“If true (and the study was convincing to me) then a non symptomatic infected person at CPAC (which we now believe we have) can just breath into the air. Their breath would get picked up the air circulation system in the room and would go into the hotel’s heating/ventilation/air conditioning system.”
Actually, I think it’s a function of the concentration and length of time of the virons (or whatever they’re called...I’ll use virons). So a big room with high ceilings will dilute the virons of a carrier greatly and while everyone will breathe some, they won’t hit the ‘critical mass’ where their body’s first line of defense is overwhelmed (i.e., they’re infected) - but put that same carrier in a cab and things are completely different. If the concentration is low enough, which may be the case there, then very few, if any people will get infected. If this were not the case and instead any exposure assured infection, pretty much every human on the planet would have been infected a month ago. And while I’m at it, I still don’t think we can get anywhere near critical mass by touching a shopping cart, or gas pump, unless, maybe, someone had just sneezed on it.
I’m permitted to have a theory outside of the box, since I don’t work in the medical field. But I am glad to see that they’re finally, slowly, getting around to figuring this out.
It seems the the 10,000 person dinner in Wuhan that aided the spread worldwide was a large conference hall type room.
*****
1st presumptive case in D.C.
Today, 05:51 PM
Late this afternoon, testing at the Public Health Lab at the DC Department of Forensic Sciences yielded its first presumptive positive coronavirus (COVID-19) case. Join me live at 7:30 p.m. for a briefing at the John A. Wilson Building.Mayor Muriel Bowser
@MayorBowser
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Press conference:
Who:
Mayor Bowser
Administration Officials
Where:
John A. Wilson Building
Mayor’s Press Briefing Room (G-9)
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
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All reporters and other media interested in attending the event are asked to RSVP to press@dc.gov. To view the event online, visit mayor.dc.gov/live or tune in on Channel 16 (DCN).
Bob:
It is all about probabilities, right?
So, yeah, high ceiling is better than low ceiling, etc.
One thing I have learned in reading about this stuff is that medical professionals always assume the worst in dealing with a communicable disease, and the burden of proof is on the person who wants to claim the risk is less in some way.
Since this is a relatively new disease we should assume the worst and act accordingly, until strong evidence is there that the risk is not as great as we thought it was.
So, my motto would be test first and ask questions later.
“Actually, I think it’s a function of the concentration and length of time of the virons (or whatever they’re called...I’ll use virons).”
From what I have read you are correct. You can get some of the “virons” into your body and your body fights them and wins. You get too many (I think they call it viral loading) and the body is overwhelmed and the virus wins.
So anything one can do to lesson the amount of exposure is a good thing. (Hmm - I bet the UBER business is way down.)