For all the people that’ve been cleaning their groceries, opening door handles with lysol wipes etc, let’s look at the evidence for the fomite transmission of COVID-19
(& asymptomatic transmission as well)

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Fomite transmission is the spread of a pathogen (like a virus) via contact of an inanimate object. For example, the idea of getting infected with COVID-19 after touching a door knob because it may have viral particles on it

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This short review published in The Lancet in July looked at the available evidence for COVID-19 fomite transmission

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The author of this review notes that the studies investigating COVID-19 fomite transmission used samples/aerosols that had up to 10 million (10^7 ) virus particles in them. Why is this important?

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Well, how many virus particles are usually present in aerosols from infected people? Anywhere between 10-100 virus particles, & even then, not all of these viral particles are infectious

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This means that the studies that looked at COVID-19 fomite transmission used samples/aerosols w/ 100,000 times more viral particles than are actually found in aerosols from infected people

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And when a study used a “real world” amount of viral particles in their samples/aerosols to investigate fomite transmission, they found no live viruses on surfaces

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No viable viruses found on surfaces when real-life scenarios are tested. Evidence for fomite transmission looking rather shaky

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A month after this review was published, another group of scientists published a second short review on COVID-19 fomite transmission, again in The Lancet

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Here, the authors discussed studies that looked at COVID-19 #fomite #transmission in infectious disease wards & emergency rooms in hospitals. Where could you find surfaces that would have more COVID-19 viral particles than in an infectious disease ward or an ER?

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They only found only ONE object that had COVID-19 viral RNA but NO viable viruses. “Environmental contamination leading to SARS-CoV-2 transmission is unlikely to occur in real-life conditions”

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There is not even a single documented case of COVID-19 transmission from surfaces in the scientific literature. Not one. Even the highest ranked Generals of Team Apocalypse admit it

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Now let’s look at the latest study on transmission of COVID-19 in households, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)

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This research paper was a meta-analysis that analyzed 54 published studies encompassing 77,758 people. The objective was to estimate COVID-19 transmission at home, when one member of the house is sick with the rona (symptoms+positive test)

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The scientists found that if someone in your home is infected & sick w/ COVID-19, there is a 16.6% chance of transmitting it to someone else at home

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This means that a person who is sick (with symptoms+positive test) w/ COVID-19 in a small, enclosed area like a house, while not wearing a mask & eating, sleeping, chilling with other members of the house, has only a 16.6% chance of infecting them

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And what if someone in your house tests positive for COVID-19 but is either asymptomatic or presymptomatic? What is the chance of an asymptomatic or presymptomatic person infecting someone else at their home?

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Asymptomatic & presymptomatic people have a 0.7% chance of infecting someone in their home. What do you think that percentage would be in larger areas like a mall or grocery store? Or outside?

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This result is exactly in line with this presymptomatic study I shared 3 weeks ago (The Lancet). Duration of viable virus is short lived, & there was no evidence of presymptomatic spread

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So it looks like the myths of:

-fomite transmission

-asymptomatic transmission &

-presymptomatic transmission

being a driver of viral spread for SARS-CoV-2 virus have been shown to be just that, myths.

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It is important to remember that asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of a respiratory viral outbreak. Ever.

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Lastly, a question that I would like to leave everyone w/ to ponder upon is:

If the chance of asymptomatic & presymptomatic transmission in a closed space like a house is already as low as 0.7%, what benefit does a mask mandate on ppl who are asymptomatic/presymptomatic provide?