San Diego scientists among a group calling on CDC to tighten up COVID-19 guidelines

Credit: Associated Press

Above: Chris Van Gorder, CEO of Scripps Health, vaccinated Christian Dollahon, 66 of Oceanside with the Pfizer vaccine at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on Friday, February 12, 2021 in Del Mar, Calf.

Some prominent researchers, including two from San Diego, are calling on federal officials to better explain how COVID-19 spreads.

UC San Diego Atmospheric Chemist Kim Prather, and Infectious Disease Specialist Robert Schooley, are among those calling on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to change their guidelines on safety and the COVID-19 virus.

They fear that tiny airborne particles known as aerosols are responsible for most COVID-19 infections.

“Indoors, aerosols are like being in the room with a smoker,” Prather said. There is no other way to describe it. They float out. They are produced simply by speaking. Not through coughing or sneezing. They just come out of people when they talk. “

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According to Prather, small aerosols can fill the air in a poorly ventilated room, which can transmit the disease even after an infected person leaves the room.

Prather joined investigators across the country and asked President Biden, the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci to take immediate action to address the risk of inhalation transmission.

“CDC guidelines and recommendations do not contain the controls necessary to protect the public and workers from inhalation exposure to SARS-CoV-2,” the letter’s authors wrote. “The inability to address SARS-CoV-2 inhalation exposure continues to put workers and the public at serious risk of infection. People of color, many of whom work on the front lines in critical jobs, have suffered – and continue to suffer – the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. “

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The concerned scientists say the emergence of even more transmissible virus variants should make rapid action a priority.

“I really believe that one, and this is the whole point of the letter, that once we recognize that he’s in the air, that’s the main way he gets to us,” Prather said. “Then we can take all the measures we need to take to implement the right infrastructure. We can tell people how to make sure their air is clean. ”

The letter contained four specific recommendations:

• CDC should make it clear to the public that inhalation exposure through small aerosols is the primary means of spreading the virus and update its policies and guidelines to address small particle inhalation in public and work environments, and develop guidelines for better quality face cover for the public.

• CDC and OSHA must issue recommendations and requirements for the use of NIOSH approved respirators – such as N95 facepiece filter masks – for all health and other high-risk workers, including those in meat and poultry, corrections and transportation. One year after this pandemic, we must provide appropriate respiratory protection to all workers who need it.

• OSHA must issue an emergency workplace standard to COVID-19 that requires an inhalation risk assessment, the approval of controls including improved ventilation, physical distance, effective respiratory protection for workers in high-risk jobs, and high-quality barrier face covers and masks for other workers who work during work. have been exposed to the virus.

• The federal government should use the Defense Production Act to ramp up the production of respiratory masks and high-performance barrier face covers.

Adequate masks, better ventilation and indoor HEPA filters can significantly reduce the risk indoors.

Don Milton, an environmental health researcher at the University of Maryland, is one of the academics and physicians asking the CDC to recognize the risk in the air.

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“The country is moving forward to deal with this pandemic,” Milton said. “Step up vaccines, expand the use of masks to address the disparate impact of the virus on people of color. But to be truly successful, we finally need to recognize inhalation exposure. “

The American Industrial Hygiene Association is one of many organizations calling for change to protect people in their workplaces.

The letter is signed by:

• Rick Bright, PhD, former director of BARDA, Department of Health and Human Services;

• Lisa M. Brosseau, ScD, CIH, professor (retired), research advisor, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), University of Minnesota;

• Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MS, MPH, Michael, and Lori Milken Dean and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University;

• Céline Gounder, MD, ScM, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine & Bellevue Hospital Center;

• Jose-Luis Jimenez, PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder;

• Yoshihiro Kawaoka, DVM, PhD, professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and University of Tokyo;

• Linsey Marr, PhD, Charles P. Lunsford Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Virginia Tech;

• David Michaels, PhD, MPH, Professor of Environment and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University;

• Donald K. Milton, MD, DrPH, Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, University of Maryland;

• Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health and Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), University of Minnesota;

• Kimberly Prather, PhD, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry and Director, NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE), Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego;

• Robert T. Schooley, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health and co-director, Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapies, University of California, San Diego;

• Peg Seminario, MS, Director of Safety and Health (retired), AFL-CIO

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