My understanding is that sneezing and coughing aren’t typical symptoms of the disease, unlike, say, influenza and measles.
All virii can live in droplets suspended in the air and carried by air currents.
They differ VERY widely in how long they can survive in droplets in the air.
They also differ in how easily they can infect another person when they are breathed into the lungs or deposited on the eyes or other mucus membranes.
The common cold is extremely hardy in these respects and just a few particles breathed in will give you a cold.
Ebola is FAR less hardy in the air than the cold virus. It is possible that Ebola could someday mutate into a form more easily transmitted by airborne droplets.... perhaps a change in the protein coat could do it... make it hardier and more sticky. As it is right now Ebola is able to transfer to a new host by droplets coughed directly into ones face from less than three feet.... picture a wet cough of such magnitude that you need to wipe your face off or rub the droplets from your eyes.
Yep, when the CDC says it’s not airborne, then the layman thinks ok sneezes and coughs etc. are not a problem.
Stating that sneezes and coughs are not usually symptoms of Ebola, doesn’t make provision for the Flu season coming up, and there’s going to be lots of sneezing and coughing, and I assume that someone with Ebola could also have the flu. Not to mention that there are many reason why someone sneezes, and if they have Ebola those droplets contain the virus.
My impression is that they are saying that it isn’t airborne, but remember that within 3 feet, you could still get some liquid on you from coughing and sneezing, and rub it in your eyes, or such tissue that isn’t your outer skin.
But sharing the same air isn’t a problem.
bookmark
Are droplets of mucus and saliva not bodily fluids? Of course they are. Would those be a way of transmitting Ebola, especially in the closed environment of an airplane..I believe they would.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
ebola is a direct contact or aerosol contagion
i’m wondering when we can just start calling it the Black Death
both are hemorrhagic fevers and this latest outbreak was brought to us by our first black president
You are exactly right. Airborne most often means suspended in the atmosphere, but aerosolized viruses (i.e., sneezing) are also airborne for a short while.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Layman translation?
Being borne by the air, or wind, means that the air is moving it along. The distance depends on wind velocity so it could be yards, or miles.
Aerosols, exactly like it reads, are like a plant spray bottle. liquid travel is aerosolized, (made small by air) but it only travels for the distance it mass will carry it and the force at which it was ejected.
There is another type that travels and that is ejection as in the spittle that hits you in the face when someone is talking.
You can debate this stuff endlessly if you like. The debate won’t change the reality. You still have to come into contact with bodily fluids of a infected and virus shedding person.
We already know that most of the contact is from contaminated surfaces, and direct contact with the body, but nobody knows how many are infected by a aerosol spray droplet that lands in your eye, mouth or nose.
To prevent that, we wear protection and so does the infected in a hospital environment.
If a virus shedding person is out and about, they will obviously be sick. You can avoid them, but you cannot avoid the surfaces the sick may leave fluids on..
So that’s the concern...not the airborne/aerosol arguments.
I think the misunderstanding, BTW, is intentional hyperbole anyway. For the last six years, few people, other than Obama sycophants, trust anything the government says from any of the multitude of agencies.,
So it is what it is....
How easily is it transmitted in sweat? Many times at the public gym people leave equipment and benches wet with their perspiration without cleaning up after themselves and along comes another to use it. If you used a towel for a barrier to that stranger's sweat and they carried the virus, wouldn't that moist towel now carry the pathogen to the person and then go home to launder exposing everyone along the way?