Posted on 08/19/2021 9:43:56 PM PDT by lightman
They were elementary and homemade at first before becoming commercialized and mass-produced, but plastic dividers became as commonplace during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic as the paper masks that now litter city streets.
Put up with the aim of blocking droplets from the noses and mouths of the COVID-infected among us, they became a sort of virtue signal for businesses to show that they cared about the safety of their customers and employees. Plastic dividers popped up to separate Uber drivers from their passengers, supermarket cashiers from customers, students from teachers, and virtually every place there used to be unimpeded face-to-face interactions.
Now that we've had more than a year of life peering through plastic at our fellow citizens, the science is starting to catch up with the craze and it turns out those measures may have actually increased the chances of people contracting the Wuhan coronavirus.
As The New York Times recently reported, "scientists who study aerosols, air flow and ventilation say that much of the time, the barriers don't help and probably give people a false sense of security. And sometimes the barries can make things worse."
How is that possible, you may ask, that one of the most prevalent forms of COVID theater aimed at preventing the spread of COVID was actually doing more harm than good? The Times explains:
Under normal conditions in stores, classrooms and offices, exhaled breath particles disperse, carried by air currents and, depending on the ventilation system, are replaced by fresh air roughly every 15 to 30 minutes. But erecting plastic barriers can change air flow in a room, disrupt normal ventilation and create "dead zones," where viral aerosol particles can build up and become highly concentrated.
The New York Times admits that in some situations, such as a person sneezing or coughing, a plastic barrier can prevent large droplets from making direct contact with another person. But because the Wuhan coronavirus "spreads largely through unseen aerosol particles" barriers typically trap such aerosols until they're so concentrated they end up spreading beyond the clear walls aimed at keeping them in.
And there are studies to back up the theory that our supposedly impenetrable plastic walls did more harm than good, as The New York Times reports:
A study published in June and led by researchers from Johns Hopkins, for example, showed that desk screens in classrooms were associated with an increased risk of coronavirus infection. In a Massachusetts school district, researchers found that plexiglass dividers with side walls in the main office were impeding air flow. A study looking at schools in Georgia found that desk barriers had little effect on the spread of the coronavirus compared with ventilation improvements and masking.
Before the pandemic, a study published in 2014 found that office cubicle dividers were among the factors that may have contributed to disease transmission during a tuberculosis outbreak in Australia.
British researchers have conducted modeling studies simulating what happens when a person on one side of a barrier — like a customer in a store — exhales particles while speaking or coughing under various ventilation conditions. The screen is more effective when the person coughs, because the larger particles have greater momentum and hit the barrier. But when a person speaks, the screen doesn’t trap the exhaled particles — which just float around it. While the store clerk may avoid an immediate and direct hit, the particles are still in the room, posing a risk to the clerk and others who may inhale the contaminated air.
So while, in theory at least, the plastic dividers that have become a trademark of society's fear of invisible COVID particles should work, they don't always protect people and can even make the situation worse.
According to experts interviewed by The New York Times, the problem "is that most people in charge of erecting barriers in offices, restaurants, nail salons and schools are not doing so with the assistance of engineering experts who can evaluate air flow and ventilation for each room."
As The Times concludes, whether due to improper installation or a misunderstanding of air flow, those plastic walls "most of the time... do little to stop the spread of the coronavirus."
Plastic barriers have tiny holes and imperfections that act like canals to hold saliva.
It Turns Out Those Plastic Barriers Put Up To Stop COVID-19 May Actually Make It Easier To Spread
dailycaller.com ^ | August 19, 2021 | DYLAN HOUSMAN
Posted on 8/19/2021, 7:50:40 PM by ransomnote
[H/T CheshireTheCat ]
The plastic barriers that shot up at sales counters and order windows across America during the COVID-19 pandemic may actually be facilitating the spread of the virus, not protecting people from it.
The barriers are fighting thermodynamics and air-flow currents.
You have to lean around them to hear each other too. So there’s that.
They don’t mention also that the barriers reflect images making it harder to communicate, and with masks on even more so, with the natural result that people use the small spaces between the barriers to communicate.
That in itself would be creating the opposite effect from the one intended.
They haven’t gotten much right about COVID19 so far, even the number they gave it will forever scar a year that had no significant impacts from it (the virus probably escaped the lab around the end of that year). It should really be called COVID20.
Who is to say that those barriers might be sprayed with disinfectant occasionally? Surely it would help greatly to reduce the spread of a virus - if you're killing viruses by the millions on a disinfected sheet of plastic.
At least we have those arrows in the aisles on the store floor pointing us in a safe direction away from the chinese virus!!
18 months and no one wore a real gas mask or hazmat suit. Means the whole thing was fake
it’s true- i always felt a littl sick after licking the barriers-
So you walk up to the register and breathe the trapped air the last five customers were breathing.
but
but...
the “science” said...?!?!
and not only said
but mandated in places by those listening to the “science”
last people to listen to are govt shills and bureaucrats and faceless organizations and libtard cheerleaders intellectually blowing these people with media propafanda pieces
LOL. Thank you for that. I thought I had gone deaf. Only yesterday I maneuvered to hear a receptionist behind a plexiglass barrier. She had a high-pitched voice made worse by the mask. I told her I never appreciated how much I relied on lip reading to hear. With masks, that hearing aide is denied us as well.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180206090650.htm
Virus are everywhere.
Plastic shields to not stop a virus. Plastic shield tell everyone “I Care more than you care”
“The barriers are fighting thermodynamics and air-flow currents.”
A snappy comeback to “Listen to the science” is now “Listen to the engineering”. And, yes, I know engineering is based in science so it’s like saying the same thing. I’ve just tired greatly of the new convert zealotry for the science they slept through in school. A snappy comeback is so satisfying when responding to zealots, whether online or with the JW crowd at your front door.
Meanwhile, you don’t need a vaccine passport to use mass transit in NYC.
Fer cryin’ out loud...
CoupFlu has NEVER been about public health.
Cute. I was screaming about air ventilation from the start. TO THIS DAY, I still don’t know of any FAA regulations requiring HEPA filtering on airplanes (many have it, but if there’s no filter available at the maintenance depot, they’ll fly without it), nor any regulation regarding air recirculation (it costs a tiny bit more fuel to shut off recirculation and instead keep fresh air coming in...so airlines like to recirculate air).
We were never serious about controlling this virus, at least in ways that DO NOT treat people worse than prisoners.
The “Cone of Silence” of Get Smart comes to mind.
Yesterday I was trying to order lunch. The girl behind the counter had a soft voice, a mask so thick I couldn’t see her mouth moving, a plastic screen and some background noise.
Yea, that was fun.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.