Carl Zimmer

They wanted to do a closer study of it.

But still, at that same time, you know, places like the World Health Organization were really, you know, insisting, you know, COVID is not airborne.

It was a slow process, yes.

Yes, because, well, I mean, and the reason that they got together and sort of formed this band is because early on,

You know, even at the end of January, beginning of February 2020, people like Joe Allen, people like Lindsay Marr, people like Lydia Moraska in Australia, they were trying to raise the alarm.

And so they would say like, oh, I will write up my concerns and I will get it published somewhere.

And journals would reject them and reject them and reject them.

They'd say, well, we know this isn't true.

Or they'd say, oh, they're already looking into it.

Don't worry about it.

This is not a reason for concern.

All of them independently kept getting rejected.

And then at the same time, the World Health Organization was going out of their way to insist that COVID is not airborne.

And so Lydia Moroska just said, we have to do something.

And she, from her home in Australia,

marshaled first this group of 36 people and they tried to get, uh, the world health organization to listen to them.

And they really felt very rebuffed, didn't really work out.

So then they, uh, then they went, uh, public, um, with a, with a, with a very strong open letter.

Um, and you know, the New York times and other publications, uh, covered that and that really started to

to get things moving.