Isolation is not about surges, but about preventing current from flowing in a particular path at all. In a transformer, there is no conductive (only magnetic) path from the input side to the output side. So, if you touch one or more of the low-voltage output terminals of a transformer, you can’t thereby end up part of a high-voltage circuit no matter what else you’re also touching; only experience the low voltage. This is how wall-plug low voltage power supplies work. Even the ones that are using electronic switching converters (nearly all of them today) are using a transformer to provide the isolation: the line voltage AC is converted to higher frequency AC, run through a small transformer (the higher the frequency, the smaller a transformer you need for the same power) and converted back to DC.
Isolation is not about surges, but about preventing current from flowing in a particular path at all. In a transformer, there is no conductive (only magnetic) path from the input side to the output side. So, if you touch one or more of the low-voltage output terminals of a transformer, you can’t thereby end up part of a high-voltage circuit no matter what else you’re also touching; only experience the low voltage. This is how wall-plug low voltage power supplies work. Even the ones that are using electronic switching converters (nearly all of them today) are using a transformer to provide the isolation: the line voltage AC is converted to higher frequency AC, run through a small transformer (the higher the frequency, the smaller a transformer you need for the same power) and converted back to DC.
Oh, I was too focused on the system function while forgetting that safety can primarily apply to human health too :)