World Socialist Web Site journalists Richard Phillips and Gary Alvernia spoke online earlier this month with Lidia Morawska, an internationally acclaimed scientist in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health.
Morawska is based at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane where she is currently a Distinguished Professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Technology and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health.
In July 2020, Morawska and Donald Milton, from the Institute for Applied Environmental Health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, were lead authors of an open letter entitled, “It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of COVID-19.”
The ground-breaking study, which included work by 31 other contributing authors, demonstrated that COVID-19 was primarily airborne and released during exhalation, talking, and coughing in microdroplets small enough to remain aloft in air and pose a risk of exposure at distances beyond one to two metres from an infected individual.
Endorsed by over 200 leading medical scientists, the open letter eventually compelled the World Health Organization (WHO) to change its previous rejection of this scientific fact.
In the edited video interview Professor Morawska speaks about her “deep frustration” over the failure of Australian governments to improve indoor air quality standards to minimise airborne transmission of COVID-19. She also voices her concerns about the disastrous impact of these policies on public health and what governments should be doing to protect the population.
In addition, Professor Morawska opposes “disciplinary” action by Australian medical authorities against remote area general practitioner Dr David Berger. An active fighter for stringent, scientifically-based action to stop the spread of COVID, Berger has been threatened with deregistration following false claims that his zero-COVID advocacy on social media violated the Medical Board of Australia’s “code of conduct.”