11-01-2020, 08:20 AM
There is one variable that may not have received enough attention. That is the weather. This may be a little crude. so apologies if it is.
The pandemic didn't hit Europe and the U.S. until basically the end of Winter/start of Spring. It seems evident the virus spreads easier in cooler temperatures with less humidity, not necessarily because of this, but because people go more indoors in cooler less humid conditions. I'm no HVAC expert, but my guess is heating air is dependent on it being "stagnant" at lower temps. When it is cool, moving air lowers "feels like" temps, so you don't want air moving much when heating the air to get to 68-70 degrees or it is inefficient. You don't run AC when heating a room, and most buildings are controlled by thermostats that determine what goes on and doesn't. It's not a manual process. So by definition it seems buildings being heated in Winter are going to have poorer ventilation.
All this is to say it's very possible Germany took the right steps to mitigate spread when first exposed to the pandemic, it saw success, and in the interest of balancing economic interests, relaxed them a bit. Then cooler temps came and we see the virus spreads much more going into and in Winter than coming out of it and in to Spring and Summer. Think of how many more casualties Germany would have had if it didn't take the measures it did. Just look at the U.S. for an example.
I'm 100% convinced ventilation and mask wearing is the key to mitigating virus spread, and probably limiting time in groups larger than 50. The El Pais infographic confirmed what I suspected about this. But even with mask wearing, without good ventilation and air filtration, we can't get people together safely. Without mask wearing and ventilation it's a powder keg when people are together.
Some environments are going to have better ventilation and mask compliance than others. The difficulty with this situation is Public Health leaders don't have the luxury of saying businesses can be open based on their HVAC status. They are much more broad and say "all these businesses must close" as if they all have the same ventilation dynamics when they absolutely do not. There could be 50% of salons that have adequate ventilation to prevent virus spread in appointment windows, and 50% who do not. Public Health policy isn't - at least now - able to say salons or restaurants with Grade A & B ventilation can open but those below Grade B cannot open.
It just sucks that we can't use much more refined guidelines based on building ventilation, to regulate what businesses can open under what conditions, and instead resort to closing businesses based on their type. If we applied restrictions based on building conditions, the public would be much more open to accepting them, and we'd incur far less economic damage too, which would further increase acceptance, which also will mitigate virus spread, which is the goal after all.
The pandemic didn't hit Europe and the U.S. until basically the end of Winter/start of Spring. It seems evident the virus spreads easier in cooler temperatures with less humidity, not necessarily because of this, but because people go more indoors in cooler less humid conditions. I'm no HVAC expert, but my guess is heating air is dependent on it being "stagnant" at lower temps. When it is cool, moving air lowers "feels like" temps, so you don't want air moving much when heating the air to get to 68-70 degrees or it is inefficient. You don't run AC when heating a room, and most buildings are controlled by thermostats that determine what goes on and doesn't. It's not a manual process. So by definition it seems buildings being heated in Winter are going to have poorer ventilation.
All this is to say it's very possible Germany took the right steps to mitigate spread when first exposed to the pandemic, it saw success, and in the interest of balancing economic interests, relaxed them a bit. Then cooler temps came and we see the virus spreads much more going into and in Winter than coming out of it and in to Spring and Summer. Think of how many more casualties Germany would have had if it didn't take the measures it did. Just look at the U.S. for an example.
I'm 100% convinced ventilation and mask wearing is the key to mitigating virus spread, and probably limiting time in groups larger than 50. The El Pais infographic confirmed what I suspected about this. But even with mask wearing, without good ventilation and air filtration, we can't get people together safely. Without mask wearing and ventilation it's a powder keg when people are together.
Some environments are going to have better ventilation and mask compliance than others. The difficulty with this situation is Public Health leaders don't have the luxury of saying businesses can be open based on their HVAC status. They are much more broad and say "all these businesses must close" as if they all have the same ventilation dynamics when they absolutely do not. There could be 50% of salons that have adequate ventilation to prevent virus spread in appointment windows, and 50% who do not. Public Health policy isn't - at least now - able to say salons or restaurants with Grade A & B ventilation can open but those below Grade B cannot open.
It just sucks that we can't use much more refined guidelines based on building ventilation, to regulate what businesses can open under what conditions, and instead resort to closing businesses based on their type. If we applied restrictions based on building conditions, the public would be much more open to accepting them, and we'd incur far less economic damage too, which would further increase acceptance, which also will mitigate virus spread, which is the goal after all.