Not in my area. That is, scientists here would beasically say: we don't know yet how well surface transmission works, so better take precautions. Which in hindsight still is the best approach in my opinion. Took a couple of months (IIRC) before it became well-accepted that chances (while existing) were fairly low. Not sure, but 'free and open' debate sounds like you want to have laymen have their say in things like this which is, again in my opinion, a bad idea. Only biologists/chemists/virologists/... have the fundamental knowledge it takes to reason about this without making mistakes. And between them there definitely was a debate, and they came to the same conclusion.