Minami
#COVIDisAirborne is a popular hashtag created on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the lack of awareness that COVID is spread predominantly through aerosols.
The first use of the hashtag was on March 31, 2020 in a tweet by Twitter user @Kimberl06724725. The #COVIDisAirborne hashtag was used sporadically from that point onward but didn't pick up traction until Nov 2nd, 2020 when the "#COVIDisAirborne" petition was created on the Change.org platform urging the WHO to "urgently promote broad awareness of aerosol transmission." Prior to the petition, there was a Slate article written by Michael A. Fischer entitled "The Coronavirus Is Airborne. Keep Saying It," which may have inspired the phrasing.
The accompanying tweet was when the #COVIDisAirborne hashtag first went viral. Shortly thereafter, many scientists and engineers on Twitter such as Dr. Kimberly Prather, Dr. Jose-Luis Jimenez, Dr. Cath Noakes, Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding began using the #COVIDisAirborne in their tweets about the aerosol spread of COVID-19 (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4). The hashtag then exploded in popularity. As of October 2021, there are hundreds of tweets using the #COVIDisAirborne hashtag per hour.
In 2021, Dr. Jonathan Eisen was "COVID is airbone" for Halloween.
On Nov. 15th, 2021, an academic manuscript with "COVIDisAirborne" in its title was published: "#COVIDisAirborne: AI-Enabled Multiscale Computational Microscopy of Delta SARS-CoV-2 in a Respiratory Aerosol."
On Dec 5th, 2021, top science adviser at the WHO said "COVID is airborne" during an interview with journalist Mehdi Hasan.
#COVIDisAirborne timeline
An interactive timeline of the "pertinent events and articles supporting the aerosol nature of infection for COVID-19" is maintained on its-airborne.org.
Other COVID-19 related hashtags
- #masks4all - a hashtag created to raise awareness of the utility of universal face masking to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
External links
- covidisairborne.org - website that hosts link the original WHO petition.
