Responding to our riddlers

We will re-run the transmission riddles series

On January the 8th we asked all of you, our supporters, whether we should re-run an updated series of slightly revised posts.

The 14 original posts looked at the evidence on the mechanisms of transmission of respiratory viruses with a special attention to SARS-CoV-2.  The posts ran from August to November 2022 and started off explaining the use and abuse of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, moved on to explain the history of the discovery of respiratory viruses (which started some 100 years prior to 2020) and then analysed the evidence of various modes of transmission. The matter is very complex, no one size fits all and contrary to what the media reported at the time, it is still incomplete in our understanding.

Our view is that you cannot understand some of the events since late winter 2020 without a basic understanding of the science  (or lack of) of the  clinical manifestations of acute respiratory infections and their possible modes of transmission. In detail perhaps the most …