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Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

economist.com

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Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#21

Post by krona »

kiba wrote: post #13
SllX wrote: post #6

> The who therefore played down the risks of aerosols, issuing guidance via its Twitter and Facebook pages at the end of March 2020 that the general public need not worry. “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” it said, adding that any claims to the contrary were “misinformation”. Not quite the money quote, but on reading this I wanted to point out one little thing. This is also a form of authoritarianism, not the splashy…

Yes, health authorities can be wrong, but if you want to prevent, stop, or aliemoriate a pandemic, you need cooperation. You can't just have Joe Sixpack decided to not quarantine himself or not wear masks. Yes, the authority figures can be wrong. Fauci can be wrong. People can die when health authorities make mistakes, whether through indecision or decision. I myself keep wearing masks after the CDC says I don't need…

> you need cooperation

Sure.

> You can't just have Joe Sixpack decided to not quarantine himself or not wear masks.

So, cooperation, via coercion? Got it. I guess the ends justify the means.

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#22

Post by christophilus »

whatshisface wrote: post #18
tinus_hn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about having a monopoly on good information. It’s about a monopoly on attention. What use is it if the WHO is wrong and someone else is right, but everybody listens to the WHO?

Who's going around listening to the WHO?

For a while, YouTube and friends were banning people who pointed out the WHO was wrong. So, probably quite a few people.

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#24

Post by actually_a_dog »

exabrial wrote: post #23

I suggested this as an alternative to mask enforcement months ago and was ridiculed on hacker news. I'm happy to see the idea come up again as it has a lot of solid science behind it.

It's still ridiculous because it's incredibly expensive compared to just wearing masks.

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#25

Post by kardos »

exabrial wrote: post #23

I suggested this as an alternative to mask enforcement months ago and was ridiculed on hacker news. I'm happy to see the idea come up again as it has a lot of solid science behind it.

Retrofitting the world's buildings for better ventilation all at the same time during a pandemic? Seems like a project measured in decades

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#26

Post by jeffbee »

josephst18 wrote: post #11
laurent92 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve bought the Coway AP-1512AH which filters air, and is extremely silent, and I have a separate CO2-PM10-PM2.5 measurer. It does wonders against asthma. PMs go from 25microgram/m3 to 1 in half an hour, which I trust because the measurement tool is separate. I never succeeded to have less than 10 before the Coway. Before that, I would sneeze first thing in the morning, then sneeze by rows of 10 times in Spring, 30 t…

I would love to find a portable air exchanger too—opening windows helps with CO2 levels but it’s inefficient for most of the year in much of the United States. Built-in air exchangers with heat recovery are available but are a non-starter for anyone in a rented place. Unfortunately, no good solution exists so far

The good solution is to simply tax landlords to get decent ventilation installed.

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#27

Post by kevin_nisbet »

exabrial wrote: post #23

I suggested this as an alternative to mask enforcement months ago and was ridiculed on hacker news. I'm happy to see the idea come up again as it has a lot of solid science behind it.

I certainly don't think you should be ridiculed for the notion, although I think my counter thought would be why should it be one or the other, and how confident are we in the engineering side of the solution at a wide scale.

To my knowledge masks are a low cost / lost risk way to reduce the spread, and countries that had faster uptake and higher rates of compliance in mask usage did see lower overall case counts.

The building ventilation side to me seems more like a long term solution, with lots of details to implement. How can we be confident that someone did the retrofit correctly, and tested the air pathways to make sure there isn't droplets being pushed from one table to another in a restaurant. Can we be confident that small changes to dampers, rearrangement of the dining room, other changes don't affect the conditions and are maintained over time. Building HVAC systems are hard enough to maintain as is.

This seems like a great addition to building codes, or if some standard can be developed for inspection, maintenance, testing, etc. And how can we be sure that businesses don't just try and cheat, would they be liable, can this be inspected, would the liability be collectable, etc, etc.

I think as a society we should be looking at this problem holistically, I think part of the solution is masks, and part is vaccines, and part should probably be building codes and HVAC systems in public indoor spaces to reduce a variety of airborne pathogens.

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#28

Post by SllX »

tinus_hn wrote: post #16
SllX wrote: post #6

> The who therefore played down the risks of aerosols, issuing guidance via its Twitter and Facebook pages at the end of March 2020 that the general public need not worry. “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” it said, adding that any claims to the contrary were “misinformation”. Not quite the money quote, but on reading this I wanted to point out one little thing. This is also a form of authoritarianism, not the splashy…

It’s not about having a monopoly on good information. It’s about a monopoly on attention. What use is it if the WHO is wrong and someone else is right, but everybody listens to the WHO?

Fortunately they didn’t have an attention monopoly either, in part because they didn’t have an information monopoly. :)

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#29

Post by behnamoh »

SllX wrote: post #6

> The who therefore played down the risks of aerosols, issuing guidance via its Twitter and Facebook pages at the end of March 2020 that the general public need not worry. “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” it said, adding that any claims to the contrary were “misinformation”. Not quite the money quote, but on reading this I wanted to point out one little thing. This is also a form of authoritarianism, not the splashy…

> Fortunately, we also live in a world where the UN and its agencies do not have a monopoly on good information.

We live in a world where the UN is basically a formality. I don't see how this organization has been helpful in solving world problems and preventing wars at all.

Re: Improving ventilation will help curb SARS-CoV-2

#30

Post by harikb »

christophilus wrote: post #22
whatshisface wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's going around listening to the WHO?

For a while, YouTube and friends were banning people who pointed out the WHO was wrong. So, probably quite a few people.

that was specifically about calling Covid a hoax. Those who were fighting against this censorship weren’t fighting for Covid being airborne or not
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