Exhaled aerosols . . . and other stories

Coughing is not required for aerosol transmissionExperiments with patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis show that viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis is aerosolised not only by coughing but also by tidal breathing. More organisms are produced by a cough than by a single breath but, since breaths are much more frequent than coughs, breathing probably contributes most of the organisms in exhaled air. As the pandemic has shown, there’s still a lot to learn about the mechanisms by which airborne pathogens are transmitted (Am J Respir Crit Care Med doi:10.1164/rccm.202110-2378OC).Speaking the same languageA retrospective study from hospitals in Ontario, Canada, where, although English is the official language, there are half a million French speakers, discovers that outcomes are better when patients are looked after by physicians who share the same primary language. Numbers of adverse events and in-hospital deaths were halved and the average length of stay reduced (CMAJ doi:10.1503/cmaj.212155).Proton pump inhibitors and…
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