Misunderstanding How COVID Spread

In President Eisgruber’s review of In Covid’s Wake (President’s Page, November issue), the authors are said to be “skeptical on masks.” That skepticism is justified. In late 2020 Scott Duncan's Canadian military chemical/biological defense group rigorously tested many ear-loop mask types and found them on average to be only about 1% as protective as N95s. 

The public health establishment’s initial beliefs about COVID’s spread can be traced to a scientific error of proof by authority figure six decades ago. Alexander Langmuir, legendary CDC epidemiologist, disparaged and ignored the work of William Wells, an engineer (yay!) from Harvard (boo!) who published proof that tuberculosis was transmitted by air in 1962. Sadly, Wells died in 1963 and was unable to carry on the fight. A 5-micron size limit became the public health definition of “airborne” to this day. The history was dug up by Katie Randall, then research assistant to Virginia Tech air pollution scientist Linsey Marr, who had convened a call in collaboration with Australian air-pollution researcher Lidia Morawska with the WHO and CDC in April 2020. They argued that COVID was in fact airborne and 6-foot separation was useless, but were ignored just like Wells. Randall and Marr published in December 2021, and their story should resonate with Macedo and Lee’s audience. An excellent and readable summary can be found in a Wired article written by Megan Molteni entitled “The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill.” As the phrase goes, those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.