366 - Covid is Airborne, Here's What to Do About It (with Epidemiologist Dr Colin Furness)

No, the answer is NOT lockdowns. In this interview University of Toronto epidemiologist Dr Colin Furness, PhD, goes into detail about Covid transmission, the debilitating (and mostly denied) effects of Long Covid, and simple mitigation measures that don't require billions of dollars. Specific topics include…

• The evidence for Covid being airborne

• How common is Long Covid, what are the three types of Long Covid, which organ systems are affected, whether vaccination helps, and whether mild cases initial respiratory Covid can lead to severe long covid

• Other viruses with long term effects that don't become evident for decades

• The real reason that first responders should be vaccinated

• Why we're seeing so many new variants

• What is wastewater testing, and why is it one of the most useful leading indicators for strain on the healthcare system

• What governments have done to take Covid off of everyone's mind.

• Why the only lockdown that made sense was the first one, and why every lockdown since then has been the result of a failure to act earlier with less severe measures.

• Why you should put away the hand sanitiser and the plexiglass.

• A simple 3 step approach to keeping public spaces safe (ventilation, filtration, and CO2 detectors)

• When is masking appropriate?

• How the removal of masks on planes led to many thousands of cancelled flights and a synchronisation of Covid waves across the entire USA.

• How vaccination keeps other people safe

• Arguments for and against mandatory vaccination for first responders, and strategies that don't involve mandates

• The death of expertise and moving forward in a post-truth world

• Monkeypox - should we take it seriously?

• How we might successfully deal with the next big plague

Dr Furness works in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at University of Toronto. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FurnessColin

Cheers,

Stephan Kesting

P.S. You can also catch the video version of this conversation on Youtube at https://youtu.be/fHa0akoLDPQ