Build downdraft paint booths for K-12 schools? (July 2020, here on this blog):
The technology for downdraft paint booths is highly advanced … Why not a system for schools in which (a) each classroom has its own HVAC system, (b) there are 8-12 outlets in the ceiling, and (c) there are 8-12 exhaust outlets in the floor? For maximum safety, the system would have no recirculation.
More than a year later, in Atlantic, “The Plan to Stop Every Respiratory Virus at Once” (9/7/2021):
The original dogma, you might remember, was that the novel coronavirus spread like the flu, through droplets that quickly fell out of the air.
A virus that lingers in the air is an uncomfortable and inconvenient revelation. Scientists who had pushed the WHO to recognize airborne transmission of COVID-19 last year told me they were baffled by the resistance they encountered, but they could see why their ideas were unwelcome. In those early days when masks were scarce, admitting that a virus was airborne meant admitting that our antivirus measures were not very effective. “We want to feel we’re in control. If something is transmitted through your contaminated hands touching your face, you control that,” Noakes said. “But if something’s transmitted through breathing the same air, that is very, very hard for an individual to manage.”
The WHO took until July 2020 to acknowledge that the coronavirus could spread through aerosols in the air. Even now, Morawska says, many public-health guidelines are stuck in a pre-airborne world. Where she lives in Australia, people are wearing face masks to walk down the street and then taking them off as soon as they sit down at restaurants, which are operating at full capacity. It’s like some kind of medieval ritual, she says, with no regard for how the virus actually spreads. In the restaurants, “there’s no ventilation,” she adds, which she knows because she’s the type of scientist who takes an air-quality meter to the restaurant.
(See “Australia has almost eliminated the coronavirus — by putting faith in science” (Washington Post, 11/5/2020)_
I guess Professor Morawska wouldn’t like the simplest science-based way to get schools back to normal operations:
(some responses to the above:
- “If they hold classes in a Walmart then schools can stay open”
- “The hardest part of 14 days to flatten the curve is the first 18 months.”
- “Possibly have the teacher come to their table to collect homework , so they can ask “menu ” questions….”
; Why is Kimberly’s idea “science-based”? The orders from governors that have reshaped U.S. society are purportedly science-based, including orders that restaurants can reopen at up to full capacity so long as masks are worn between the front door and the table. Therefore, by transitivity, Kimberly’s proposal for schools is equally science-based.)
If we have $trillions to spend fighting COVID-19, which we apparently do (though it is unclear why we wouldn’t instead spend the money on CO2 vacuums to deal with what our leading intellectual has called a “code red” threat to all of humanity from climate change), why wouldn’t we invest in ventilation?
Why does Antlantic keeps falsely claiming that the “original dogma[…] was that the novel coronavirus spread like the flu” ? Of course it did because the particle sizes are approximately the same: about 100nm,
The “original dogma” amongst the “medical” “establishment” was that only viral particles below 5nm in size could be airborne. Since the flu(and corona) particles were much bigger they were classified as “droplets”. This level of ignorance (that 100nm particles cannot be airborne) would be amazing to anyone who dabbled a little in the secondary school level physics.
Now, even the American Pravda/aka the NYT admits that yes 2×2=4:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/opinion/coronavirus-airborne-transmission.html
Yes, I remember all virologists making confident statements in February/March 2020 that all droplets would fall to the ground quickly in buses and subways. That was when the “safe” distance of 1.5 meters was #Science and masks weren’t useful.
I mistyped: he “original dogma” amongst the “medical” “establishment” was that only viral particles below 5 micrometers not nanometers which makes the droplet theory even more laughable.
How about assigning a sniffer dog to each classroom instead?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03149-9
They would have a lower carbon footprint. If they give an alert, a swat team arrives and puts everyone in forced quarantine (the movie “Outbreak” gives an idea of how this is done properly, apparently Australia has already taken some hints).
With the current supply chains, nationwide rollout of HVAC would be completed in 2030, 2050 if the cryptocurrency folks discover a “proof of ventilation” consensus algorithm.
I was recently in a Roman Catholic church to attend a wedding and I noticed that even in this sanctuary of Roman Catholic backwardness, the small stained glass windows were open throughout, providing effective cross-thru ventilation (you could feel the breeze.) This is probably not as good as top —> bottom ventilation for obvious reasons, but better than nothing. The church is in a neighborhood known (at least most of the time) for the smart people who live there.
https://i.ibb.co/ZLmFmpr/CHURCH-VENTILATION.jpg
Why bother spending billions on schools when no healthy K-12 kids have actually died from C19?
WSJ: https://archive.is/PY0mZ
Eventually, many of those kids will become useless or burden to society or even die of some other self-inflicted causes. Thanks to lockdowns, remote classes and woke education.
So yes, the billions we are spending now will save us all, because we are in it together.
Thank you for covering this topic — this is a must read:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/