I definitely don’t agree with lockdowns unless something extremely drastic has to happen. But what is your source on that claim?

 

Source was quoted in an earlier post but I will post here again as this is important. This is from The Hill so not a conservative or Libertarian source.

Our governmental COVID-19 mitigation policy of broad societal lockdown focuses on containing the spread of the disease at all costs, instead of “flattening the curve” and preventing hospital overcrowding. Although well-intentioned, the lockdown was imposed without consideration of its consequences beyond those directly from the pandemic.

The policies have created the greatest global economic disruption in history, with trillions of dollars of lost economic output. These financial losses have been falsely portrayed as purely economic. To the contrary, using numerous National Institutes of Health Public Access publications, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and various actuarial tables, we calculate that these policies will cause devastating non-economic consequences that will total millions of accumulated years of life lost in the United States, far beyond what the virus itself has caused.

Pandemics have afflicted humankind throughout history. They devastated the Roman and Byzantine empires, Medieval Europe, China and India, and they continue to the present day despite medical progress.
The past century has witnessed three pandemics with at least 100,000 U.S. fatalities: The "Spanish Flu," 1918-1919, with between 20 million and 50 million fatalities worldwide, including 675,000 in the U.S.; the "Asian Flu," 1957-1958, with about 1.1 million deaths worldwide, 116,000 of those in the U.S.; and the "Hong Kong Flu," 1968-1972, with about 1 million people worldwide, including 100,000 in the U.S. So far, the current pandemic has produced almost 100,000 U.S. deaths, but the reaction of a near-complete economic shutdown is unprecedented.

The lost economic output in the U.S. alone is estimated to be 5 percent of GDP, or $1.1 trillion for every month of the economic shutdown. This lost income results in lost lives as the stresses of unemployment and providing basic needs increase the incidence of suicide, alcohol or drug abuse, and stress-induced illnesses. These effects are particularly severe on the lower-income populace, as they are more likely to lose their jobs, and mortality rates are much higher for lower-income individuals.

Statistically, every $10 million to $24 million lost in U.S. incomes results in one additional death. One portion of this effect is through unemployment, which leads to an average increase in mortality of at least 60 percent. That translates into 7,200 lives lost per month among the 36 million newly unemployed Americans, over 40 percent of whom are not expected to regain their jobs. In addition, many small business owners are near financial collapse, creating lost wealth that results in mortality increases of 50 percent. With an average estimate of one additional lost life per $17 million income loss, that would translate to 65,000 lives lost in the U.S. for each month because of the economic shutdown.

In addition to lives lost because of lost income, lives also are lost due to delayed or foregone health care imposed by the shutdown and the fear it creates among patients. From personal communications with neurosurgery colleagues, about half of their patients have not appeared for treatment of disease which, left untreated, risks brain hemorrhage, paralysis or death.

Here are the examples of missed health care on which we base our calculations: Emergency stroke evaluations are down 40 percent. Of the 650,000 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in the United States, an estimated half are missing their treatments. Of the 150,000 new cancer cases typically discovered each month in the U.S., most – as elsewhere in the world – are not being diagnosed, and two-thirds to three-fourths of routine cancer screenings are not happening because of shutdown policies and fear among the population. Nearly 85 percent fewer living-donor transplants are occurring now, compared to the same period last year. In addition, more than half of childhood vaccinations are not being performed, setting up the potential of a massive future health disaster.
The implications of treatment delays for situations other than COVID-19 result in 8,000 U.S. deaths per month of the shutdown, or about 120,000 years of remaining life. Missed strokes contribute an additional loss of 100,000 years of life for each month; late cancer diagnoses lose 250,000 years of remaining life for each month; missing living-donor transplants, another 5,000 years of life per month — and, if even 10 percent of vaccinations are not done, the result is an additional 24,000 years of life lost each month.

These unintended consequences of missed health care amount to more than 500,000 lost years of life per month, not including all the other known skipped care.

If we only consider unemployment-related fatalities from the economic shutdown, that would total at least an additional 7,200 lives per month. Assuming these deaths occur proportionally across the ages of current U.S. mortality data, and equally among men and women, this amounts to more than 200,000 lost years of life for each month of the economic shutdown.

In comparison, COVID-19 fatalities have fallen disproportionately on the elderly, particularly in nursing homes, and those with co-morbidities. Based on the expected remaining lifetimes of these COVID-19 patients, and given that 40 percent of deaths are in nursing homes, the disease has been responsible for 800,000 lost years of life so far. Considering only the losses of life from missed health care and unemployment due solely to the lockdown policy, we conservatively estimate that the national lockdown is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far — already far surpassing the COVID-19 total.

 

This may be accurate (anecdotal) data. But it may not directly implicate a person to person aerosol transmission.

In these cases it may be aerosol to skin/surface to touch to mucous membrane or oral transmission.

If this virus was primarily and easily transmitted by aerosol.....a close indoor non mask event would reasonably have large numbers of cases. I personally havent seen reports of comprehensive numbers of infections from such 'super spreading' evrnts.

Seems the transmission modes of this virus are more obscure and complicated than wearing a mask....or not.

 

Facebook and Twitter are doing their best, though.

 

None because no CoV’s are suspected to be transmitted primarily through the airborne transmission route.
SARS was droplet AND had a prototype vaccine developed AND it was contained largely because transmission links were clear and the chains could be broken. MERS is close contact and has a phase 1 clinical trial vaccine. The other 4 strains of coronaviruses that infect humans account for 15% of global common cold infections. If you can find research suggesting these are airborne please share. I couldn’t. I did find almost unanimous information saying that common colds are transmitted through respiratory expulsion of droplets (via sneezing and coughing), fomites, touching contaminated surfaces then touching your own face kind of thing. My unresearched opinion there is no vaccine for these is ROI based and no clear need.

 

Yet there are a number of veterinary coronavirus vaccines of fairly low efficacy. They are still used, because decreasing the loss of salable critters by 10% is still worth doing, but they are nothing that woukd impede a pandemic much.

 

• The CDC says that SARS-CoV-2 can be spread via airborne transmission.
• Research has found that people with the virus can expel pieces of it when they exhale, talk, or cough.
• This risk of infection is higher indoors. Outdoors, the aerosols evaporate and disperse much more quickly.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Trusted Source updated its coronavirus guidance Monday, now stating that the coronavirus can spread through airborne particles.

Though the coronavirus is still thought to spread primarily through respiratory droplets passed from person to person, the CDC is recognizing that airborne transmission is also a threat since small particles can linger in the air for minutes to hours, be inhaled, and lead to an infection.

The CDC also acknowledges that these minuscule airborne particles can travel farther than 6 feet, particularly when people are talking, singing, or even breathing heavily in indoor environments with poor ventilation.

“People can protect themselves from the virus that causes COVID-19 by staying at least 6 feet away from others, wearing a mask that covers their nose and mouth, washing their hands frequently, cleaning touched surfaces often and staying home when sick,” the CDC stated in a new press releaseTrusted Source about airborne spread.

The news comes months after more than 230 scientists wrote to the World Health Organization (WHO) urging them to update their guidance pertaining to the risk of airborne spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Scientists had to push health officials to update COVID-19 health guidance and recognize that the virus can be spread through these microscopic respiratory droplets, not just within 6 feet but up to several meters in enclosed indoor spaces.

They hope updated guidance will encourage people to take further safety measures — like providing effective air ventilation in buildings and avoiding overcrowding in indoor spaces — to mitigate the risk of airborne transmission.
How COVID-19 spreads through aerosols Research has found that people with the virus can expel pieces of it when they exhale, talk, or cough.

Those tiny viral pieces, called microdroplets, can be so small that they’re able to float in the air and potentially travel a distance of multiple meters.

Some microdroplets can travel across an entire room.

People can then inhale those minuscule viral particles, develop COVID-19, and get sick.

According to the paper sent to the WHO, previous evidence suggests that Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and the flu can also be spread through microdroplets that can potentially travel far distances indoors and be inhaled.

It seems that COVID-19 behaves similarly, but experts still are not sure how often people contract the disease via this type of airborne transmission.

“Originally, it was thought that the major way that the virus was transmitted was from person to person by large particle droplets, which basically only travel about 6 feet or so and fall to the ground very quickly,” said Dr. Dean Winslow, infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, in an earlier interview.

Newer research strongly suggests that airborne transmission plays a bigger role than previously thought.

“Small particle aerosols may actually be as important to even more important than these large particle droplets in terms of transmitting the virus,” Winslow said.

The risk is greatest in indoor environments — think crowded bars and restaurants — where there’s limited exchange of air and these small particle aerosols can stay aloft in the air for a significant period of time, Winslow noted.

Major outbreaks happened at a choir practice in Skagit County, WashingtonTrusted Source, and at a partially enclosed soccer match in Bergamo, Italy.

“If you look retrospectively at where most of the outbreaks have occurred, it’s been in indoor environments,” Winslow said.

 

that’s a joke right? SWA has had a horrible track record for MX for a long time.

 

ABC while a bit of a left bias is generally a good source, but perhaps this one?

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/dod-...s-low-1.648730

“We found that on cough stimulations [with the mask], there was a very large reduction in aerosol that would come from the mannequin — greater than 95% in most cases. It greatly showed the benefit of wearing a mask during a flight for these tests,” said David Silcott, an author of the study from S3i, a biological research company.

From the study itself...Larger droplets (50 to 100s of μm) generated and co-released with smaller modes when talking, coughing, or sneezing introduce an alternative transmission mechanism, which face masks have been shown to statistically reduce in other literature (Leung, et al. 2020; Macintyre, et al. 2020). Testing assumes that mask wearing is continuous, and that the number of infected personnel is low.

The study was based on known mask effectiveness combined with the already excellent cabin filtration we have. When you drill down to the tables of BM vs. BNM the numbers were slightly better with a mask. As we know, cabin air is already super clean, the masks just add an additional element of protection.

Our industry is doing our part as someone else noted, we'll be ready for the world to return.

 

Has Delta considered the long game? How exactly are they going to reverse course on this one when they can and need to fill those empty middle seats?

Seems like a bit of a one way street they have gone down.