ArticleClinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America2023
Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Airborne Transmission: Science Rejected, Lives Lost. Can Society Do Better?
Article in Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Act now to clean up air.Nature · 2026Article
- Time-managed PAPR use enables a balanced approach to infection control and personal freedom.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Review
- The relative effectiveness of personal protective equipment and environmental controls in protecting healthcare workers from Covid-19.Annals of work exposures and health · 2025Article
- The next viral pandemic-where do we stand?Folia microbiologica · 2025Review
- When Facts Become Forbidden: The Past and Present History of Scientific Censorship.JACC. Basic to translational science · 2025Article
- Reflections From the Pandemic: Is Connectivism the Panacea for Clinicians?Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Emergency Knowledge Translation, COVID-19 and indoor air: evaluating a virtual ventilation and filtration consultation program for community spaces in Ontario.BMC public health · 2024Article
- A model of faulty and faultless disagreement for post-hoc assessments of knowledge utilization in evidence-based policymaking.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- New WHO proposed terminology for respiratory pathogen transmission.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2024Article
- Estimated relative potential for airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a day care centre.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Analysis of the airflow features and ventilation efficiency of an Ultra-Clean-Air operating theatre by qDNS simulations and experimental validation.Building and environment · 2024Article
- Interrogating the lack of diversity of thought in the pandemic response that led to mistakes - holistic evidence-based approach to deal with future pandemics.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
33 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This is an account that should be heard of an important struggle: the struggle of a large group of experts who came together at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to warn the world about the risk of airborne transmission and the consequences of ignoring it. We alerted the World Health Organization about the potential significance of the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to control it, but our concerns were dismissed. Here we describe how this happened and the consequences. We hope that by reporting this story we can raise awareness of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need to be open to new evidence, and to prevent it from happening again. Acknowledgement of an issue, and the emergence of new evidence related to it, is the first necessary step towards finding effective mitigation solutions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.