Where Is the Safest Place During A (Covid-19) Pandemic? Outdoors!
Here’s why the American C.D.C.’s misleading information about the outdoors transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has likely created greater harm to society, public health, and the economy.
(screenshot from New York Times article ‘A Misleading C.D.C. Number.’)
In a New York Times article earlier this month titled - ‘A Misleading C.D.C. Number’ – it was pointed out that the American Center for Diseases Control, (C.D.C.), has been misleading the public about the dangers of outdoors transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the pandemic.
The latest research, which the NYT article relies on, indicates that the risks of outdoors transmission are certainly as low as 1%, and an Irish study shows that it may be as low as 0.1%. And a Chinese study shows results even lower than that.
But the American C.D.C., relying on a meta-analysis published in November 2020, has until recently told the American public that the risks of outdoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus was less than 10%, inferring that it was about that number.
The C.D.C. used this number to create policy guidance, which has largely extended the Covid-19 restrictions, for example keeping outdoor dining closed down, gyms closed, theme parks closed, and enforced facemask mandates etc.
In fact, from the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in early 2020, it was inferred by all policy makers, and public health experts across the world, which relied on guidance from the World Health Organization, that the stay-at-home orders of the lockdown policy meant the safest place for people to be was indoors at home.
However that is clearly an extremely false and harmful narrative.
The New York Times article criticized the C.D.C. by pointing out that:
“Saying that less than 10 percent of Covid transmission occurs outdoors is akin to saying that sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year. (The actual worldwide number is around 150.) It’s both true and deceiving.”
Quite apart from the fact that the latest research indicates that there is only about a 1% chance of virus transmission outdoors, even if we took the number as 10%, then the guidance and restrictions that the C.D.C. gave for the American public indicate a distorted insistence on restrictions and lockdowns.
Firstly, reflect on the fact that the numbers given of the rate of virus transmission outdoors is based on all the testing done of people that were identified as having the virus based on PCR testing. These numbers do not reflect the total population, or the numbers of people outdoors at a given time; they are exclusive of all the people who tested negative. So it is not like saying all people at all times have the risk indicated by the number used.
When we examine the flip side of the numbers we see the distortion.
Using the C.D.C.’s earlier number of a 10% rate of virus transmission outdoors, this would mean that 90% of all virus transmission is occurring indoors. In fact numerous studies point out that this is the case.
But if we use the recently published figure of 1% of all identified virus transmission occurring outdoors, then that would mean that 99% of the virus transmission was occurring indoors.
Think about that for a moment please – 99% of all virus transmission occurs indoors.
If we take it one step further, and use the number coming out of the Irish health department of 0.1% of all virus transmissions occurring outside, then it would mean that 99.9% of all virus transmissions occur inside.
In simple terms this tells us that the riskiest place to be during a respiratory virus pandemic, especially the Covid-19 pandemic, is indoors.
And therefore the safest place to be during a pandemic is outdoors.
And yet all of the policy guidance from the start of the pandemic, starting with the World Health Organization, the public health authorities across the globe, and the American C.D.C. has created policies and restrictions that have driven billions of people indoors.
Indoors is where the maximum virus contagion occurs.
If the desired outcome was to spread the virus as far and wide as possible, to create as much public health mayhem as possible, and to wreck the economy, especially the small to medium business sectors, a better set of policies for the Covid-19 pandemic could not have been created.
Here’s the New York Times article, you can read it here.
https://usfijitimes.org/news/international/a-misleading-cdc-number/