> transmission was from some third person not known to the contact tracers.
This becomes an unlikely explanation once
> > * A vast majority of infections can be traced
and
> > Especially when we have multiple circumstances like this.
The probability of an alternate explanation becomes exceptionally unlikely. It's further reduced by our general scientific understanding that:
> > But people who are sick shed live virus, and there's not a safe level of exposure of live virus where infection is impossible.
Infection from a momentary contact is fairly unlikely. But when you have a massive number of momentary contacts in the populace, it happening many times becomes a near certainty.
E.g., this:
> Several individuals in Australia were also infected with the Kappa variant through lingering virus aerosol particles in the hallway of a quarantine hotel in May. Though the individuals had no direct contact with each other they opened the doors to their hotel rooms within 30 minutes of each other and tested positive for the same strain.
No complete sequencing, but the same variant... spread several times apparently by the same mechanism of indirect contact, several individuals infected. In a quarantine hotel, where there's not many alternate explanations available.
Or this one, confirmed by sequencing:
> A similar event occurred earlier in April where two families quarantining in rooms next to one another were found to share the same viral sequence, after briefly opening their doors 30 minutes apart.
This becomes an unlikely explanation once
> > * A vast majority of infections can be traced
and
> > Especially when we have multiple circumstances like this.
The probability of an alternate explanation becomes exceptionally unlikely. It's further reduced by our general scientific understanding that:
> > But people who are sick shed live virus, and there's not a safe level of exposure of live virus where infection is impossible.
Infection from a momentary contact is fairly unlikely. But when you have a massive number of momentary contacts in the populace, it happening many times becomes a near certainty.
E.g., this:
> Several individuals in Australia were also infected with the Kappa variant through lingering virus aerosol particles in the hallway of a quarantine hotel in May. Though the individuals had no direct contact with each other they opened the doors to their hotel rooms within 30 minutes of each other and tested positive for the same strain.
No complete sequencing, but the same variant... spread several times apparently by the same mechanism of indirect contact, several individuals infected. In a quarantine hotel, where there's not many alternate explanations available.
Or this one, confirmed by sequencing:
> A similar event occurred earlier in April where two families quarantining in rooms next to one another were found to share the same viral sequence, after briefly opening their doors 30 minutes apart.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/06/28/inf...