The experiment that proved airborne disease transmission

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:36 AM UTC

calibas wrote: post #8

It seems the reasoning by officials is, "Yes, it's airborne, but there's not enough N95 masks for everyone so we don't want to cause panic or an N95 mask shortage for doctors and nurses by admitting it's airborne."

Post by Symmetry » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:40 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #90

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered just how much UV-C do you need to effectively kill the virus (power vs duct diameter and air speed).... because, instead of traditional masks, you could take a small fan, blow air into a pipe with a UV-C bulb inside, and pump the sterilized air to the human... basically something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGrh2io9Ds&app=desktop

The real question is is there a safe wavelength and low enough power where you could swap out fluorescent tubes and effectively manage the virus.

Post by ywhjaknskkkw » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 12:32 PM UTC

Jabbles wrote: post #107

RogerKamben wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much settled also for sars-cov2. A study in China found the virus in air samples taken inside the central air-condition system, far away from any patients (see bottom). Another found correlation between infected and where they were sitting vs AC duct outlets. Also the fact that mandatory masks have had zero effect on the R value in any country, same as for influenza and other "flu" viruses. If it was spre…

The meta study does not "[show] medical masks had no effect", it shows that we have limited evidence for it: "Most studies were underpowered because of limited sample size, and some studies also reported suboptimal adherence in the face mask group" https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article And indeed you can sympathise with them that it would be hard to perform such an experiment. But the whole point of…

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #73

ajb wrote: post #32

Ok, dumb idea time: suppose that everyone in an office sits on a chair that raises their body to X volts. At the same time a collector mesh is provided at each desk, at -X volts, but shielded so that you can't touch it and shock yourself. What X is large enough to ensure that all the virus particles you cough out end up at the collector? Is it possible to do this without electrocuting everyone?

The mass difference between humans and viruses is something like 10^19. So if you take the naive approach -- which is wrong, because charges live on surfaces, not in volumes -- you would want the person to have about a coulumb of charge to ensure that 1 extra electron was allocated to each virus particle. Whether or not 1 electron per virus is enough is a separate question, but that gives you a lower bound -- if you…

Post by hackerfromthefu » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

hahajk wrote: post #45

jchw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the frustration, the reality is we shouldn’t be making fun of either. Just because the end result of something is inarguably “stupid” does not mean that any of the things that went into it are “stupid.” To do the Hacker News thing and make a bad analogy to computer science topics in a totally irrelevant thread, this is how I view a lot of stuff people complain about these days (think JavaScript, or…

Keeping information from the public to avoid mass hysteria is one thing, but keeping information from hospitals so they don’t have to implement prohibitive protocols is daft. If the healthcare response would be unreasonable, the right thing to do is to deliberately modify the protocols, not pretend the problem isn’t happening.