Six things we got wrong about COVID-19
To some, those changes read like flip-flops and contributed to a sharp decline in Americans' trust in science.
But revisions like those are normal, experts said.
'This was a completely new disease,' said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Scientists based their initial recommendations on COVID-19's similarities to other viruses. And they prioritized saving lives, preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed and preserving protective equipment for essential workers.
Scientists did, however, miss an opportunity to educate the public about uncertainty and to admit they could be wrong, Kuritzkes said.
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We talked with infectious disease experts about early misconceptions about COVID-19 and how our understanding of the disease evolved from early 2020 until today.
A woman walked out of JP Licks on Beacon Hill after grabbing take out a day after Governor Charlie Baker issued a stay at home advisory for all non-essential workers on March 24, 2020.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
MISCONCEPTION: COVID poses a low risk to the general public
Though scientists said early on the
In the early months of the pandemic, scientists assumed COVID would behave like other coronaviruses and mainly spread through close, prolonged contact. As studies emerged showing COVID was mainly transmitted through aerosols, guidance changed and the risk to Americans was understood as higher.
'Science advances by incorporating new information as it emerges, resulting in changes to recommendations,' said Kuritzkes.
That doesn't mean people should be skeptical of scientists, but aware that information — and diseases — can evolve. For example, while the bird flu currently poses a low risk for humans because it hasn't spread from person-to-person, experts said the risk could change as time goes on and the virus acquires new mutations.
MISCONCEPTION: COVID is not airborne
Dr. Peter Hotez of Houston's Baylor College of Medicine said
global scientists initially declaring that COVID was not airborne was the 'single biggest mistake that was made.'
In March 2020, the World Health Organization posted on Twitter, now known as X: 'FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,' adding that virus particles are 'too heavy' to hang in the air. Later,
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FACT:
The
To protect yourself:
-keep 1m distance from others
-disinfect surfaces frequently
-wash/rub your 👐
-avoid touching your 👀👃👄
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO)
Experts said early recommendations about the virus were based on other coronaviruses, not the one that causes COVID-19.
'There's not many true airborne respiratory viruses that are transmitted [like COVID],' Hotez said.
WHO didn't recognize the virus as airborne until late 2021.
Misconception: You need to wash packages and groceries
Initial belief that COVID mainly spread through close contact with large droplets led many to wash and disinfect anything that came in from outside, including packages and food, a practice Hotez called 'pretty much a waste of time.'
In a YouTube
Reflecting back on the video now, VanWingen said his advice came at a time when officials were working to 'flatten the curve' and operating with 'aggressive caution as things became more clear.'
'This was the first big pandemic that many of us in the healthcare field had to struggle through,' he wrote in an email to the Globe. 'Science was happening in real time at a fast pace as we worked to understand the virus and its impact.'
While some COVID transmission could be linked to droplets, it turned out that this was a 'minor mode of transmission' compared to aerosol spread, according to Kuritzkes.
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State Representative Chynah handed out face masks at Nubian Station in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, MA on April 29, 2020.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
MISCONCEPTION: People don't need to wear masks
Partial knowledge of how COVID spread was also linked to
The recommendation went viral with a February 2020 Tweet from then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who wrote, 'Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching
Public health officials largely started recommending masking for everyone in early April 2020. Still, officials said earlier masking recommendations could have had a 'pretty profound impact' on the virus' spread.
'If there had been guidance and widespread adoption of masking early on, it is possible that many fewer people might have become infected,' Kuritzkes said.
He added that an earlier appreciation of the ability of masks to prevent COVID could have also limited some of the widespread closures of businesses.
Physician Alister Martin received one of the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine from RN Jennifer Lisciotti at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA on December 16, 2020.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
MISCONCEPTION: Vaccines will take years to create
COVID-19 vaccines — which were first
The speed at which the COVID vaccine was developed has been a
In reality, the reason for the shortened timeline was that mRNA vaccines had been in the works for years before COVID erupted. 'We were extraordinarily lucky, and we're lucky that there had been a substantial investment in basic vaccine technology,' Kuritzkes said.
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In 2023, two scientists were awarded the
MISCONCEPTION: The pandemic will end when we reach herd immunity
Now, experts agree society never reached 'herd immunity' as it was thought of initially. That's because vaccines and previous infections did not stop the virus from spreading, as initially believed.
Vaccine makers also had trouble creating updated shots quickly enough to keep pace with the virus's evolution.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said vaccines provide 'incredible protection' against the virus in the first two months. But as immunity starts to fade, people become susceptible to COVID once again.
'What wasn't understood was the concept of waning immunity that we saw with other coronavirus vaccines,' he said.
Vaccines did, however, make COVID-19 far less severe and allowed many of us to put the pandemic behind us.
A young girl takes in a memorial in the front of Amaral's Central Market in Fall River on April 25, 2020. A beloved family-run business in Fall River, it has seen three members of the family die this month from COVID-19.
Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
Emily Spatz can be reached at
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The CDC no longer recommends COVID vaccination during pregnancy, which 'seems to be following a unilateral decision from the HHS Secretary,' Connors noted, referencing RFK Jr. 'It was made without any of the input of the experts at the CDC, the members of ACIP [the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices], certainly without feedback from organizations like ACOG, and so we're very concerned about this.' She noted that ACOG continues to recommend COVID vaccination for pregnant people. For children, the new recommendations are less cut-and-dry. After initially saying the US no longer recommends COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children over 6 months (with exceptions for children with certain medical conditions), the CDC now says it recommends a 'collaborative decision-making [approach] with your pediatrician,' explained Dr. O'Shea. 'Healthy children with no underlying health conditions can, in collaboration with their pediatrician, make a decision about whether or not they want to have their child vaccinated this coming fall against COVID-19.' However, this unusual caveat leaves the door open for insurance companies to rescind coverage of the vaccine, possibly forcing parents to pay out of pocket to vaccinate their children (more on that below). For Dr. Savoy, the 'really deeply troubling' part of these decisions is the lack of evidence to support them. 'I actually don't know what data was used to make the decisions that we're talking about today,' she said. 'The data that I have been able to see most recently continues to mark pregnant people as being incredibly high risk. There would be no situation in the data that I saw that would make me think that it makes sense to remove that recommendation.' The same goes for children, she added. COVID-19 remains a threat, Dr. Savoy emphasized. 'We keep having new variants show up. We keep having people end up in the hospital. We keep running out of beds in the ER. There's things that are still happening, even though they don't show up on the news.' This is one thorny question to come out of the changing guidelines. 'We don't know what's going to happen with insurance coverage, and we're very, very worried about it,' Connors said. That's because there's a direct connection between government vaccine recommendations and insurance coverage of those vaccines, Dr. Savoy explained. Insurance companies typically use government recommendations as a sign that a vaccine is safe and essential; when those recommendations are removed or weakened, the companies may see it as a sign (or an opportunity) to stop covering that vaccine. Connors also pointed out that we're only a few months from flu and RSV season, when vaccines become all the more essential for public health. 'This is a really tough time for these conversations, for these unanswered questions,' she said. All four experts continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for everyone, including pregnant people and children. Dr. Sato cited the 'incredible, robust' data that shows that the COVID-19 is safe, effective, and presents fewer risks of complications than an infection itself. 'The science has not changed,' added Connors. 'The COVID vaccine is safe and it is effective… [It's] the best tool that we have to prevent severe outcomes associated with COVID infection.' Dr. Savoy agreed. 'I would still strongly recommend that if you're a pregnant person, that you get vaccinated, not just to protect yourself, but… to protect the fetus and to protect your newborn infant on the other side of that delivery,' she stressed. 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