How is that possible?
No, but you also didn't specify the people taking part in the debate. So I just tried to interpret it and suggested 2 possibilities.
All biologists/chemists/virologists came to the same conclusion?
How is that possible?
Because it makes most sense. Note that the conclusion was not "the virus spreads by surface all the time". It was: "we don't know for sure (which was completely correct at the time), so better safe than sorry".
Those two assumptions don’t make sense to me, sorry.
I wanted to have heard from the biologists/chemists/virologists who had it right from the start. I don’t recall hearing all sides of the issue. Somebody out there surely saw this coming.
Actually I am not assuming anything. I clearly said I wasn't sure, which leaves the possibilities open.
assuming that every biologist/chemist/virologist came to the same conclusion
Not really, because I don't know every single scientist. I am still talking about the ones in my area. A couple of which I've talked to and those all agreed. And again: the conclusion at the start was not "there is high risk", it was "we do not know how high the risk is". The default mode of scientists is "we do not know" so I hope you see it's pretty easy for a group of scientists to all agree on that. Much, much easier than agreeing on something else because that requires thorough research. But basically you are right on this one: I obvisouly do not have hard evidence all possible scientists agreed they didn't know the actual risks for surface transmission, I just assume they all admit that.
I don’t recall hearing all sides of the issue.
There are many factors which influence that of course. Media in general can be problematic passing through everything.
Somebody out there surely saw this coming
Of course, but that still doesn't mean those people wouldn't agree with "we do not know for sure".
And I'm sure that not all came to the same conclusion. You can probably find some that think 5G is a major contributor. But a broad consensus forms, where people start to think of surface sterilization as somewhere between "not important at all" or "only mildly important" as a measure to prevent COVID spread.
But the precautionary principle means, until the evidence is in--- maybe using protective measures that are effective against other viruses is a sane thing to do until we know more.
