The tally of people infected with the coronavirus after attending a high-profile Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in April has risen to at least 181, the agency reported Friday. No one was hospitalized.
The CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service officers and alumni — the disease detectives deployed to identify and fight outbreaks — met April 24-27 at an Atlanta hotel. The conference drew 1,800 in-person attendees, the first in-person Epidemic Intelligence Service gathering in four years. Like many conferences, it was crowded, with much face-to-face contact, many events held in small rooms and lots of socializing, according to attendees. About 70 percent of participants who responded to a CDC survey said they did not wear masks at the event.
Mind that the masking, for amateurs, does more to prevent the wearer from transmitting than it does preventing them from catching. Especially if they do something like touching it with bare hands....
Mind that the masking, for amateurs, does more to prevent the wearer from transmitting than it does preventing them from catching. Especially if they do something like touching it with bare hands.
I'd bet if magic perfect data could be collected, there would be minimal, if any, improvement for catching it. But if anyone was infected who did wear a mask, they would have infected fewer people than an infected not wearing one.
I don't think the hand sanitizing would be the issue. COVID is evidently not particularly prone to surface transmission (in fact, this nyt articles claims that's there's quite literally zero cases...
I don't think the hand sanitizing would be the issue. COVID is evidently not particularly prone to surface transmission (in fact, this nyt articles claims that's there's quite literally zero cases proven to be caused by surface transmission).
There was a line very early in the pandemic where there was the claim that laypeople would touch their faces while putting on the mask and give themselves the disease through that vector but in practice COVID doesn't really transmit like that.
That being said, it's still possible that most laypeople would wear masks with either tightly enough of a seal to prevent getting the disease on their own or the wrong kind of mask.
Touching a mask, more than anything, is about risk of breaking the seal. The disposable N95 was also not designed to be worn for more than a few minutes at a time.
Touching a mask, more than anything, is about risk of breaking the seal.
The disposable N95 was also not designed to be worn for more than a few minutes at a time.
Are you sure about disposables? My understanding is that disposable N95s are considered acceptable to wear for an eight-hour shift in an industrial/occupational setting, which generally deals with...
Are you sure about disposables? My understanding is that disposable N95s are considered acceptable to wear for an eight-hour shift in an industrial/occupational setting, which generally deals with particles much smaller than viruses.
Or it might be the opposite... they're so tired of dealing with COVID on a daily basis that they have burnt out and become even more lax than the general public would be in a similar situation. Or...
Or it might be the opposite... they're so tired of dealing with COVID on a daily basis that they have burnt out and become even more lax than the general public would be in a similar situation. Or they might have also assumed that given everyone there was with the CDC in some capacity, and so presumably fully vaccinated and boosted, that they didn't have to be as cautious with their hygiene and social distancing. And if too many people acted the same way, the virus was given ample opportunity to spread. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
From the article:
I’d love to see the percentage of attendees wearing masks that got infected.
Mind that the masking, for amateurs, does more to prevent the wearer from transmitting than it does preventing them from catching. Especially if they do something like touching it with bare hands.
I'd bet if magic perfect data could be collected, there would be minimal, if any, improvement for catching it. But if anyone was infected who did wear a mask, they would have infected fewer people than an infected not wearing one.
These aren’t amateurs, though. I would expect the minority that did wear masks to also religiously sanitize their hands.
I don't think the hand sanitizing would be the issue. COVID is evidently not particularly prone to surface transmission (in fact, this nyt articles claims that's there's quite literally zero cases proven to be caused by surface transmission).
There was a line very early in the pandemic where there was the claim that laypeople would touch their faces while putting on the mask and give themselves the disease through that vector but in practice COVID doesn't really transmit like that.
That being said, it's still possible that most laypeople would wear masks with either tightly enough of a seal to prevent getting the disease on their own or the wrong kind of mask.
Touching a mask, more than anything, is about risk of breaking the seal.
The disposable N95 was also not designed to be worn for more than a few minutes at a time.
Are you sure about disposables? My understanding is that disposable N95s are considered acceptable to wear for an eight-hour shift in an industrial/occupational setting, which generally deals with particles much smaller than viruses.
When I say amateurs, I'm saying "not an active, practicing doctor."
If its not fit-tested, its an amateur job.
Or it might be the opposite... they're so tired of dealing with COVID on a daily basis that they have burnt out and become even more lax than the general public would be in a similar situation. Or they might have also assumed that given everyone there was with the CDC in some capacity, and so presumably fully vaccinated and boosted, that they didn't have to be as cautious with their hygiene and social distancing. And if too many people acted the same way, the virus was given ample opportunity to spread. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯