Dark Winter: An insider’s guide to pandemics and biosecurity by Raina MacIntyre

Author:Raina MacIntyre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
Published: 2022-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Hygiene theatre

Most of 2020 was spent emphasising the importance of hygiene theatre, ‘deep cleaning’ (a reassuring term that sounds very impressive) and scrubbing of hands. In India, international cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar was featured in a health promotion ad to show people how to wash their hands while singing happy birthday twice. Similar advice was promoted elsewhere. In the end the whole world was washing their hands until the skin peeled off, showing how effective health promotion can be when it is done with purpose and commitment. Meanwhile, however, no such campaign was used to convey the dangers of airborne transmission. Even today most people still are unaware that SARS-CoV-2 is mainly caught through inhalation. Remarkably, early in the pandemic, the WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and most countries even adopted an anti-mask stance. The message was ‘Do NOT wear a mask. It might be dangerous. Just wash your hands.’ It was also suggested that a mask was only needed when you had symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 – implying that it was fine for an infected person to go out wearing a surgical mask. Asymptomatic infection meanwhile was completely ignored. And in fact, until June 2020 the WHO maintained that there was no significant asymptomatic transmission. In reality, the most infectious period is in the one to two days before the onset of symptoms, and 30–50 per cent of people never develop symptoms but are still contagious all the same.

One educational cartoon on COVID-19 in early 2020 featured an influential figure stepping into an elevator with two masked people and telling them that they should be unmasked like him. When the air you breathe is the most important determinant of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, an elevator of all places is the most risky – a small, enclosed space with no ventilation. People in my own family and circle of friends understand airborne transmission because I have drilled it into them. Recently one person, who had already brought a portable air purifier with a HEPA filter into his office, made me laugh when he told me he goes up in the elevator more than 20 floors in his city office block while holding his breath. I told him that a good quality N95 would be a better option. If I can teach those close to me the requisite knowledge on how to protect themselves against COVID, surely a well-thought-out media campaign could similarly empower people to improve their chances. It’s the air you breathe that matters. Open a window. Wear an N95. Use an air purifier. Queensland University of Technology made a great video on safe indoor air featuring Professor Lidia Morawska, called ‘Ventilation Revolution’, and then the advocacy group The John Snow Project made another. However, without the power of a government campaign behind it, it has not reached the masses, who continue scrubbing their hands.

I did not know Professor Morawska until the COVID-19 pandemic, but we quickly connected over shared concerns about airborne transmission. A physicist and

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