What has been known about this strain is that it takes a droplet with as few as 10 individual viruses in it to become infected.
We’ve got a cold going around Western WA that for the first time in a while hit everyone in my family - no exceptions. This includes my wife who is a school teacher, whose immune system is legendary.
Imagine something with that kind of transmissibility with the lethality of Ebola. It doesn’t have to be airborne to do the kind of damage one would call historical.
What they don’t know, and what NOBODY has talked about:
1. Can a flea that bites and feeds off an infected patient infect someone else?
2. Substitute any pest that feeds on human blood or tissue, and answer the same question?
Plague was carried by fleas. To my way of thinking, it would be so much worse if the answer to either of the above questions was ‘yes’. Worse that it being airborne.
What about mosquitos?
The answer is no. If it were insect borne, the world would have been battling this decades ago. For example, Malaria is much more common and is spread by insects.
Absence of evidence, in this case, is evidence of absence.
Including mosquitoes. They’re still flying heavy up here in Michigan, even after our first frost this week.
Now it may be that polio is much heartier outside the human body than ebola but it is considered to be "highly contagious" and before vaccine there were half a million dead a year worldwide.
So yeah, you're right, nobody is talking about this with any candor. Obviously "it's hard to catch" is bogus and it'd be nice to have some straight answers.