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Also, since there is a belief now that viral load matters when it comes to how sick you get with COVID-19, some are suggesting you shouldn't be too careful about surfaces because if you have to get infected, it's better to get infected from a surface - since it makes it much more likely you'll get an asymptomatic or mild case. |
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Let me repeat that: ". . . it MAY BE POSSIBLE that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has virus on it . . . but THIS ISN'T THOUGHT TO BE THE MAIN WAY THE VIRUS SPREADS . . . ." Does that sound to you like they are saying touching contaminated surfaces is a MAJOR WAY the virus spreads? It doesn't to me--sounds like they are saying that's at most a MINOR phenomenon. The point here is that rather than obsessing about surface contacts with expensive cleaning (and that developing world spraying of disinfectants on pavement), you'd be much better advised to obsess about what you are breathing. The bad news here is that we are finding out that the virus that people expel can linger in the air for hours so "social distancing" is also a fraud. If you stand 6 ft from someone and then everybody circulates so that you are where another person was a half hour ago, you can be breathing their exhaled virus. Quote:
In other words, this bit of research does confirm the idea that virus may be present on surfaces though it doesn't address the question of how often or to what degree that virus is transferred in infectious quantities to the human respiratory tract. But what it also says is that human exhalations potentially containing viruses don't immediately settle out onto surfaces but linger in air for hours and so as you pass through a room or subway car you are passing through clouds of what people--especially any unmasked people--exhaled even hours ago. |
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I do not believe that installing special air filters provides tremendous protection if somebody is coughing in close proximity. The cost of implementing such measures is another question. |
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/h...-airborne.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/h...anization.html |
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Also, everybody from Fauci on down has now pretty much admitted that we were lied to about masks because they didn't want people buying up the available supply--they wanted it available for medical personnel and "first responders" (proving how important they are). I agree with you about air filters UNLESS the HVAC equipment is generally powerful enough to change the total volume of air in a space every few minutes and pass all that air through the filters. This argument becomes practical when you are talking about airplanes. The airlines would have us believe that the filters in their systems are effective to filter out virus-containing droplets and they turn the air over sufficiently rapidly to be highly effective. I'm yet to be convinced but I haven't researched the issue. I don't plan to be flying regardless. |
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If we had the supply available, what we should all be doing is wearing N95 masks that we've tried to properly fit whenever we are indoors. If we did that, I think we could stamp this virus out. But we don't have enough such masks and not enough people would wear them or pay attention to propper fit. Incidentally, the most effective N95 for this purpose are the valveless ones because they prevent exhaling virus particles as well as inhaling them but you can accomplish pretty much the same thing by wearing even a thin cloth covering over an N95 with a valve and such an arrangement is probably more comfortable because it causes less CO2 buildup (which gives some people headaches and others claim they feel like they are smothering). |
They're not a waste at all. They catch some number of cases, and that's extremely important.
In fact, a series of partial measures is the whole point of everything we're doing. This stuff is all about odds. Infection rates are about multiplication...for example the infection rate, the number of interactions total, the care taken with each interaction, etc., all multiplied together. Any reduction in infected people walking around will tend to make the equation better, with fewer infections and deaths. |
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Asymtomatic Spreaders & Testing
Should all food service workers and other workers who might be asymtomatic spreaders of covid be tested? "Typhoid Mary" was an asymtomatic spreader of "typhoid fever" (an intestinal pathenogenic salmonella bacterium spread by fecal contamination) who was placed in involuntary quarantine around 1910 when she kept getting food service jobs and making people sick. Is asymtomatic spread exaggerated? You certainly don't want these spreaders working in tight quarters, in nursing homes, restaurants etc. Some countries test all workers in these types of industries. The young often have no symptoms but might be spreaders.
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And a 10% reduction (which I bet is way in excess of what temperature checks accomplish) takes R0 from 3 to 1? Seriously? |
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Typhoid, of course, is a whole different thing because it’s PRIMARILY spread by food and water. I found this article today interesting: Quote:
In other words, it’s not the food that’s the problem. |
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Regarding N95 masks, they should be fine as long as they are stamped NIOSH approved. NIOSH is the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and they test PPE for compliance with their standards. Many Chinese madks carry their approval and there are lists of approved Chinese manufacturers online. Recently a few Chinese makers were decertified because their masks failed testing but many pass. |
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As for temperature checks, some fraction of people sick with COVID-19 will have high temperatures. One would hope that such people would not go out to a restaurant, but we know that's not the case. So this will reduce the number of COVID-positive patrons by some amount (whatever the fraction of COVID-positive patrons with fevers is). It may not be 10%, but it's more than 0. |
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Another thing that has come up is that the virus was in different parts of the world much earlier than is widely understood. Some scientists now believe that the virus was in Europe and North America in 2019, but those appearances fizzled out before becoming mass outbreaks. They still don't know why but there is a theory that certain types of people may be super spreaders. The current assumption is that roughly 20% of infected people are responsible for spreading the virus. |
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