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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

#251

Post by NoPie »

sjg007 wrote: post #105
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand that the times you had symptoms, the infection was confirmed to be flu. What wasn't tested (or detected) were the times when you were asymptommatic but still infected with one the many influenza variants. English is a little problematic when it comes to describing infectious disease. In all cases, there is the disease agent (e.g. an influenza virus) and there are the disease symptoms (e.g. "flu"). B…

Following your logic I should have had residual immunity to keep most of the variants in check. The first time I had the flu in college it was brutal and I was out of commission. The second time diagosed I got tamiflu after the flu test and it was mild. I also knew I was sick. Anything in between was unnoticed and I have had a flu shot since they first came on the market.

Not necessarily. The immunity fades with time, so it is possible that you could be infected again. The residual immunity might be strong enough to prevent symptoms however. Each such exposure can boost your immunity. Nevertheless, influenza virus has many mutations and sometimes can cause breakthrough disease even in vaccinated.

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

#252

Post by higeorge13 »

kochikame wrote: post #224

In Japan, ventilation has always been seen as one of the main ways to keep cases low. Restaurants and bars keep their doors and windows open, busses and trains have windows open, campaigns encourage everyone to open any windows in offices and homes for ten minutes every hour... even in winter. Seems like the science supports thi snow but for many years foreigners in Japan have traditionally and famously complained ab…

Tourists were laughing with people wearing masks in trains, buses and malls as well. Imagine the shock after March 2020.

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

#253

Post by nicoburns »

IgorPartola wrote: post #191
chmod600 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The only issue I have seen so far is that constantly exhaling onto your eyes dries them out and can make them more prone to minor infections. Happened to me, doctor told me to not use contacts for a bit and take mask breaks once in a while. Outside of that, medical professionals wear masks all the time. Nurses are often subjects of medical studies because they are an accessible caprice audience. I know of no known ca…

Consider getting a mask that seals over the bridge over the nose. Bonus: this will also be much more effective at protecting you.

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

#254

Post by irjustin »

beagle3 wrote: post #248
irjustin wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

only in the transient stage. in the "steady state", it distributes evenly to the entire pool, and the only thing that matters is total volume (+ intake, - outlet), distance irrelevant.

True assuming good mixing (big assumption), but why are you conveniently throwing out concentration?

Are you assuming that if "any part of the piss touches me, regardless of how much - i die."?

edit: sorry thought you were grandparent poster and was a little more aggressive. But still..

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

#255

Post by _benedict »

willyt wrote: post #245
_benedict wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many non-passive house buildings have 0.4ACH or more without mechanical ventilation. The purpose of an MVHR is to provide similar trickle rates of ventilation without the high energy cost, but the goal of "opening a window" is to provide much higher airflow rates, in which case the cost would be much higher with mechanical ventilation. It looks like 3-6ACH[1] or more is desirable to control the spread of infection. T…

Depends on construction standards. I can’t find my source, but my understanding is that passive house is 3-4x better ACH than a typical recently built house in the UK when you take as built measurements of typical usuage patterns. Heat recovery ventilation is an available technology and it’s not practical in the winter to sit in a house with the windows wide open, even with the heating on full so no-one will actually…

> my understanding is that passive house is 3-4x better ACH than a typical recently built house in the UK

Part L1A of UK building regulations stipulate an air permeability of no more than 10m3/hr/m2 of building envelope at 50pa of pressure. My home has approximately a 1:1 ratio of building envelope to volume, though this will vary a great deal. But for such a home this works out to 10ACH at 50pa. There are various studies on how to convert these measurements to natural ventilation rates, but the conversion rate is around 10-30, with the typical house being adjusted by a factor of 20, i.e. 0.5ACH, however this can be as high as 1ACH.

Some homes will be constructed to higher standards, but will not likely achieve less than half this rating.

This also ignores the presence of trickle vents inside windows in homes without mechanical ventilation, and that the majority of homes in the UK were built to lower standards - typical values for homes built prior to 2010 are 15-20m3/hr/m2.

Therefore, 0.5-1ACH is a pretty standard background ventilation rate for homes in the UK. Your typical Passivhaus home with 0.4ACH from mechanical ventilation has less ventilation than a typical home, not more.

Only very large homes built to strict modern standards and with a high interior volume to building envelope ratio could possibly have 3-4x less ventilation.

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

#256

Post by Terretta »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #23
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #12

To this day, there is no mandate whatsoever in any public transport to keep windows open. NiH? CDC? Missing in action thanks a lot. Uber could simply ask customers to always ask for windows down. This to me is the biggest unsung crime of the pandemic by govt officials and private industry alike.

Uber and Lyft in fact require customers to agree to keep windows open “when possible” in the same pop up as reminding them to wear masks. Short of intrusive integrations with some hypothetical car window status sensors, not presently deployed in the fleet, that’s getting close to the limits of what can be effectively achieved for now.

And they require the driver to have recirculate off, fresh intake on.

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

#257

Post by 3np »

willyt wrote: post #238
3np wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not wrong when considered in the context of already existing large buildings (office complexes, public transit stations, department stores, restaurants, hotels, etc) as opposed to newly built individual houses (where, arguably, increased ventilation may not have that much effect on infection spread) Or are you saying it’s still cost-efficient to retrofit in a high-rise from the day 1980s?

Most of those places are already very well ventilated. You’re not catching covid in the train station, you’re catching it while sharing 1m² with 4 other people on the train. Or because you’re in a crowded restaurant and you’re between the air extract point and the person on the table next to you who has covid. I can’t see how it would be different if the air circulation is because of open windows or mechanical ventil…

Thank you for the insightful response!

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

#258

Post by orblivion »

sp332 wrote: post #197
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.

He's been a proponent of improved ventilation.

That's different from telling everyone to open their windows whenever possible. This is like cloth masking in that it's probably only going to help a little but it's easily at hand.

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

#259

Post by [deleted] »

dboreham wrote: post #181
chmod600 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Like the surgeons who have been dropping like flies for the past 100 years because they wear masks all day at work?

[deleted]

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

#260

Post by chmod600 »

dboreham wrote: post #181
chmod600 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Like the surgeons who have been dropping like flies for the past 100 years because they wear masks all day at work?

You could at least make an attempt to consider differences amd whether those differences might matter.

* Adult vs child

* Material (e.g. cotton)

* Quality

* Wash / replacement schedule

* Activities performed

And while you're at it, consider that kids aren't dropping like flies from covid, either. So if you're performing a cost / benefit analysis, the cost to kids wearing masks doesn't need to be very high before it gets higher than whatever benefit the masks offer.

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