Covid-19, common sense & engineers

[CroJack]

Aldready in March one Japanese scientist came to a conclusion that coronavirus is airborne. Microparticles we exale kan keep the virus in the air for hours in places where there isn't any air flow. Just one infected person in a night club can create a cloud of microparticles and a high concentration of virus in it. We all know how just one waiter in an Austrian ski resort night club spread the virus to the rest of Europe.

After six months of this pandemic it has become clear which places contribute most to the spread of the coronavirus (and any other virus):

- night clubs and discotheques
- churches (during masses and funerals)
- pubs, restaurants, coffee shops etc. serving indoors
- offices and factories
- all indoors sports activities where there are fans (basketball, handball etc.)
- hospitals and nursing homes
- public transport (trains, undergrounds, busses, trams, taxis, airplanes, cruise ships etc.)
- cinemas, theaters, cancert halls

What do all these places have in common? Well, the answer is simple: they are crowded and they have either a poor or recycled air flow.

The Japanese scientist, I mentioned in the beginning of my post, made a simple experiment. He let two people talk in a room where there wasn't any air flow and recorded everything with high resolution and high speed cameras. Slowly, a big cloud of microparticles was flying above their heads for hours. Then he opened the windows, created some air flow, and it took less than a second for the microparticles to disappear.

Here is my question: why on earth don't we use common sense and do something about the problem? If a simple flow of air can totally, or at least dramatically, reduce microparticles that carry the virus why can't we redesign our airconditioning systems so they effectively suck out the bad air, filter it for viruses and bring in the fresh and clean air to night clubs, restaurants, pubs, concert halls, theaters, cinemas, trains, busses, hospitals etc.? It would be even easier for engineers to construct an effective system inside football stadiums.

The world is losing trillions of pounds on lockdowns, medical equipment, hispitalisations of Covid-19 patients, people are forced to stay at home and wear masks, and so on, but we are not addresing the cause of the problem: the places where this virus likes to spread. Why is nobody using common sense? The world have brilliant engineers and I am sure they would find a solution.

If we do something about it, then not only we would drastically reduce the spread of this virus, we would actually drastically reduce the spread of flu viruses as well. Imagine how many human lives we would be able to save in future, how much money we would be able to save by avoiding and preventing hundreds of millions of hospitalisations every year caused by the common flu pandemics?

 

[CroJack]

Italy's China connection

"Italy not only has the largest Chinese population in Europe, but also features the continent's highest volume of Chinese travelers, with five million visiting the country each year.
When the first reported case of coronavirus in Italy turned out to be a couple from Wuhan who arrived in Milan's airport on Jan. 23, the extraordinarily high volume of travelers from China became highly relevant. While many Chinese travel to the country as tourists, many others have deep connections with the country, including businesses, families, and homes.
The vast majority of Italy's 300,000 Chinese immigrants live in the northern part of Italy, which also happens to be the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. In fact, Milan, which is in Lombardy, the Italian region where the most coronavirus victims have died, is also home to Europe's largest population of Chinese immigrants, many of them with a direct connection to Wuhan.
Starting in the 1980s and continuing for decades, the owners of Italian textile and leather goods companies factory owners sold out to Chinese buyers. Italy then permitted 100,000 Chinese workers from Wuhan and Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in the factories. Over 3,200 businesses in Prato alone focused on making low-end clothing, shoes and other accessories all with materials imported from China to sell to low-end and mid-price retailers across the globe. Before the outbreak, direct flights ran regularly between Wuhan and Northern Italy."

And here is how these garment "factories" look like:



Do you see any windows here? Is there any air circulation?

A month ago there was a huge coronavirus outbreak in Leicester. The outbreak has been traced to garment factories. Here is what they look like:




Closed windows, no air flow, no air circulation.

In Danish town Ringsted's meat plant there was a coronavirus outbreak a couple of weeks ago. Here is the outside and inside of the plant:




Do you see any windows or any sign of air conditioning?

 

[CroJack]

A couple of days ago there was a coronavirus outbreak in the Bakkavor dessert factory in Newark. Here is the factory, and it looks like the meat plant from Denmark:



Any windows? The inside of the factory doesn't look better. No air circulation.

The coronavirus outbreak in South Korea started in the Schincheonji church (it's a cult actually):



No windows, no air flow.


Coronovirus has spread in Europe from a night club in Austrian ski resort Ischgl. Recent outbreaks of the virus in France, Switzerland, Spain, Croatia and other tourist destinations in Europe have all been traced to reopened night clubs. I don't need to tell you that the vast majority of nightclubs don't have any windows and that the air circulation is non existent.

In July and August we have some outbreaks of the virus in Croatia. The one in a monastery, a couple of them have been traced to indoors wedding parties, and many of them have been traced to the night clubs at the coast. Interestingly, in July and August there have been one million tourists at the Croatian coast every day, the beaches have been crowded, restaurants have been crowded, we have had an open air tennis tournament with thousands of tennis fans watching, football matches with thousands of fans inside the stadiums and... no outbreaks. The vast majority of infected have been the young people who got infected in the night clubs.

In Copenhagen the beaches are too crowded, we have had football matches with ten thousand fans inside the FC Copenhagen stadium and...no outbreaks. Outbreaks? A meat plant in town Ringsted (no air flow) and a mosk in town Aarhus (no air flow).

 

[ivoralljack]

Long before Covid when I was living in Spain, I used to commute on a very frequent basis back to the UK. At a minimum it was once a month and sometimes as much as once a week. This was before I had my cancer problems, so at that time I enjoyed a strong immune system, not compromised as it is now. Despite this, I always seemed to have a bug of some description and I saw doctors both in the UK and Spain to find out why.

The sawbones in each country were firm in their opinions about the reason for it. I was spending a lot of time in aircraft where the air is consistently recycled and I was inhaling other peoples' germs on a regular basis. I actually mentioned this to LadyGG a couple of years ago in conversation when I told her that my late partner, who was a pharmacist, suggested that I should wear a mask every time I travelled. Thought I'd look a bit of a prat (or more of one), so I never bothered but this whole episode seems to confirm what @CroJack has posted above.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

What's been discussed above amplifies the threat of COVID but is just applicable to all other air born infectious agents .... TB, legionnaire's, flu, common cold, and so on.

It's frustrating and annoying that when you focus on it, as @CroJack has done really well, it requires just common sense to identify and provide an effective response.

 

[CroJack]

I've just found this one:

CORONAVIRUS, SARS-COV-2, COVID-19 AND HVAC SYSTEMS
This response outlines the current understanding of the possible routes of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (including airborne aerosol transmission) and possible responses that Building Services Engineers can adopt to reduce transmission risks in the built environment.

CIBSE (CHARTERED INSTITUTION OF BUILDING SERVICES ENGINEERS) is the UK member of REHVA, the European Federation of Heating and Ventilation Engineers. REHVA has developed a COVID-19 guidance webpage giving information and guidance and has developed a bibliography on how to operate and use building services to minimise the spread of the virus through HVAC or plumbing systems.

There is an emerging and growing body of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 can also be spread through the air, particularly in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, and that ventilation provision in buildings should be reviewed in the light of this. For an explanation of airborne transmission, see the series of tweets by Prof. Lynsey Marr.

Multiple recent studies are showing evidence of indirect contact (which may be linked to airborne spread) and have also linked airflow patterns to infection cases.

This has been particularly the case in high occupancy areas, in spaces with little outdoor air, and when people generate a lot of aerosols (e.g. shouting and singing). Given the growing body of evidence suggesting airborne transmission may be a route of infection and knowledge of aerosol generation and transport it is prudent to ensure ventilation is operating appropriately to protect occupants.

The following measures, using outside air wherever possible, should help to reduce the risks from airborne transmission.

Dilution of internal air should reduce any risk of potential airborne viral transmission by reducing exposure time to any airborne viral aerosols, and also reduce the chance for these aerosols to settle on surfaces. Evidence shows that virus can survive on some surfaces for at least 72 hours and hence any action to limit surface contamination is beneficial.

It is recommended that any ventilation or air conditioning system that normally runs with a recirculation mode should now be set up to run on full outside air where this is possible.

In buildings with mechanical ventilation systems extended operation times are recommended.

Recirculation of air between spaces, rooms or zones occupied by different people should be avoided. However, in the case of any systems serving a single space, partial recirculation of air within that space, such as through a local fan coil unit, is less of a concern. The reason is that the primary objective is to maximise the air exchange rate with outside air and to minimize the risk of any pockets of stagnant air.

If a local recirculation unit enhances air disturbance and hence helps reduce the risk of stagnant air then this should be considered when developing a strategy. Note that although these are relatively uncommon today, ceiling fans within a space can provide this function.

On colder days consideration must be given to human behavioural responses. A ventilation system on full outside air which is not adequately heated may create discomfort draughts. This may lead to users seeking to turn the system off, or with naturally ventilated spaces users may close vents or windows. These actions will reduce the air exchange rate and dilution of any contaminants (and not just any viral contamination) and overcome the primary objective of the ventilation strategy. It is important that where users can intervene in the control of the ventilation that they are made aware of the benefit of these for reducing the circulation of infectious material.

The potential benefit to public health at this time outweighs the reduction in energy efficiency caused by not recirculating air. Airborne contaminants may be minimised by proper and effective filtration and regular maintenance. Viral material that settles in ductwork will become unviable over time. In the event that some viral material entered ventilation and air-conditioning systems prior to buildings being vacated due to the current restrictions, it is extremely unlikely that that material will pose any risk when those buildings are re-occupied.

In poorly ventilated spaces with a high occupancy and where it is difficult to increase ventilation rates it may be appropriate to consider using air cleaning and disinfection devices. The most appropriate devices are likely to be local HEPA filtration units or those that use germicidal UV (GUV) radiation. GUV devices use radiation in the UV-C spectrum and have been shown to inactivate coronaviruses, although there is not yet specific evidence of the efficacy of UV-C irradiation for SARS-CoV-2.

There are currently uncertainties about a variety of factors affecting UV performance including dosage, wavelength and exposure time. In addition, consideration will need to address the specific room and system configuration, air flow, distribution and humidity.

The following references inform the emerging view that aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, whether through direct respiratory droplet transfer or fomite generation, may in fact be a more important exposure transmission pathway than previously considered. Many are still undergoing peer-review, but they demonstrate the current thinking based on emerging findings.

Fears et al, Comparative dynamic aerosol efficiencies of three emergent coronaviruses and the unusual persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosol suspensions https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.13.20063784v1.full.pdf
Comparative dynamic aerosol efficiencies of three emergent coronaviruses and the unusual persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosol suspensions
PREPRINT posted 18th April 2020

van Doremalen, N et al Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1. New England Journal of Medicine 2020 doi 10.1056/NEJMc2004973 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973
This letter was published on March 17, 2020, at NEJM.org.

Fineberg: Rapid Expert Consultation on the Possibility of Bioaerosol Spread of SARS-CoV-2 for the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 1, 2020) (2020) Rapid Expert Consultation | Rapid Expert Consultation on the Possibility of Bioaerosol Spread of SARS-CoV-2 for the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 1, 2020) | The National Academies Press
Letter in response to the consultation.

Lidia Morawska, Junji Cao, Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality, Environment International, Volume 139,2020,105730,
Redirecting.
This is a preprint of a paper for publication in the June issue

Yuguo Li et al : Evidence for probable aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a poorly ventilated restaurant https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20067728v1.full.pdf Preprint posted 22 April 2020


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So the engineers are well aware of the problem but our governments and the vast majority of our epidemiologists are not. Otherwise they would do something about it. For example, night clubs that don't have proper ventilation systems in order to provide enough airflow to eliminate virus "clouds" shouldn't be allowed to open. Or, the garment factories in Leicester should be closed until they lose the problem with the lack of ventilation. Or, the government should do something about the lack of proper ventilation in busses, tube, trains, cinemas, museums etc.

And, by the way, I don't believe that 20 or 50 thousand fans inside a football stadium is a problem. The problem is when these fans use public transport to and from a stadium.

 

[CroJack]

COVID-19 Is Transmitted Through Aerosols. We Have Enough Evidence, Now It Is Time to Act

"Contrary to public health messaging, I, together with many other scientists, believe that a substantial share of COVID-19 cases are the result of transmission through aerosols. The evidence in favor of aerosols is stronger than that for any other pathway, and officials need to be more aggressive in expressing this reality if we want to get the pandemic under control.

It was thought for decades that tuberculosis was transmitted by droplets and fomites, based on ease of infection at close proximity, but research eventually proved that tuberculosis can only be transmitted through aerosols. I believe that we have been making a similar mistake for COVID-19.

While the WHO and CDC both state that aerosols could lead to transmission under highly specific situations, both organizations maintain that they are less important. I believe this is a significant mistake and on July 6 I, along with 239 scientists, appealed to the WHO to reevaluate their stance. WHO updated its position in response, but the agency’s language continues to express skepticism of the importance of this pathway.

When it comes to COVID-19, the evidence overwhelmingly supports aerosol transmission, and there are no strong arguments against it. For example, contact tracing has found that much COVID-19 transmission occurs in close proximity, but that many people who share the same home with an infected person do not get the disease. To understand why, it is useful to use cigarette or vaping smoke (which is also an aerosol) as an analog. Imagine sharing a home with a smoker: if you stood close to the smoker while talking, you would inhale a great deal of smoke. Replace the smoke with virus-containing aerosols, which behave very similarly, and the impact is similar: the closer you are to someone releasing virus-carrying aerosols, the more likely you are to breathe in larger amounts of virus. We know from detailed, rigorous studies that when individuals talk in close proximity, aerosols dominate transmission and droplets are nearly negligible.

If you are standing on the other side of the room, you would inhale significantly less smoke. But in a poorly ventilated room, the smoke will accumulate, and people in the room may end up inhaling a lot of smoke over time. Talking, and especially singing and shouting increase aerosol exhalation by factors of 10 and 50, respectively. Indeed, we are finding that outbreaks often occur when people gather in crowded, insufficiently ventilated indoor spaces, such as singing at karaoke parties, cheering at clubs, having conversations in bars, and exercising in gyms. Superspreading events, where one person infects many, occur almost exclusively in indoor locations and are driving the pandemic. These observations are easily explained by aerosols, and are very difficult or impossible to explain by droplets or fomites.

Contact tracing shows that, when it comes to COVID-19, being outdoors is 20 times safer than being indoors, which argues that aerosol transmission is much more important than droplets; outdoors, there’s plenty of air in which aerosols can become diluted; not so indoors. In addition, researchers have demonstrated aerosol transmission of this virus in ferrets and hamsters.

COVID-19 is not very contagious under most situations, unlike, for example, measles: the CDC says that 15 minutes of close proximity to a COVID-19 infected person often leads to contagion, which provides an estimate of how much “exhaled smoke” one may need to inhale for infection. Inhaling a little whiff of “smoke” here and there is OK, but a lot of “smoke” for a sustained period of time and without a mask is risky. (To be clear, actual smoke does not increase the probability of infection.)

We should continue doing what has already been recommended: wash hands, keep six feet apart, and so on. But that is not enough.

We should do as many activities as possible outdoors, as schools did to avoid the spread of tuberculosis a century ago, despite harsh winters. Given how much being outside reduces COVID-19 transmission risk, it is mind boggling that the U.S. National Guard is not busy setting up open canopy tents at every school around the country.

It is important to think about ventilation and air cleaning. We take operable windows and HVAC systems for granted, rarely paying attention to how they work. Times are different now, and we need to learn how to best use these systems to decrease risk. We need to increase the amount of indoor air that is replaced by outdoor air, by opening windows or adjusting mechanical systems. We need better filters installed in many ventilation systems that recirculate some of the air. These interventions can get costly, so it is very important to think carefully and prioritize objectively—we can, for example, use affordable CO2 measurements to identify the most dangerous, underventilated frequently occupied public spaces, and prioritize them.

Portable HEPA air cleaners work well to remove virus-laden aerosols, but unfortunately they are costly. Makeshift fan-filter cleaners can be made for less than $50, have been shown to work in multiple tests including peer-reviewed papers, and have been used for years in China to reduce the impact of pollution in homes. They can be noisy and are not a long-term solution, but they may help us get through the next few months. Germicidal UV systems can help in some situations, but only if ventilation and filtering cannot do the job. We should also remember that air cleaning is not a silver bullet: if we simulate the Skagit choir outbreak with an added large amount of air cleaning, the infection rate only drops by half. Spending as much time as possible outdoors, wearing masks, and reducing density will remain critical no matter how well we ventilate and clean the air."

Read more here, it's an excellent article:

COVID-19 Is Transmitted Through Aerosols. We Have Enough Evidence, Now It Is Time to Act.

Aerosols are more important when it comes to transmitting COVID-19 than we thought six months ago—and we need to act accordingly.

time.com

 

[CroJack]

Germans are the first ones to do something about ventilation and air-flow.

Germans embrace fresh air to ward off coronavirus

Angela Merkel says ventilation may be one of cheapest and most effective ways of containing virus

“Regular impact ventilation in all private and public rooms can considerably reduce the danger of infection,” the government’s recommendation explains.

Since it has become known that 90% of Covid-19 patients pick up the virus indoors, the practice has come into its own. With winter on the doorstep, it will become even more important, experts insist.

The country’s leading coronavirus expert, Christian Drosten, who is head virologist at the Charité hospital in Berlin, has already dedicated an edition of his hit pandemic podcast to the importance of Luftverdünnung and Luftbewegung – air rarefaction and movement – in which he extols the praises for frequent airing, while the weekly Die Zeit has published a 10-page feature on ventilation, including the science behind it and, especially how to do it in winter.

Even without coronavirus, Martin Kriegel, an engineer and air current analyst at the Technical University in Berlin, told Die Zeit, “there is clear evidence that air quality in offices correlates with the number of days workers are off sick”.

Read more here:

Germans embrace fresh air to ward off coronavirus

Angela Merkel says ventilation may be one of cheapest and most effective ways of containing virus

www.theguardian.com

 

[Yankee_Jack]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1311921853263470594

The faithful are melting down ... I guess the "wall" was not strong enough.

 

[CroJack]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1311921853263470594

The faithful are melting down ... I guess the "wall" was not strong enough.

As long as he drinks this one we'll be ok.

 

[CroJack]

Hopefully coronavirus will Make America Great Again.

 

[Jackflash]

I see the untouchable no mask Mr Trump is finally paying the cost of his satirical humour of CV 19.
whilst infected I think he should be stripped of his presidency, He's dangerous enough without, god only knows what would go through his head if he though he was going to die.
I'm not certain that it's left Boris in control of the limited faculties he had.

 

[CroJack]

The German government have just decided to invest €500m in ventilation systems in public offices, museums, theaters, schools and universities, in an effort to prevent coronavirus spreading. The German government is obviously reading Svanselona threads.

Jokes aside, this is an excellent move, but has to be followed by similar investments in the private sector. The benefit is huge: not only the investment will significantly lower coronavirus infections, but in future also all other respiratory infections like common flu for example.