The exact proportion will likely be never known but guidance failure is obviously there.
2 replies 2 retweets 20 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @DrJaimeAnne and
But w/ all due respect, the assumption seems to be that if we communicate perfectly & ppl understand perfectly, they will follow recs. But restaurant owners listen not just to science, but also financials, social pressures, feasibility, their own internal risk evaluation, etc.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @daltonprice386 @zeynep and
Science comm will never be a magic-bullet solution. These comms don't land on a blank slate. People come up with creative solutions, strategies, & new norms on their own terms, blending these comms/recs with their own predispositions & fitting them into pre-existing restraints
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @daltonprice386 @zeynep and
I'm not saying science communication can't be improved; but rather that by saying restaurant owners, for example, not doing X is a failure of sci comm overlooks and obscures a much more complex, and human, reality. A reality that we need to consider more deeply.
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
I don't think anyone in the business of dealing with humans is claiming that if we communicate perfectly (whatever that means) everyone would immediately fall in line. But I think we can say the opposite: if the communication is bungled, it will certainly have negative effects.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.