Breathing room
Six months into the coronavirus crisis, there’s a growing consensus about a central question: How do people become infected?
It’s not common to contract Covid-19 from a contaminated surface, scientists say. And fleeting encounters with people outdoors are unlikely to spread the coronavirus.
(All the same I do wish people would move away when they can. It does annoy me when they stick to the middle of the sidewalk when it would be so easy to just veer to the side.)
Instead, the major culprit is close-up, person-to-person interactions for extended periods. Crowded events, poorly ventilated areas and places where people are talking loudly—or singing, in one famous case—maximize the risk.
These emerging findings are helping businesses and governments devise reopening strategies to protect public health while getting economies going again. That includes tactics like installing plexiglass barriers, requiring people to wear masks in stores and other venues, using good ventilation systems and keeping windows open when possible.
Keep those windows open.
“We should not be thinking of a lockdown, but of ways to increase physical distance,” said Tom Frieden, chief executive of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit public-health initiative. “This can include allowing outside activities, allowing walking or cycling to an office with people all physically distant, curbside pickup from stores, and other innovative methods that can facilitate resumption of economic activity without a rekindling of the outbreak.”
All of which of course underlines how appalling it is that Trump insists on doing rallies. Crowds, enclosed spaces, people talking loudly…
I actually had a letter to the editor printed today, urging our local stores to implement one-way aisles. They don’t require face masks at any stores, except the local Menard’s. They don’t require social distancing. Some of their employees (most) are masked, but others wander around breathing on people, holding long conversations in the aisles where no one can get around.
Extended contact is exactly what we get in our classrooms, and the school says no to requiring face masks. Great plan.
I notice they don’t go so far as to suggest turning off air-conditioning in offices. There’s nothing like than being repeatedly transported around people in enclosed spaces to help viruses take hold.
Yeah, AoS, I talk to my students about indoor air pollution; they are shocked. They assumed the air indoors is clean, because doctors tell parents to keep asthmatic children inside. (I actually have almost all my asthma problems when I am inside. I rarely encounter problems outside, except when ragweed is pollinating.)
I wonder about air conditioning.
The airlines have been insisting that, while they do recycle air, it goes through a filter that is fine enough to preclude viruses. That seems counter to everyone’s anecdotal experience from all the colds we seem to catch after flying, but I know we can’t trust anecdotal experience. It’s a moot point for me since I have no plans to fly any time soon.
Whatever the case with planes, ordinary air conditioning seems suspect, given that it’s June and rates are spiking in Arizona and Florida, where people this time of year are almost all either (1) outdoors, which we think doesn’t spread the virus; or (2) indoors with air conditioning.
Didn’t the WSJ say though that air conditioning doesn’t do a good job of ventilation and that open windows are much better?
goes to read it again
That’s one strong minus, at least…