say a bit more : The ‘ who ,’ the ‘ when ,’ and the ‘ where ’ about transmission . Not only the ‘ how .’ For example , one of the persons unfairly accusing us ( healthcare providers ) of killing people because we didn ’ t advocate for using the term ‘ airborne ’ alone pushed the idea through several mass media articles that sea breezes carried coronavirus and therefore beaches were extremely dangerous and people should stay out of the ocean . This , coming from an ocean aerosol expert , likely reflects confirmation bias and demonstrates epistemic trespassing on public health regarding knowledge on harm reduction related to infectious disease transmission .”
Escandón adds that the article has been extremely well received and recommended across countries and people regardless of scientific background . “ This paper has been available as a preprint in OSF since mid-2020 . Since then , the input has been really , really great .” have taken umbrage with the paper by Escandón et al , and claim that public health and infectious disease experts should take a hard line that allows no margin for nuance . Rigid scientists and clinicians are likely to reject the importance of nuance and gray shades , and as Escandón acknowledges , “ Our review is a pain , a harsh critique , and an overt enemy to all those who are blinded , polarized , politicized , biased , and dichotomized . If you check our Altmetric , more than 99 percent of comments are extremely nice . But we received two or three negative and decidedly unfair and destructive comments , specifically ad hominem attacks on authors , just four hours after the paper had been released . They had clearly not read a paper of more
Courtesy of Escandón , et al . ( 2021 )
than 17,000 words and 640 references . They just said , ‘ People need clear advice ,’ or ‘ things are white , not gray ,’ or ‘ nuance complicates what is easy to grasp ,’ and ‘ these authors do not ( explicitly ) say the virus is airborne and are killing people !’ Honestly , we were not surprised . This is a very small group of people with limited or no expertise on public health and virology that were angry we ( the authors ) didn ’ t recommend lightly using the word ‘ airborne ’ without conveying context that informs the risk of transmission .”
Escandón adds , “ In the paper , we acknowledged that aerosol transmission is the primary mode of SARS-CoV-2 transmission . But as healthcare and public health professionals , we feel we have to
Health and Lives Versus Economy and Livelihoods
One of the greatest socio-political clashes we have seen since March 2020 was over the science related to lockdowns . While the initial two-week lockdown to “ slow the curve ” ramped up into an 18-month long political showdown – which some saw as evolving into a highly contested imprisonment depending on one ’ s political persuasion – it was not necessarily following the science but imposing governmental ideology .
The first dichotomy as identified by Escandón , et al . ( 2021 ) is health and lives versus economy and livelihoods . As the authors explain , “ COVID-19 response plans have often been framed in terms of a health-economy zero-sum thinking . That is , public health strategies necessarily hurt a nation ’ s economic well-being and vice versa . The false dilemma about these two competing priorities has been extended to include civil health , for instance , the right to protest against measures such as societal lockdowns , and public health threats such as systemic racism and police brutality . There is no such dichotomy between health and the economy or between