As much as I have vowed to stay OUT of threads like these, CooperTop is sitting here reading out loud, TRYING to make me crazy. So here I am.
My background: I am an Infectious Diseases RN who works at one of the largest VA hospitals in the country. I have been a nurse for nearly 29 years with extensive critical care/trauma experience in addition to Infectious Diseases/Public Health/tropical medicine background. My hospital is affiliated with a very large teaching hospital that I can guaran-damn-tee you everyone on this board has heard of.
I guess I'm really not sure what "misinformation" there was in Datura's post?
Well, I think maybe "Lancelet" is supposed to be "The Lancet", which is a widely recognized, very highly regarded, peer-reviewed scientific journal on Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
”...according to a new study from National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University scientists in The New England Journal of Medicine..."
Could you cite your source....a link to the actual article where you read this? I subscribe to NEJM and couldn't find an article with combined studies like that.
...You also might want to look up the definition of fomite....
Per Merriam-Webster: Definition of fomite: an object (such as a dish or a doorknob) that may be contaminated with infectious organisms and serve in their transmission. I don't see the "misinformation" in Datura's statements regarding fomites. What do you believe the definition of fomite to be?
I will concede a minor point that "detectable" does not necessarily mean "viable." However, I hope you realize that "viable" is different from person to person. An elderly person, someone with HIV/AIDS, someone on chemotherapy, etc could potentially be made ill by a much lower level of suspended virus than someone else. So the detectable vs viable point, while technically true, is splitting hairs.
I'm not trying to be argumentative...truly!!!! I know we are all being fed fine lines of BS from all sides, depending on the "agenda-du-jour." As a healthcare professional, I just don't see anything in what Datura said that was "feeding the hysteria...". I also don't see anything in your post that was trying to help poor misguided Missouri Girl.
I'm happy to hear your thoughts, though.
LOVE, Starfish :)
Source for the blurb: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronavirus-stable-hours-surfaces This is one of the first sources that pop up if you do a search for “How long is coronavirus viable on surfaces?” I had looked this up weeks ago in order to give advice to my family on handling various deliveries, mail, etc., which is why I knew right away that the numbers datura used were wrong.
A fomite is indeed an inanimate object. Datura has confused the virus with the fomite: “Fomites survive a long time on many surfaces. By touching a surface where a fomite has landed,...” Fomites don’t survive or land on surfaces; the surface IS the fomite.
Datura used incorrect information about the lengths of detectability and substituted “survivable” for “detectable”. Also, no one familiar with Lancet would ever call it ‘Lancelet’ and I doubt that’s spellcheck.
What will help all of us, including (misguided?) Missouri Gal, is fact, not more misguidance. She isn’t wrong about the masks. If you don’t cough, there is no evidence that speaking will transmit virus to someone who should be maintaining 6ft social distancing. That said, I don’t object to asymptomatic people wearing masks to protect others in case of an unexpected cough or sneeze. It’s a benign action that is low risk except in young children and some respiratory patients, and may stop some inadvertent spread.
I also try to stay off of these threads, but when someone posts so much misinformation which could cause others to be even more panicked, and then berates another person to ‘do actual research’, I couldn’t help myself.
Love,
O2