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Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

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Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#161

Post by WalterBright »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #142
WalterBright wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple years ago I bought a CO2 meter, and was astonished to see it going over 1000ppm in my office. Since then, I always keep the window cracked, keeping the CO2 levels usually under 500. The meter was one of the best investments I ever made.

Yeah when our office got those meters it suddenly explained why I got pounding headaches after long days. I'm pretty sensitive to it apparently. I've seen it go as high as 1400 :(

Cognitive performance starts declining at 1000 ppm.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#162

Post by dragonsky67 »

mbo wrote: post #77
jaimex2 wrote: post #44

Explains Queensland doing so well here in Australia thinking about it. Everything is built with high ventilation flow in mind.

I thought exactly the same thing! For those unaware, Queensland (population 5.185 million) _still_ has yet to have a large scale outbreak since March 2020. It's common to have windows permanently open with fly screens here. And houses in the typical Queenslander architectural style[0] are up on stilts and deliberately laid out to encourage a breeze pulling air from front to back. Rooms are often not sealed, with fanl…

Except that a lot of our Government buildings were built in the 1970s and are totally reliant upon HVAC which even in the cooler months may struggle with getting enough air flow. (Cooler months, average temp about 23 deg C).

I'm sure that when I'm in the office I'm not getting any fresh air. Only benefit is at the moment about 70% of the workers on any one day are working from home.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#163

Post by iso8859-1 »

nikolay wrote: post #85

How about ionizing the air where it's cold and impractical to open the windows? There are nice devices, which have certification, and don't produce ozone. When I traveled to Europe this year, I saw ionizers in the Munich airport and nowhere else, unfortunately.

Plants also produce negative ions. May be the cheaper and prettier option.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#164

Post by orblivion »

ajmurmann wrote: post #76
orblivion wrote: post #11

It baffles me that Fauci etc didn't mention this in the next breath after hand washing and masking. It's easy during nice weather.

Is hand washing even that relevant given the virus gets mostly inhaled? I've never seen any studies on this.

As I understand, hand washing isn't as important as they thought it was at the beginning. They thought it transmitted by touch more than it does.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#165

Post by irjustin »

sharperguy wrote: post #50

A metaphor I was thinking of earlier. If a guy is going to piss on you, you're going to be happy if he has to keep a pair of speedos on as he attempts it. You could also just move further away from him. But if you're both swimming in the same pool while he pisses in it, those speedos will make little difference anymore. Neither will your distance from him help very much. What will help much more is the amount of wate…

Sometimes metaphors are less than helpful. This is one.

> Neither will your distance from him help very much.

The amount of piss distributed is still determined by volume, so more distance => weaker concentration, which... helps a lot?

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#166

Post by kleiba »

Healthcare, homes, schools, and workplaces should have been encouraged to improve ventilation at the very beginning of the pandemic, but tardy recognition of the airborne route by leading authorities in 2020 stalled any progress that could have been made at that stage.

I cannot relate with this judgment, regularly venting (about every 20 minutes, I believe) has been the standard in schools and day cares where I live for at least a year.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#167

Post by mlyle »

jkhdigital wrote: post #124
geolqued wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until about 2 months ago contact tracing in Australia was very effective. Contact tracing teams were able to trace who and where each person got infected. They were also notifying/testing/isolating first and sometimes secondary downstream contacts (up to 400 people in the case of one country town outbreak). One of the infections was traced to a department store and the interaction between the two people was caught…

It’s not like you can see the viral particles jumping over in that exact moment. I’m sure there is more to the story, but let’s not try and claim that this is incontrovertible scientific proof that infection happens “in seconds”.

If:

* A vast majority of infections can be traced

* You have an infection whose only traceable contact is for a few seconds in a store...

It seems pretty likely that the infection happened in the moments surrounding those few seconds. Especially when we have multiple circumstances like this. Especially when it agrees with our underlying understanding of the germ theory of disease.

Extended contact makes infection much more likely. But people who are sick shed live virus, and there's not a safe level of exposure of live virus where infection is impossible.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#168

Post by chmod600 »

nr2x wrote: post #151
mlyle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a teacher at a school. - We eat outside. - We have filters upgraded to MERV-13 and the fans run the entire school day. - We have windows and doors open on all classrooms, except for A) a few that don't open outside, or B) when it's rainy/windy to the point it's not possible. We have small, secondary HEPA filters that we run in those circumstances. (Often, we're blaring AC or heat into a room with all doors and wi…

To add to that - younger children are really good with mask wearing in my experience - which is a big factor compared to the teenagers who ditch the mask as soon as no authority figure is in sight...or the adults with the maturity level of teenagers.

Does weaing a mask so often have downsides?

I'm not "anti-mask". I'm just wondering whether we will see studies in 10-20 years about a bunch of children with lung problems from restricted airflow or weird fibers or chemicals, or other pathogens that grew on the masks, or something we haven't thought of yet.

Or who knows? Maybe kids will all have super strong lungs. Or maybe lucky ones will have stronger lungs and others will suffer. I just don't know.

Anyone studying this (potential) issue?

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#169

Post by mlyle »

chmod600 wrote: post #168
nr2x wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to that - younger children are really good with mask wearing in my experience - which is a big factor compared to the teenagers who ditch the mask as soon as no authority figure is in sight...or the adults with the maturity level of teenagers.

Does weaing a mask so often have downsides? I'm not "anti-mask". I'm just wondering whether we will see studies in 10-20 years about a bunch of children with lung problems from restricted airflow or weird fibers or chemicals, or other pathogens that grew on the masks, or something we haven't thought of yet. Or who knows? Maybe kids will all have super strong lungs. Or maybe lucky ones will have stronger lungs and oth…

Who knows. But we do have large parts of the world where wearing masks during cold season is normalized, without any massive evidence of adverse effect.

Re: Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention lost in translation

#170

Post by manwe150 »

nradov wrote: post #116
taeric wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This angle feels like giving up on all of the covid deaths. And is somewhat at odds with all cause mortality being attributed to undiagnosed covid. I am open to the argument. Just feels to be begging a lot of other questions.

Preventing exposure is impossible over the long term. Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments can prevent most deaths. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

Highly improbable, but not impossible, particularly for beings with finite lifespans over the long term. Herd immunity is reached at HIT=1-1/R0, at which point the infection rate will slow, and some of the remaining uninfected and unvaccinated individuals will have avoided exposure, as the chain of transmission to them will be broken. Back at the start of COVID-19, that would have been a sizable percentage of the world, though now (due to the higher R0 for delta) it is a much smaller percentage of the population who can escape exposure in this way alone.

And note that R0 can be changed by altering some environmental factors in the formula above.

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