A great deal of people, for a year already now say airborne particles may have a great hand in spreading of the coronavirus. Backed by a growing number of peer reviewed studies.
But fact is, all that data is relatively new. And in science the rule for policy makers, is that there’s a consensus needed amongst scientists, to make or change policy. Even though many new studies show undeniable information. Read: a majority of scientists need to agree on the new ’truth’.
Scientists are people who make a living of being right by being extremely specific, describing specifics, on a topic where no one else has the patience to dig deeper than they do. Read: They will defend their right as a religion, until it’s clearly undeniable.
This makes it extremely hard to change consensus. So even though we already knew with a growing certainty a year ago, that covid appears to be spreading mainly airborne: the WHO and thus country leaderships have mistakenly treated it like all other droplet spreading viruses (distancing and facial covers). Until last week, when they formally embraced airborne spreading, thus now advice ventilation etc.
Consensus – the middle road – is a slow learner.
And I believe in most cases it’s not the better way forward.