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COVID loses 50% of ability to infect after 10 seconds in office air: study
Nypost ^ | 01/11/2021 | Yaron Steinbach

Posted on 01/11/2022 7:13:22 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27

The coronavirus loses about 50 percent of its ability to infect about 10 seconds after it becomes airborne in a typical office environment, according to a new study about how the deadly bug survives in exhaled air.

“People have been focused on poorly ventilated spaces and thinking about airborne transmission over meters or across a room,” said Prof. Jonathan Reid, director of the University of Bristol’s Aerosol Research Centre, the Guardian reported.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: air; covid; office; study; vaccines
Everybody back to the office then.
1 posted on 01/11/2022 7:13:22 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

School kids are getting screwed. Teachers love sitting on their a**** at home.


2 posted on 01/11/2022 7:15:10 PM PST by Sacajaweau ( )
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To: ChicagoConservative27

A public school would have very similar air as an office, so what’s all the fearmongering about?


3 posted on 01/11/2022 7:15:11 PM PST by rfp1234 (Comitia asinorum et rhinocerum delenda sunt.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

so basically dont inhale someones immediate exhalation

personally i would push anyone away if they got that close to me under normal circumsrances

i have zones of personal space like we all do and that would be intruding very rudely


4 posted on 01/11/2022 7:20:53 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: rfp1234
so what’s all the fearmongering about?

It ain't about the government's deep concern for your health, that's for sure.

5 posted on 01/11/2022 7:21:37 PM PST by JennysCool ("It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." - Mark Twain)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

>>The coronavirus loses about 50 percent of its ability to infect about 10 seconds after it becomes airborne in a typical office environment, according to a new study about how the deadly bug survives in exhaled air.

Its productivity drops because it gets pulled into meetings.


6 posted on 01/11/2022 7:29:26 PM PST by vikingd00d (chown -R us ~you/base)
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To: vikingd00d

Made me laugh, Thanks


7 posted on 01/11/2022 7:48:17 PM PST by Neverlift (When someone says "you just can't make this stuff up" odds are good, somebody did.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

... relative humidity,, under 50 percent... half as infectious within 10 seconds...at 90 percent,,,52 percent...after five minutes, dropping to about 10 percent after 20 minutes. Air temperature... did not affect the infectivity....

Walking through a hallway 20 minutes after an infected person carries a 10% risk which sounds good if you know who that person is and when to walk thru and when not to. But I wonder how this applies to, say, an arid inland SoCal where the humidity is very low even seasonally, yet the case rate has consistently remained second only to Los Angeles?


8 posted on 01/11/2022 7:52:01 PM PST by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017) )
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Are you saying you’re safer working than in a strip club?


9 posted on 01/11/2022 8:30:43 PM PST by HIDEK6 (God bless Donald Trump. )
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To: ChicagoConservative27; All

Sorry to get “technical” but I thought that CV19 goes airborn in fluid droplets. So does 10 seconds actually start after fluid disappears?

Corrections, insights welcome.


10 posted on 01/11/2022 8:38:57 PM PST by Amendment10
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To: Amendment10

The large fluid droplets are the ones to “worry” about, and they are the closest to the person breathing or coughing (hence the arbitrary 6-foot rule). The smaller fluid particles that can travel farther probably evaporate after a few seconds, and then the protective shell of the virus dries out and exposes the virus to ??? (air, ozone, I’m not sure) which destroys it.

An old study with the flu virus (same type of protective shell as Covid) showed that typical clothing hanging in a typical room would be virus free after 20 minutes or less. Mainly due to the moisture in and around the virus shell had dried out.


11 posted on 01/11/2022 8:55:05 PM PST by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27; Jane Long; ransomnote; SecAmndmt; Secret Agent Man; Jan_Sobieski; bagster; ..

Imagine that…..


12 posted on 01/11/2022 9:15:13 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: vikingd00d

Mr. Covid gets pulled away from his desk to attend CRT Certification training.


13 posted on 01/11/2022 9:26:12 PM PST by bakeneko
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To: blueplum

Turn off that humidifier!

Dang, is my wife gonna be unhappy. (She’s from Philippines, hates low humidity air such as we have here in winter.)

Questions would be: Does Omicron simply require fewer still viable virions to infect? Does it survive dry air better? Regardless, 10% of an extremely infectious virus is still pretty infectious. The ramp up’s of Omicron are nearly unbelievable... If it was as harmful as Delta, the hospitals WOULD be swamped, this go round.

FWIW, a local doc with our largest health care & hospital system in the region is saying that even with staffing shortages, he thinks the hospitals will get through this wave “stressed” but “manageable”, as hospitalizations look to peak a little below our Delta wave. Our ER’s and clinics, however, are overwhelmed with “people with very unpleasant symptoms” / “think they’re gonna die” but who’s vital functions are strong & stable enough they are not admitted. I read these latter / numerous cases as being on the level of a “knocks you on your butt” but not usually dangerous intense bout with flu. Granted that we don’t yet have any grip on long term effects of Omicron, but, the guess would be “generally less than Delta.”


14 posted on 01/11/2022 11:34:29 PM PST by Paul R. (You know your pullets are dumb if they don't recognize a half Whopper as food!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27; metmom; 2ndreconmarine; Fitzcarraldo; Covenantor; Mother Abigail; EBH; ...
Infectious Disease Ping - Omicron variant may have time limited exposure

(From the article):" The coronavirus loses about 50 percent of its ability to infect about 10 seconds after it becomes airborne in a typical office environment,
according to a new study about how the deadly bug survives in exhaled air."

“People have been focused on poorly ventilated spaces and thinking about airborne transmission over meters or across a room,” said Prof. Jonathan Reid,
director of the University of Bristol’s Aerosol Research Centre, the Guardian reported."

Mind you, this is but one study from the Aerosol Research Center, University of Bristol, (UK).
I await further verification and duplication study of their research,
however this study makes sense when considering viral transmittance in earlier studies.

H/T to metmom !

15 posted on 01/12/2022 6:37:06 AM PST by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: Tilted Irish Kilt

That might explain the milder cases. People are receiving lower amounts of inoculum with Omicron, which gives their systems more time to mount an effective response. It still spreads effectively, but people aren’t being overwhelmed with heavy doses of inoculum.

That’s my theory, you can quote me.


16 posted on 01/12/2022 6:52:03 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN
DannyTN :" People are receiving lower amounts of inoculum with Omicron, which gives their systems more time to mount an effective response.
It still spreads effectively, but people aren’t being overwhelmed with heavy doses of inoculum."

Actually, that seems like a rational answer
and would explain some folks having 'mild symptoms'.
They have had limited, or even limited sporatic exposure.
That might also explain some reports of people having multiple covid (Omicron) infections

17 posted on 01/12/2022 7:45:58 AM PST by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: 21twelve; All
"The smaller fluid particles that can travel farther probably evaporate after a few seconds, [...]"

Thanks for that insight.

18 posted on 01/12/2022 7:47:53 AM PST by Amendment10
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To: Amendment10

There was another study from years ago about the flu. They had set out fabric “traps” to sample the virus. They found the virus up to 30 feet away from the patient. However, by the time they had checked their traps the virus was destroyed because it had dried out.

They couldn’t tell if it had been viable when it hit the trap, or if it had dried out on the trap. From this study it sounds like most of them were probably already destroyed by the time they made it across the room?

Although in 10 seconds I’m guessing a small particle can make it quite some distance in a room with an air vent blowing.


19 posted on 01/12/2022 12:58:13 PM PST by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful.)
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To: rfp1234

It’s because kids are kids and they don’t observe the distance protocols always. Adults don’t always either but are more inclined to.

Except for the guy singing in my face on the subway tonight.


20 posted on 01/12/2022 3:23:31 PM PST by firebrand
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