What I don't get is this: The officials claim that if you wash your hands and don't touch your face, that you should be fine and that this isn't airborne. Yet they turn around and recommend masks because you COULD get it just breathing.
Marci, they're
not recommending that we wear face coverings (as opposed to masks, which are for health-care workers and others out on the "front lines") in order to protect
ourselves. They're recommending that we wear face coverings in order to keep from exposing
other people to the water droplets of varying sizes produced when we talk, sneeze, even just exhale. Any one of us could be infected and not know it because (1) there's an incubation period between start of infection and start of symptoms, and (2) some infections are asymptomatic.
A negative test result doesn't guarantee that you're not infected, either. These tests entail a certain number of false negatives.
We owe it to our fellow human beings to help prevent the spread of the virus, especially to those in the categories of people most vulnerable to serious illness or death. That's why I'm wearing a face covering when I go out in public. It's not about ME: it's about WE.
As for whether it's airborne or not, it depends on how you define "airborne." My own perspective as a retired physician is that any illness that can be transmitted via minute water droplets hanging in the air is, in fact, airborne.
