Posted on 07/08/2020 6:53:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
If you're working in an office or eating in a restaurant and someone 30 feet away exhales tiny particles of coronavirus, those particles can drift across the room and infect you. Picture cigarette smoke wafting across a room. Same thing. The precautions agencies like the World Health Organization and the federal CDC are telling you to take against this virus aren't good enough. Social distancing -- placing desks and restaurant tables six feet apart -- and washing your hands won't protect you from this airborne virus.
That's not fear-mongering. It's science. New research from the National Academy of Sciences contends that airborne transmission of the virus is "highly virulent" and the "dominant" way it spreads.
On Monday, 239 scientists jointly announced research showing "beyond any reasonable doubt" that "viruses are released during exhalation, talking and coughing in microdroplets small enough to remain aloft in the air," and can spread across a room.
The scientists urged countries opening up after lockdowns to make buildings healthier by improving ventilation and installing air-cleaning technologies. We all need to become indoor environmentalists, focused on the air we breathe.
The scientists cited research showing how three families at three different tables in an air-conditioned restaurant in China all became infected with the virus. One person at table A came in with it, and when he talked he emitted viral droplets that were carried across the room in a stream of air-conditioned air, infecting diners at two other tables.
When you're in a restaurant, you're not wearing a mask, making you more vulnerable. The mounting evidence on airborne transmission underscores the importance of wearing not only masks, but also goggles, eyeglasses or shields. Microparticles of the virus suspended in the air can invade eye membranes. A new report in the journal Lancet found that "eye protection is typically underconsidered."
As for improving indoor safety, kudos to Governor Andrew Cuomo for becoming an indoor environmentalist. At his June 29 briefing, he said he was concerned about the airborne virus particles circulating in malls. Unfortunately, he went too far, mandating that they install specific equipment -- HEPA filters -- in their air conditioning before they're allowed to reopen.
That's not necessarily the best technology to protect mall shoppers. Newer technologies can deactivate the virus soon after someone emits it, long before it reaches an air conditioning filter. That means protecting people who are there at the same time as the infected shopper, not just later arrivals.
Mall owners pushed back against Cuomo's mandate, explaining their systems can't handle those filters.
Cuomo's well-intentioned edict shows the problem with government mandates. They're often behind the science and shift the cost onto somebody else.
HEPA filters are used by airlines. Most planes recycle about 30 percent of cabin air through HEPA filters and exhaust the other 70 percent out of the plane. The cabin air is replaced about every three minutes. A plane is an unlikely place to become infected by airborne COVID-19. The risks on a plane are from people seated so close to you that larger viral droplets from their mouth or nose land on your face, or from you picking up traces of the virus from contaminated surfaces and touching your own face.
Few indoor spaces can be fitted like airplanes. But there are technologies to improve indoor air quality. "Healthy buildings should be the first line of defense" against the coronavirus, says Joseph Gardner Allen from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. None of the opening plans proposed by the states or the federal CDC propose using technology to improve indoor air quality in workplaces, schools or other buildings. Yet, it's the single most important kind of infrastructure spending the U.S. could make -- a bargain compared with prolonged unemployment benefits. Call it a "Green Indoor Deal."
You may be wondering why you haven't heard this information from the WHO or the CDC. As usual, they're behind on the science. To bring people back into offices, schools, restaurants and stores, we need to face the fact that the coronavirus can spread from one side of a large room to the other, infecting people along the way. It's airborne.
Just like the people who repost this stuff.
it’s time to start banning any post related to covid that don’t tell the truth that it’s a hoax.
Kick the fake rinos out.
Six feet was known to be somewhat but not totally effective. The same can be said of masks.
Vaccines and masks are tools like police officers. Crime was never vanquished.
science means never having to say you’re not terrified.
A recent case in my county turned up after an RV trip through several States. One occupant(60) of the RV went to the hospital with all of the symptoms. The other seems fine.
This article is dangerous, because it further hides the true problem that the politicians in this country are TOO STUPID to understand.
If these politicians had bothered to do some BASIC RESEARCH, they would know that airborne viruses are transmitted via aerosols. When they do some very basic research, they would find out that these aerosols are smaller than what regular cloth masks and surgical masks will stop, AND ARE NOT DESIGNED TO STOP.
I’ve have been trying to explain to people for the past 2 months that any mask that allows air to flow around it when you are breathing is next to useless in stopping transmission of SARS-CV-2. The virus is so small and the aerosol droplets they attach to are so small in mass (weight) that they go with the air currents and travel out any opening where your mask is not sealed. And most masks will allow the tinier aerosols to go THROUGH the mask.
Unless you have a fitted, sealed mask with at least an N95 rating, you won’t be protected. Even then, the N95 is not foolproof.
That is why the boxes with surgical masks have the warnings on the side that they do not prevent the wearer from COVID-19. They won’t stop you from getting it and they won’t stop you from transmitting it.
The health departments should be CONSTANTLY warning everyone to social distance because that is the only thing that will prevent you from catching the virus.
“Well, we can’t stay > 6 feet apart, but we have masks so we will be OK.” This is reason #1 why the efforts to slow the spread of this virus are failing.
My thoughts as well. Is this satire.
OTOH, this is why herd immunity is so important. Yer gonna get exposed, one way or another. And this thing isn’t going away.
There are more Karens causing stress than virulent cells, and they all need to STFU.
With plasma and the newly approved drug and safeguard measures like masks, it’s killing at the rate the flu does.
I see ads for portable oxygen concentrators on TV, so manufacturers have then available.
People are even flying in packed planes.
She was once married to Wilbur Ross ???
“Virulent”
Virus
There’s probably a connection.
If is so airborne, then why are people pushing, and allowing the sale of masks that are not able to protect from the virus? All over the place in the heat we have now, people are wearing those things with their nose sticking out and some of them are loose and filthy.
Wash the hands, that is probably how it spreads the most. But you have to understand that there are certain parties and individuals that want a massive virus spread for nefarious reasons.
what Betsy is “yikes”-ing about was obvious from the beginning. if some thing is in the air, it can be carried distances depending on flow of air.
Maybe Betsy better stop breathing in all together since there are many harmful and deadly things in the air almost always./sarc
If she and others just focused on boosting their own immune systems they wouldn’t need to fear every tidbit of information that is new to them.
They do not have any vaccine for corona viruses. If they did, we would have a cold vaccine.
Some dirtbags head over to Africa and try out these dangerous vaccines on people who have no idea that they are lab rats for people like Gates and his cohorts.
“The scientists cited research showing how three families at three different tables in an air-conditioned restaurant in China all became infected with the virus. One person at table A came in with it, and when he talked he emitted viral droplets that were carried across the room in a stream of air-conditioned air, infecting diners at two other tables.”
Actually, it is obviously IMPOSSIBLE to know this is how someone caught the virus. Anyone who says research shows it did happen this way - versus those people touching something somewhere else - is making up nonsense.
And no, I don’t believe ANYTHING coming out of China!
A couple of studies were done with extensive contact tracing to try to find someone who had caught the disease from asymptomatic people. With a combined total of nearly 200 people, they found ONE who MIGHT have caught it from an asymptomatic person.
That is NOT a dominant means of transmission.
:^) 'Fake RINOs', so, they're not *really* RINOs?!? ;^)
‘it’s time to start banning any post related to covid that don’t tell the truth that it’s a hoax’
yes, by all means let us start participating the ‘cancel culture’ here on FR...
Looks nothing like me.
It’s been airborne since day 1. I don’t see these scientists telling us anything we didn’t already know.
Global Warming is real, science has spoken, it’s no longer a debate. LOL
Of course the real issue is: What is “global warming”?
How much,
Timeframe,
Or is it only certain areas...,
What is actually causing it or is it actually cyclical,
How to deal with it.
There is a huge difference between correlation and causality, and of course what we do with the information as far as policies is concerned.
Before long, because of “global warming” you had hotels in America charging $200 a night for one person in Washington DC and asking their customers to reuse their towels and not change their bed sheets, “to save the planet of course!”
Corona virus is no different. Yes, there is a virus. The rest is politics in America, where today even a virus is politicized in an election year. Of course everyone will twist this virus to their benefit, serving their philosophy, ideology, government agency/department, party, campaign, business, etc.
Is there a virus, yes. Beyond that, everything is so contorted by every interest wanting to use this to serve their purpose that nothing is trustworthy or real anymore. Not even the experts or professionals you would hope to give you sound advice.
Airbourne?
Lions and tigers and bears....OH MY!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0w7vciQCE
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