WE KNEW WHAT THE FAR EAST DOES:

 A new paper published by leading academics argues that the western medical profession's centuries-long battle against miasma theory initially blinded it to the fact that Sars-CoV-2 was airborne.

As a result, a whole string of precautions, including the wearing of masks and the better ventilation of hospitals, schools, airports and other public spaces, were tragically and unnecessarily delayed, it says.

Entitled Echoes Through Time: The Historical Origins of the Droplet Dogma and its Role in the Misidentification of Airborne Respiratory Infection Transmission, the paper is co-authored by more than 20 leading academics from around the world and is likely to cause a major stir as it moves through the peer-review process.

"Resistance to the idea of airborne spread of a respiratory infection is not new," says the paper. "It has occurred repeatedly over much of the last century and greatly hampered understanding of how diseases transmit.

"The slow and haphazard acceptance of the evidence of airborne transmission of Sars-CoV-2 by major public health organizations contributed to a suboptimal control of the pandemic."

Only now - 160 years after John Snow - has there finally begun a new "paradigm shift in the understanding of disease transmission", say the authors.

"Not only are respiratory diseases not transmitted exclusively by droplets, but also it is likely that many or most respiratory diseases have an important airborne component.

"This does not mark a return to past miasmatic ideas, but a more informed understanding of airborne transmission."

Tweet   @brothersjudd