Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons, an infectious disease specialist with Santa Barbara’s Cottage Health, made a presentation to her colleagues on the "extraordinary, unprecedented … access to clinical data hot off the press" about COVID-19. She warned the information was unfiltered, however, and her half-hour talk analyzed the accuracy of a number of topics. Among them are a study that examined the use protective gear around one patient, who was found later to have COVID-19, and information on the apparent efficacy of a variety of drugs.
Directed to clinicians, Dr. Fitzgibbons's brisk talk included words new to laymen, like “anosmia” and “dysgeusia” (regarding smell and taste), and also observations on a March 17 New England Journal of Medicine letter on how long the virus remained on surfaces.
The study from a number of researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Princeton, UCLA, and the Centers for Disease Control is often cited in the media and may have led to California's recommendation on Wednesday of cloth masks for the public. It found the SARS-CoV-2 virus in spray form — as emitted by coughs or sneezes, or in this study, from "a three-jet Collison nebulizer and fed into a Goldberg drum" — remained viable for up to three hours in the air. On plastic and stainless steel, it was 72 hours. On cardboard it was 24 hours; on copper it was about four hours.