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A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

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Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#31

Post by Reason077 »

newsbinator wrote: post #19
zargon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO and CDC have had their head in the sand for 60 years when it comes to airborne pathogens. They have only acknowledged aerosol transmission of covid in the last couple weeks. It was physicists who had to figure out why they were domatically denying reality. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...

> EARLY ONE MORNING, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know It’s really hard for me to read a WIRED article for information. I mean I realize that’s not what it’s there for but it takes forever to get into the content of the article.

> "it takes forever to get into the content of the article."

I've found this is the style of American long-format journalism in general. Just look at something like The New Yorker: not to dispute the quality of their writing, but the word counts certainly skew high. Articles in comparable British publications tend to be a lot more succinct.

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#32

Post by ddxxdd »

hasmanean wrote: post #27
londons_explore wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put money on COVID not happening at all if all buildings had 10 air refreshes per hour, and that air either coming from the outdoors or going through a HEPA filter. I would guess an analysis of workplace COVID rates would see a strong correlation between workplaces with and without filtration in their AC systems.

There’s a saying, earthquakes don’t kill people—buildings kill people when they collapse. In the open air on a grassland, covid won’t kill a population. The design of our hermetically sealed buildings is what’s killing us. Back in the 1970s the air outside was full of lead and smog, so the safest thing too was completely seal all office buildings. Today the air inside probably contains more hydrocarbons (from volatil…

>Of course, that flies in the face of all efforts to make things green…which involve better insulation, sealing windows against leaks, more air filtration systems and etc.

If anyone has a half-hour of time to waste, you can look into the science of "countercurrent heat exchangers".

It's fascinating to see how 2 pipes of air current switch temperatures when they're in contact and moving in opposite directions.

So if you want to be green AND have fresh air constantly circulating through a building, then forcing the warm inside air to pass by the cold outside air as they leave/enter the building can lead to somewhere around 95% energy recovery.

Add in a humidifier to the incoming air, and you'll have a comfortable room with humidity that will attach to airborne droplets, prevent evaporative release of a raw airborne virus, and help pull the droplet down to the ground via gravity.

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#33

Post by legulere »

hasmanean wrote: post #27
londons_explore wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put money on COVID not happening at all if all buildings had 10 air refreshes per hour, and that air either coming from the outdoors or going through a HEPA filter. I would guess an analysis of workplace COVID rates would see a strong correlation between workplaces with and without filtration in their AC systems.

There’s a saying, earthquakes don’t kill people—buildings kill people when they collapse. In the open air on a grassland, covid won’t kill a population. The design of our hermetically sealed buildings is what’s killing us. Back in the 1970s the air outside was full of lead and smog, so the safest thing too was completely seal all office buildings. Today the air inside probably contains more hydrocarbons (from volatil…

With a controlled ventilation system you have better indoor air than with leaky old houses and it's also more energy efficient.

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#34

Post by esyir »

disabled wrote: post #16
colechristensen wrote: post #8

It seems overly complicated. Just raise the air exchange per person and or per volume by a significant factor and mandate a very fine particulate filter. You could do many measurements and lots of theory but nobody is going to engineer their buildings like cleanrooms anyway so the results of a lot of science wouldn’t be so good regardless.

> Just raise the air exchange per person and or per volume by a significant factor and mandate a very fine particulate filter. An alternative in the meantime is to use a PAPR (powered air purifying respirator), which are more efficient, last much longer (device and filter), and are much more comfortable than N95 masks. I use an Optrel Swiss Air and cover the valves of the mask with a hoodie style balaclava. It would…

We're locking down because of a single cluster. Slightly more lenient than the first, but our government is probably just being a bit paranoid here. With the vaccines round the corner though, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#35

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

zargon wrote: post #9
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #7

From the article: "It is not known exactly what fraction of infections could be prevented if all building and transport ventilation systems on the planet were ideal (in terms of controlling airborne infections), or the cost of design and retrofitting to make them ideal." I think this is the key question. Surely better ventilation would have prevented some infections in the covid pandemic. But how many? And to decide…

The WHO and CDC have had their head in the sand for 60 years when it comes to airborne pathogens. They have only acknowledged aerosol transmission of covid in the last couple weeks. It was physicists who had to figure out why they were domatically denying reality. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...

This seems closely related, actually:

Wired: EARLY ONE MORNING, Linsey Marr...

OP article: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection ... Linsey C. Marr (in the author list)

Wired: . At one point, Lidia Morawska,

OP Article: Lidia Morawska (first listed author)

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#36

Post by makomk »

disabled wrote: post #16
colechristensen wrote: post #8

It seems overly complicated. Just raise the air exchange per person and or per volume by a significant factor and mandate a very fine particulate filter. You could do many measurements and lots of theory but nobody is going to engineer their buildings like cleanrooms anyway so the results of a lot of science wouldn’t be so good regardless.

> Just raise the air exchange per person and or per volume by a significant factor and mandate a very fine particulate filter. An alternative in the meantime is to use a PAPR (powered air purifying respirator), which are more efficient, last much longer (device and filter), and are much more comfortable than N95 masks. I use an Optrel Swiss Air and cover the valves of the mask with a hoodie style balaclava. It would…

Wasn't Singapore supposed to be one of the few success stories for eliminating Covid-19 without using vaccination, one of the countries that supposedly proved Western countries like the US could've avoided the need for economy-destroying lockdowns if only their governments were competent? Not to mention that they were and still are one of the most aggressive about mandating mask wearing, and were pointed to as a demonstration of how effective that was as well. The idea that Singapore going into lockdown proves the US CDC was wrong to advise vaccinated people don't need to wear masks seems extremely dubious.

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#37

Post by e17 »

Reason077 wrote: post #31
newsbinator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EARLY ONE MORNING, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know It’s really hard for me to read a WIRED article for information. I mean I realize that’s not what it’s there for but it takes forever to get into the content of the article.

> "it takes forever to get into the content of the article." I've found this is the style of American long-format journalism in general. Just look at something like The New Yorker: not to dispute the quality of their writing, but the word counts certainly skew high. Articles in comparable British publications tend to be a lot more succinct.

I agree, and if you consider Private Eye in particular, they make the New Yorker or The Atlantic look like the Proust. Having said that, the British periodical landscape is sorely lacking a good centrist/apolitical current affairs publication in the American style.

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#38

Post by vishnugupta »

newsbinator wrote: post #19
zargon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO and CDC have had their head in the sand for 60 years when it comes to airborne pathogens. They have only acknowledged aerosol transmission of covid in the last couple weeks. It was physicists who had to figure out why they were domatically denying reality. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...

> EARLY ONE MORNING, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know It’s really hard for me to read a WIRED article for information. I mean I realize that’s not what it’s there for but it takes forever to get into the content of the article.

> When the call ended, Marr sat back heavily, feeling an old frustration coiling tighter in her body. She itched to go for a run, to pound it out footfall by footfall into the pavement

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#39

Post by rightbyte »

ddxxdd wrote: post #32
hasmanean wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a saying, earthquakes don’t kill people—buildings kill people when they collapse. In the open air on a grassland, covid won’t kill a population. The design of our hermetically sealed buildings is what’s killing us. Back in the 1970s the air outside was full of lead and smog, so the safest thing too was completely seal all office buildings. Today the air inside probably contains more hydrocarbons (from volatil…

>Of course, that flies in the face of all efforts to make things green…which involve better insulation, sealing windows against leaks, more air filtration systems and etc. If anyone has a half-hour of time to waste, you can look into the science of "countercurrent heat exchangers". It's fascinating to see how 2 pipes of air current switch temperatures when they're in contact and moving in opposite directions. So if y…

> It's fascinating to see how 2 pipes of air current switch temperatures when they're in contact and moving in opposite directions.

Shouldn't the air ideally move in the same direction?

Re: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection

#40

Post by chiefalchemist »

Overall air quality is an issue. We "consume" more air than anything else. Every day. All day. Day after day. Pathogens are a concern. But conditions and elements that have negative impact on the lungs - and help prime such tissue for invaders and disease - should be addressed as well.
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