Atlantic writer Ed Yong warned of a global pandemic two years ago. He says scientists are still working to understand how COVID-19 travels through air — and whether more of us should be wearing masks.
in which he warned that a new global pandemic was inevitable — and that the world would be unprepared for it when it arrived. Now, with the outbreak ofYong says scientists are still working to understand how the novel coronavirus travels through air. Hisconcerns whether or not individuals beyond health care workers and other front-line personnel should be wearing some sort of mask to help prevent spread of the coronavirus.
"We're currently in a situation where masks are already running out in hospital settings and for health care workers, who are the people who need them the most. So any masks — any protective equipment — should go to health care workers as a matter of priority. And only then should we think about whether the general population should be considering wearing masks."
What we don't know is whether there are actually live infectious viral particles in the air. The presence of genetic material doesn't indicate that. It's like finding a fingerprint in a crime scene. It means that the culprit was once there, but they might have long gone. So that's the crucial thing to know. ... And, [in each case], are there enough of those viral particles to actually start an infection? We don't know the answer to that yet.
The medical system runs on a just-in-time economy, much like the rest of the world, and products are made to order and they depend on these very long international supply chains, many of which have fractured in this pandemic. So, for example, Hubei Province, where the pandemic first took off in China, is also one of the world's leading centers for manufacturing medical masks. So the fact that the pandemic hit that region first and hardest really exacerbated the shortage of medical supplies.
Now, is this new coronavirus going to behave in the same way? Possibly. Is that going to make a difference with the pandemic? I'm not sure. And the reason for that is that the virus is circulating through a global population that is completely immunologically naive to it. Our immune systems are not ready to deal with something like this. And so the virus has a large proportion of hosts among whom it can easily spread.
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