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Yikes! It's Airborne
Townhall.com ^ | July 8, 2020 | Betsy McCaughy

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: New York
KEYWORDS: 2020election; andrewcuomo; attackvirus; betsymccaughy; billdeblasio; cdc; coronavirus; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; mediawingofthednc; newyork; newyorkcity; paratroopervirus; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; smearmachine; stupidkeyword; townhall; townscrawl; who
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To: Kaslin

So, now one wears a mask, the airborne virus attaches to the mask, one takes the mask home, and infects everyone in the house!

#Plandemic


41 posted on 07/08/2020 7:35:54 AM PDT by Road Warrior ‘04 (BOYCOTT The NFL & NASCAR! Molon Labe! Oathkeeper!)
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To: PLMerite

Visit Airborne before it visits you.


42 posted on 07/08/2020 7:36:23 AM PDT by cornfedcowboy
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To: PLMerite

Death from above!


43 posted on 07/08/2020 7:36:33 AM PDT by 38special (For real, y'all.)
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To: Kaslin

“...kudos to Governor Andrew Cuomo for becoming an indoor environmentalist...Unfortunately, he went too far, mandating that they install specific equipment...


So she praises Cuomo for doing something that a couple of sentences later she admits was the wrong way of addressing the problem. Cuomo has done such a fine job of managing the Wuhan virus with “only” a quarter of America’s deaths in his state.


44 posted on 07/08/2020 7:36:38 AM PDT by hanamizu
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To: null and void

WINNER !


45 posted on 07/08/2020 7:37:05 AM PDT by stylin19a ( 2016 - Best.Election.Of.All.Times.Ever.In.The.History.Of.Ever)
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To: Kaslin

Stay outside as much as you can. Temps here in Kaintuck have been in the 90s for weeks. The Rona can’t survive these temperatures and sunlight. I’m not sure I can either.


46 posted on 07/08/2020 7:37:51 AM PDT by lakecumberlandvet (Appeasement never works.)
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To: Brian Griffin

“Six feet was known to be somewhat but not totally effective. The same can be said of masks.”

That’s just dumb.

so two Little People. Six feet apart. From their mouths? Their feet? What if they are laying down?
Now use 7 ft basketball players. One laying down and one standing would be 6 ft apart at the mouth . . .

Blue paper masks don’t block anything. “But what about droplets?” If someone sneezes in your face, the problem isn’t droplets it’s the aerosol wave. That goes through and around the ill-fitting blue paper masks.

Virus is gonna do what viruses do. Those who are gonna get it are gonna get it. 90% will get the Panda Sniffles.

Group Mortality for otherwise healthy folks under 50 is near zero.

Older folks, compromised immune systems, co-morbidities etc . . . need to take care.

We had “3 days of Peace & Music” during the 68-69 Hong Kong Fu that killed a pile of people.

Yep. the “Woodstcok” festival. No lockdowns there.

everyone else.
LIVE YOUR LIFE!


47 posted on 07/08/2020 7:42:47 AM PDT by Macoozie (Handcuffs and Orange Jumpsuits)
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To: Kaslin

We were at a medical appointment a few weeks back, and the person we saw told us that they wait 46 minutes after a patient leaves each little exam room, then sanitize it. They felt 46 minutes was the time needed for anything to “settle”. I expect this is somehow also related to the ventilation for the rooms?

Then a lifeguard at a pool here tested positive for Covid-19, and they were advising that “anyone who had spent 6 or more minutes in close proximity” to that person should be tested, or at the least, on alert to watch themselves for symptoms, take temperature, etc.

Where did the 46 minutes for it to settle and 6 minutes to be “exposed” come from? Are they also “science”? Or just someone’s best guesses?


48 posted on 07/08/2020 7:44:02 AM PDT by NEMDF
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Bump


49 posted on 07/08/2020 7:47:34 AM PDT by foreverfree
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To: Ann Archy
Who the HELL didn’t know a Virus was AIRBORNE?? Is she serious?

Partner, the doctors in the Medical Center here in Houston has said that deaths are down by as much as 93% from the highs in March.

They also said that mostly young folks are getting it right now but they are milder cases of the virus. I.E., they recover a lot quicker if they do not have any diabetes or high Blood Pressure.

They mentioned that folks who have diabetes or high blood pressure will have tougher time of recovery from this virus.

50 posted on 07/08/2020 7:49:51 AM PDT by TheConservativeTejano (God Bless Texas..)
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To: null and void

It may be a possible way it spreads, but multiple studies have shown that it is not the common method of spread.


51 posted on 07/08/2020 7:56:36 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Kaslin

So they are just now reporting that airconditioners can move this virus around...

We already know that the masks available to the general public cannot effectively filter out the virus.

We understand that sunlight ( a UV component of it) kills it in approximately 30 minutes. What about a purpose built UV lamp?

Doesn’t wearing a mask actually increase the viral load of the individual wearing it?? Seems the individual with his face covered is going to re-breathe any virus caught in the snot that was actually filtered out of his sneeze or even just his breath. (Might this cause a liability problem for the governors and mayors mandating their wear?)


52 posted on 07/08/2020 7:58:05 AM PDT by Plain Old American (Remember who said what)
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To: Kaslin
” 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.”

This is the classic “correlation is not necessarily causation” error. . . It is impossible for this research to prove that the two diners at the restaurant were infected because of the coincident dining of an infected person across the room. The idea that the diner at “Table A” somehow “came in with it,” another unprovable assertion that the Table A diner was shedding viruses sufficient to infect anyone. No one in that restaurant was tested in situ, and all of this is therefore surmise.

53 posted on 07/08/2020 7:58:33 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigotu)
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To: JCL3

Bkmrk...my wife will like these guys!


54 posted on 07/08/2020 8:02:58 AM PDT by who knows what evil? (Yehovah saved more animals than people on the ark...siameserescue.org)
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To: IrishBrigade

Yes let’s start reenergizing our own historical cancel culture which happens every time there’s an election.

Get rid of the demoncrat shills. Glad u brought it up.


55 posted on 07/08/2020 8:07:19 AM PDT by MIA_eccl1212 (When the bad guys have leverage they often use it)
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To: Kaslin

Uh, duuuuuh!


56 posted on 07/08/2020 8:07:23 AM PDT by bgill
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To: JCL3

Bkmrk...my wife will like these guys!


57 posted on 07/08/2020 8:15:21 AM PDT by who knows what evil? (Yehovah saved more animals than people on the ark...siameserescue.org)
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To: Kaslin

Why do I get the feeling that nobody knows nothing about this virus as everyone is emphatically prescribing unarguable solutions.


58 posted on 07/08/2020 8:21:30 AM PDT by 1Old Pro (#openupstateny)
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To: Ann Archy
#1:It is rude not to cover your mouth up when you have to to cover.

#2. You always feel when you have a Sneeze coming on.

The trick to avoid it, is take your Index finger and rub it your nose bridge. The urge to sneeze immediately disappears

I learned that as a 13 year old from a Teacher Nun. I'll be 19 in less than a month.

Try it.

59 posted on 07/08/2020 8:29:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Ann Archy
About 80% of this country has no education at all about microbiology. They truly believe a bandanna protects them.


60 posted on 07/08/2020 8:35:10 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Have!)
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