…from The Atlantic …
Too many people imagine the fight against COVID-19 as a land war to be waged with sudsy hand-to-hand combat against grimy surfaces.
Six months ago, I wrote that Americans had embraced a backwards view of the coronavirus. Too many people imagined the fight against COVID-19 as a land war to be waged with sudsy hand-to-hand combat against grimy surfaces. Meanwhile, the science suggested we should be focused on an aerial strategy. The virus spreads most efficiently through the air via the spittle spray that we emit when we exhale—especially when we cough, talk loudly, sing, or exercise. I called this conceptual error, and the bonanza of pointless power-scrubbing that it had inspired, “hygiene theater.”
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To be clear: The fact that the coronavirus is much less likely to spread through surfaces does not mean that it is impossible to get the coronavirus from touching things. If somebody with COVID-19 sneezes three times onto a little spot on a cold steel table, and you rub your hand around in the snot for a bit and immediately lick your fingers, that disgusting act may well result in you infecting yourself. But the threat of such unbelievably stupid behavior at a mass level shouldn’t warrant a multibillion-dollar war on fomites. “If surface transmission happened, it would have to require touching a newly contaminated surface, then very quickly touching your eyes, nose, or mouth without washing your hands first,” Goldman allows. That’s why he strongly advocates for hand-washing with soap and warm water, but otherwise not treating surfaces during this pandemic too differently than you otherwise would….
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Hundreds of millions of people are ad-libbing their way through a crisis in the absence of a clear script. That script could begin something like this: The best defenses against an airborne virus are masks, social distancing, and ventilation—at least until you can get a vaccine—not gloves and bleach. “Some people still don’t get it,” Goldman said. “They’re distracting the public from the measures that can really protect them.”
…from the Washington Post….
In a major new pandemic trend, people are turning to carbon dioxide monitoring devices to help assess ventilation quality
It may sound like yet another politicized, Trump-era battle over coronavirus restrictions — yet this one ended in something that looks less like polarization and more like compromise. After Crandall and others complained and took to the media, state regulators introduced a new policy, which appears to be one of the first of its kind, allowing certain restaurants to count as “open air” dining even if they have four walls. In a new pandemic trend, these establishments can open up large windows or doors and actively measure levels of carbon dioxide, the gas we all exhale when breathing, as a key indicator of how much fresh air is circulating….
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The impetus for measuring carbon dioxide is simple: An increasingly powerful body of evidence suggests the coronavirus is airborne, capable of traveling distances well beyond six feet in tiny aerosols released when infected people talk, shout, sing or just breathe. But there’s currently no sensor that can monitor, in real time, whether these infectious aerosols are floating around us when we’re indoors….