Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 292 posts

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#11

Post by wavepruner »

pfdietz wrote: post #6
j_walter wrote: post #4

My company took steps to address this months ago. The re-circulation rate was set to zero so all air is fresh make up air from outside. This has significantly increased our cooling bill since it's summer, but it was something that we felt important even though there hasn't been much science to back it up. We also have a UV system hooked up to our system, but this has been installed for the last 2-3 years now.

I wonder if air-to-air heat exchangers could address that cost issue.

Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_recovery_ventilation

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#12

Post by vladvasiliu »

Loughla wrote: post #8
martythemaniak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it won't. The reason things became "partisan" is precisely because things like the article are useless and ineffective. You're assuming a shared reality that doesn't exist.

I can only assume you're being downvoted because you've confused the chicken and the egg. Partisan issues don't exist because articles like this are useless and ineffective. Partisan stances on this sort of thing is what makes people believe articles like this are useless . You have it backwards. I would absolutely agree, though, that there is no such thing as a cultural 'shared reality' anymore. That is the base of…

Not sure what GP's line of reasoning is, but I agree the point could be stated in a finer way, although I roughly agree with it.

> Partisan issues don't exist because articles like this are useless and ineffective. Partisan stances on this sort of thing is what makes people believe articles like this are useless. You have it backwards.

I don't know. Is it really backwards? I can see how it could be argued that partisan stances spread as a consequence of people having short attention spans and preferring short, context-less flamewars on twitter or other social media instead of reading long-form articles like this one and developing their own thoughts on issues.

Therefore it could be argued that, since people didn't pay (much) attention to articles like this to begin with, "they are useless and ineffective".

It might actually be a self-reinforcing situation, though...

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#13

Post by j_walter »

masklinn wrote: post #10
pfdietz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if air-to-air heat exchangers could address that cost issue.

Surely all industrial / professional HVAC get installed with HRV and the loss here is going from the "100% efficient" recirc to HRV, no?

Not all if it isn't designed that way (ours isn't because we never plan to not use recirc). The loss isn't actually that much and since we are using low temp cooling water to cool the air and we have a significant amount of that on site already we barely notice (still a cost though).

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#14

Post by doliveira »

unclesaamm wrote: post #7

One key result of this evidence is that we should take all the money going into deep cleaning, and spend it on higher quality masks for everyone. Also perhaps makeshift ventilation systems (being careful not to replicate that Hong Kong restaurant) or outdoor tents where feasible.

I was under the impression that the aerosol route was just common knowledge, but last week my state government (in Brazil) was doing deep cleaning in schools that have been closed for like 100 days. Yeah, good thing you're deep cleaning probably the last place on earth with no coronavirus! Now we'll only have problems if people want to breath in there... Such a stupid security theater.

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#15

Post by elliekelly »

j_walter wrote: post #4

My company took steps to address this months ago. The re-circulation rate was set to zero so all air is fresh make up air from outside. This has significantly increased our cooling bill since it's summer, but it was something that we felt important even though there hasn't been much science to back it up. We also have a UV system hooked up to our system, but this has been installed for the last 2-3 years now.

How does that work? Is it just a setting on industrial HVAC systems or did it require someone coming out and reconfiguring things? I’ve heard some schools are considering leaving the windows open year-round while running the heat/AC to get air turnover. Maybe because those HVAC systems are dated?

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#17

Post by KoftaBob »

This comes to mind every time I see a company/business emphasize how much priority they're putting on keeping people safe, and then only speaking about disinfecting every surface throughout the day.

While it doesn't hurt to keep surfaces clean, we continue to see evidence that the majority of cases have come from airborne spread in an enclosed environment with poor ventilation.

If there's any lasting change to building environments that comes out of this, I think it should be an overhaul of building ventilation codes to require/heavily incentivize systems that replace air rather than circulate it.

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#18

Post by unclesaamm »

beamatronic wrote: post #9
unclesaamm wrote: post #7

One key result of this evidence is that we should take all the money going into deep cleaning, and spend it on higher quality masks for everyone. Also perhaps makeshift ventilation systems (being careful not to replicate that Hong Kong restaurant) or outdoor tents where feasible.

What was the restaurant doing wrong? Was it recirculating indoor air? Or was it actually exchanging the air? Replacing indoor air with fresh air from outside.

The article links to the study. The issue was more than certain people sat downwind of others indoors, rather than where the air came from. Let me know if you read a different conclusion from it.

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#19

Post by tgb »

One problem is that no one seems to know that AC systems recirculate air. I literally can't get people to believe me when I tell them this. When buying a window unit recently, some models had the ability to incorporate fresh outside air but the cheaper ones didn't. My home is leaky enough that I worry more about keeping outside air out rather than in, though.

Re: Why aren’t we talking more about airborne transmission?

#20

Post by [deleted] »

beamatronic wrote: post #9
unclesaamm wrote: post #7

One key result of this evidence is that we should take all the money going into deep cleaning, and spend it on higher quality masks for everyone. Also perhaps makeshift ventilation systems (being careful not to replicate that Hong Kong restaurant) or outdoor tents where feasible.

What was the restaurant doing wrong? Was it recirculating indoor air? Or was it actually exchanging the air? Replacing indoor air with fresh air from outside.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN