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Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

nature.com

161–170 of 196 posts

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#161

It's been a year now, why can't I buy a N95 mask?

You can. Grainger is selling a good selection now, and they are a very old and respected distributor. I trust their supply chain, and you can get N95s from them for 2-4 dollars each depending on exactly what model and brand you want.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#162
post #9

I predict we’re going to look back at ourselves in a few years and find a few things particularly egregious, much as we look back at “smoking is good for your health!” ads from the 1950s: 1. Our early guidance that masks don’t help (because we needed to save the real masks for healthcare workers); and 2. Our collective obsession around Mar-Apr 2020 with surface disinfecting. The shortage on Clorox wipes, the obsessiv…

We were dealing with the unknown and with deadly consequences. The behavior was correct for the situation. And when we got better information, hopefully we adjusted.

I agree the initial behavior was understandable given the uncertainty. What’s less understandable is how slowly we’ve adjusted to better information…

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#163
post #42
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Wikipedia link you posted: > She is one of the primary authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-discredited paper[15] which advocated a focused response to the COVID-19 pandemic based on levels of individual risk.[16][17] The World Health Organization, as well as other numerous academic and public-health bodies, have stated that the strategy proposed by the Declaration is dangerous, unethical, a…

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

It's not an appeal to authority. It's pointing out that the overwhelming scientific and medical consensus is against this trio.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#164
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol “renowned epidemiologists” who insisted the total US mortality would remain under 100k deaths. These clowns can be safely ignored.

According to the CDC, the total number of deaths caused by Covid is about 6% of the people who died with a positive test result.

That’s long debunked misinformation.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/cdc-did-not-admit-only-6-o...

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were dealing with the unknown and with deadly consequences. The behavior was correct for the situation. And when we got better information, hopefully we adjusted.

I agree the initial behavior was understandable given the uncertainty. What’s less understandable is how slowly we’ve adjusted to better information…

Agreed! What is challenging is that, as a culture, we do not have a collective sense of what is solid “information”. Between filter bubbles and the previous administration contradicting its own messaging, topped off with a populace lacking the mental training to sort through it all and figure out what makes sense, the resulting confusion seems inevitable.

It’s easy to point at the result(eg people making stupid decisions) and ignore the root causes (eg lack of critical thinking skills training, filter bubbles, and more), but to see real systemic changes, the root causes are what will need attention.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#166

I haven't seen a single case study that conclusively demonstrates that fomite transmission occurs at all. There have been a few cases from New Zealand that have been attributed to fomites, but then when you go look at it, it's "they were infected by touching the same elevator button." It's certainly curious that fomite transmission happens in a very small enclosed space with relatively little air circulation. What I'…

By your logic it sounds like it would be basically impossible to convince someone of fomite transmission.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#167
post #142

This seems to be especially true with the UK variant, just today Australia had another transmission in hotel quarantine between people that shared the same floor and only opened the door to get food. > The woman's husband, in her 70s, joined her in quarantine on January 16 and she decided to stay in the hotel with him for his 14-day quarantine period. During that time, a family of five arrived in Melbourne from Niger…

And they specifically mentioned having audited and found no shared ventillation!

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#168
post #76
post #9

I predict we’re going to look back at ourselves in a few years and find a few things particularly egregious, much as we look back at “smoking is good for your health!” ads from the 1950s: 1. Our early guidance that masks don’t help (because we needed to save the real masks for healthcare workers); and 2. Our collective obsession around Mar-Apr 2020 with surface disinfecting. The shortage on Clorox wipes, the obsessiv…

I would add the 6ft rule, but it's unclear to me that people even now realize that's it's based on assumptions about transmission which were proven wrong pretty early on.

The distance rule works and helps... When the area is well ventilated. On par with outdoors. It does next to nothing for typical indoors, as the aerosol won't be evacuated and will stay suspended in air, when the next person enters the area.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our early guidance that masks don’t help (because we needed to save the real masks for healthcare workers) I see this mentioned a lot, is this really a big factor? Did a ton of people genuinely begin the pandemic by believing officials and then after a few weeks start to disbelieve officials? That just doesn't make sense to me. I mostly see this issue used as a bad faith cudgel to justify not wearing a mask now, but…

I remember researching mask effectiveness when it was spreading around China but hadn't made it out anywhere else (that we knew about) and everyone thought it was just going to be another SARS. I personally couldn't find a single English article that said mask were anything besides a placebo for the person wearing them if they wanted protection from others. That instinctively made no sense that a barrier in front of…

You searched poorly, PubMed was quite full of medium quality evidence for their use, back from 2008. Even against influenza which is notoriously widespread and harder to control.

Evidence against was at most due to low adherence. Which means so much as masks don't work if you don't wear them, and they're annoying enough for general public. Quite obvious.

Face shields are somewhat less tested, and likely much less effective based on theoretical data, as they don't form an effective barrier.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#170
post #122
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should. But it takes hours to cycle all the air in a room through one. I haven't heard of any covid studies, but don't think it replaces a mask.

>We should. But it takes hours to cycle all the air in a room through one hours ? A random hepa filter I searched up costs $215, has an airflow rate of 246CFM , and is rated for coverage of 361 sq. ft. Assuming a room with that area and a ceiling height of 9ft, that works out to 3249 cubic feet. Dividing that by the airflow gets you 13.2 minutes, which is the time it takes to cycle the same amount of air as the room'…

You did the wrong math: you didn't account for air that gets sucked through the filter more than once. So that random filter is generally assumed to be about an hour to filter all the air in that room once. And that is assuming there is reasonable air circulation over the whole room - often what happens is the filter sits in a corner and filters that corner well and doesn't filter the rest of the room at all.

More filters in the room, and different sized filters both exist.

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