[mulvya]

> From what I understand, HIV is fairly difficult to transmit, requiring an exchange of infected body fluids.

Fauci didn't think so in 1983.

"But if ''nonsexual, non-blood-borne transmission is possible, the scope of the syndrome may be enormous,'' writes Dr. Fauci of the National Institutes of Health in an editorial to be published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association."

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/06/us/family-contact-studied...

[throwaway210222]

The "if" changes the meaning of his statement significantly.

[mulvya]

Innumerably many valid statements of the form 'if P then Q' can be generated.

But dissemination of one by a govt. scientist in a prominent medical journal, however, indicates that they think it likely enough to be true.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Or it means that they think that were it to be true, it would calamitous, and thus we'd better think and work really hard to establish whether that is the case. And in 1983, it was not known if it was the case.