I was asking Armando G. if he thinks there is some new nefarious way that the COVID virus is getting transmitted, since we’ve all been covering our faces with all sorts of things (masks, respirators, mini-buttplugs) and the darn numbers are still rising. Some new vector, maybe mosquitoes. An idea which, thankfully has never been brought up in any non-conspiracy, legitimate, scientific discussions. The new article from The Lancet tells us the transmission might, in fact, be airborne.

Back in 1993 we were required to purchase a monthly journal and occasionally discuss the articles in class. I think the fees for the monthly journal fell under “miscellaneous”. One article was about HIV and the reassurance that mosquitoes don’t transmit them. We asked our teacher, Mr. Andy Cruz, a series of questions about HIV. At the time we have all assumed that HIV was “formed” whenever semen from two men come into contact with each other, and I attribute this nonsense to the then-popular notion that it was the “gay disease”. Mr. Cruz, who must have been getting quite incensed at all these pointless, ridiculous questions, valiantly tried to answer them with a straight face. One such question by my classmate Luke was,

“Kung may sugat ka sa mukha, pero napatakan ka ng dugong may HIV sa paa, magkaka-HIV ka ba?” The journal article had already established that mucosa and open wounds are possible ports of entry for the virus, but didn’t really operationalize to Luke’s content.

Not to be stumped by this impetuous student, Mr. Andy Cruz said “Well… it’s a virus so it can walk. It can crawl. It might take its time, but it will make its way to that open wound eventually. So YES.”

He then bent over and demonstrated with his fingers how the virus would walk from the foot to the knee to chest to the neck then finally to the head. “Yes, yes you can get HIV from that.”

P.S. Eventually we learned that you can’t. Also, you can’t get COVID from mosquitoes, rodents, or flies.

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