Plexiglass Is Everywhere, With No Proof It Keeps Covid at Bay (bloomberg.com) 289
Sales of plexiglass tripled to roughly $750 million in the U.S. after the pandemic hit, as offices, schools, restaurants and retail stores sought protection from the droplets that health authorities suspected were spreading the coronavirus. There was just one hitch. Not a single study has shown that the clear plastic barriers actually control the virus, said Joseph Allen of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. From a report: "We spent a lot of time and money focused on hygiene theater," said Allen, an indoor-air researcher. "The danger is that we didn't deploy the resources to address the real threat, which was airborne transmission -- both real dollars, but also time and attention. The tide has turned," he said. "The problem is, it took a year." For the first months of Covid-19, top health authorities pointed to larger droplets as the key transmission culprits, despite a chorus of protests from researchers like Allen. Tinier floating droplets can also spread the virus, they warned, meaning plastic shields can't stop them. Not until last month did the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fully affirm airborne transmission. That meant plastic shielding had created "a false sense of security," said building scientist Marwa Zaatari, a pandemic task force member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.
Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Insightful)
Plexiglass prevents droplets being sprayed by one person into another person's face. That is already of some value. We don't need a study to prove the obvious.
What happens after that depends on ventilation. If you are in an old building with poor ventilation, then things may just swirl around, and some droplets may reach other people despite the barrier. However, if you have a modern ventilation system, where air moves consistently in one direction (floor to ceiling, for example), then the plexiglass - together with the ventilation - will have done a valuable job.
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Funny)
We don't need a study to prove the obvious..
Citation needed.
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Insightful)
We should indeed study the obvious, as there is often so much depth to be understood about the obvious. The story about Newton discovering gravity by observing the Apple fall, is a case where the obvious, things fall, is then looked at in a new light and asked why is it so obvious.
However the issue I have with this story, is that it is trying to shame businesses and folks for putting up a Plexiglass barrier where there wasn't any science on its effectiveness. That shouldn't be the case, in emergency conditions we don't have the liberty to do a full scientific study, so we need to fall back on common sense.
Common sense isn't perfect, however it is usually better than just giving up and doing nothing. A lot of food service places had Sneeze guards on exposed food for a long time, their goal is to stop the spread of illness and infection. Being that we needed to protect people it would make sense to put up such a barrier as well.
They probably knew quite well that it won't stop such an airborne infection however it will prevent immediate direct contact from someone sneezing or coughing on them directly, where they get a dose of concentrated virus on their person,
Also I expect it was also used by businesses as a marketing option to help customers feel that this company too is taking it seriously, and is working to keep their customers safe.
However if you really want to be safe.
1. Get the Vaccine
2. Wash your hands
3. Keep your distance
4. Wear a mask (covering your noes and mouth)
This also works for the Flu too, and many other illnesses.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Informative)
You should cough into your elbow instead of your hand during flu season.
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You should cough into your elbow instead of your hand during flu season.
Flu season is all assholes and elbows.
Re: Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, but you get really strange looks from people if you cough into your asshole.
Re: Depends on ventilation (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but you get really strange looks from people if you cough into your asshole.
If I could cough into my asshole I'd never leave the house.
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Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Insightful)
You should do what is obviously right to do, which can change as you learn more. I suspect if we were to be able to investigate this thoroughly, we'd find that shields help in some cases and do nothing or even hurt in others. The "obvious" best case is where you have people who have to face each other at relatively short distances, like in a supermarket checkout. I've seen customers in checkout pull down their mask to make a point, which would spray the clerk with respiratory droplets if it weren't for the shield.
This also works for the Flu too, and many other illnesses.
I was at my ophthalmologist just yesterday and he says that eye infections are way down. This may in part be due to less eye-rubbing because of improvements in seasonal allergies.
Yep, complainant doesn't know the word "also" (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFS:
top health authorities pointed to larger droplets as the key transmission culprits, despite a chorus of protests from researchers like Allen. Tinier floating droplets can also spread the virus, they warned,
"can ALSO".
Does this idiot refuse to wear a seatbelt because you can also die in a fire?
By the same token, he doesn't have smoke detectors because he could also get cancer?
The fact that other dangers are ALSO possible doesn't mean you shouldn't protect against the dangers you can.
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There's a couple counterpoints though - if wearing your seatbelt means you ignore speed limits, then it's possible to be a net risk increase. Not saying that's the case, but it's a line of reasoning that means without empirical data, we can't say for sure which is better. In the case of plexiglass barriers, it may be that the decreased air circulation also leaves the viral particles in the local air longer. Even if it is a net reduction in risk, then we have to weigh the costs against other avenues of
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You probably got up and went to work today. Went to work so you'll get paid on pay day.
You didn't say:
I don't know where I work because "what if" working there was all a dream?
What if my boss forgot that I work there, so I'll keep getting paid whether I go to work or not?
What if the company is secretly out of money and won't be able to pay me on pay day?
No, you went to work. Because *obviously* you know where you work, and *obviously* to keep getting your paycheck, you need to work.
If you didn't know that,
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Common sense isn't perfect, however it is usually better than just giving up and doing nothing. A lot of food service places had Sneeze guards on exposed food for a long time, their goal is to stop the spread of illness and infection. Being that we needed to protect people it would make sense to put up such a barrier as well.
Slow COVID-19 with this one weird trick that salad bars have been using for DECADES!
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We don't need a study to prove the obvious..
Citation needed.
Ok first lets do a study.... oh wait.
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Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Interesting)
This. Studies clearly show that both droplets and aerosols play a part, and the CDC makes this clear on their website. Droplets contain large quantities of virus but travel a limited distance. Aerosols contain tiny amounts of virus but persist and accumulate.
The one thing that's "hygiene theatre", and that I honestly think has done more harm than good, is people's obsession with fomites. Early on it wasn't known whether fomites were a major means of transmission, and it was suspected that they were. I myself, when eating delivered food, would only eat things that I could put in the microwave until they were steaming, just to be safe. But with time it became increasingly clear that fomites play a minor role at best in transmission, and that the vast majority of transmission is directly between individuals through the air.
I say "done more harm than good" because to this day, huge numbers of people still seem to think that if you just wipe down surfaces or use hand sanitizer, then you're safe from COVID. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people talking maskless right next to some other person, and both of them are using hand sanitizer, as though that's some sort of magical spell to ward off evil. It's such a perfect target, too. Unlike a mask, which you have to actually leave on your face and breathe through, and unlike social distancing or avoiding social opportunities altogether, hand cleaning is a "spend a couple seconds and you're done" sort of thing. Cleaning is often even something you don't have to do yourself. Restaurants boast about how well their employees clean the tables and bathrooms, and people go there thinking, "This place is safe from COVID".
I think that once the science became clear, we had a serious messaging fail. The fact that fomites are only a minor part at best of transmission is something that should have been repeatedly hammered home: "don't stop washing your hands or cleaning surfaces, but that's not the main way COVID is transmitted."
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, one thing that I think got short shrift was: eye protection.
Even early on it was talked about that people in otherwise full protective gear could get infected through their eyes, although it's always been assumed a minor route in general. There haven't been near as many studies since then as there have been on infection via fomites or respiratory infection from droplets or aerosols, but those that have been done appear to support the notion that eye protection is useful; glasses wearers seem to have lower rates of COVID infection, for example, and cells at the ocular surface have the ACE2 protein that the virus targets
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude we couldn't get a good part of the population to wear a piece of cloth over their face before they started to yell Freedom! like some sort of mad man. (Who are also the same people for some reason will shame people for not wearing enough clothing, because showing some breast or a midriff is immoral).
Then we got a Vaccine which is shown to be extremely effective, and there are still a good part of the population who will not take it and yelling that this clear fluid, dispensed with a very small needle, somehow has microchips in it. My dog has a Microchip embedded it is about the size of grain of rice, and is injected with a very large needle, and can be only used to get his ID number with a short range proximity device.
So trying get people to wear eye protection wouldn't work, because they are just that stupid.
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Dude we couldn't get a good part of the population to wear a piece of cloth over their face before they started to yell Freedom! like some sort of mad man. (Who are also the same people for some reason will shame people for not wearing enough clothing, because showing some breast or a midriff is immoral). Then we got a Vaccine which is shown to be extremely effective, and there are still a good part of the population who will not take it and yelling that this clear fluid, dispensed with a very small needle, somehow has microchips in it.
I think most people who are hesitant to get the vaccine simply think it was rushed and those unknowns (longer term effects) don't outweigh the risks of Covid to them and their family. A lot of them already had Covid anyway. And the fact you assume they are stark raving mad lunatics means they won't speak up around you so you go on thinking it's all conspiracy theorists.
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Re: Depends on ventilation (Score:3)
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Oh, an asshat on twitter who cherry picks the datapoints that support his ideology while ignoring those that don't and looks at things 1-dimensionally. Thanks, but I've already got enough of those in my own local community.
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Bollocks, I looked at the charts and read what he said, there was not a good logical connect between what he said and the charts he presented, AKA he talks crap that has nothing to do with the data he presents. Non-sequiturs.
Re: Depends on ventilation (Score:3)
Surgeons wear masks because they don't want anyone to see them smiling while they cut you open. Fact
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"Based upon the findings of this review, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines state that there is ‘limited evidence concerning the use of non-sterile theatre wear’ such as surgical masks when trying to minimise the risk of surgical site infection, although there was an overall ‘consensus that wearing non-sterile theatre wear is impo
Re: Depends on ventilation (Score:4, Insightful)
I use my mask to open doorknobs and press elevator buttons. always the inside of it, I don't want to contaminate the outside surface by touching it or washing it.
But seriously, if there are claims about which uses of masks are ineffective, which uses are less effective, and which uses are most effective. Then I'm going to need to see some data. I have already read studies showing that masks are better than no masks. This included double layer cotton re-usable masks, like the kind surgeons used to use, and were used during the spanish flu by nurses and laypeople.
It is a mistake to refuse to act because you don't have all the data yet. You should act according to our best understanding. And alter course when new data arrives. In late 2019 and early 2020, we felt that a mask was likely to be helpful in controlling a respiratory virus. And only builders of strawmen took that to mean that masks were absolute protection or a panacea. Of course in this case, we did have about 100 years of data on the use of masks and their efficacy. And during the 2020s additional research specifically with COVID-19 and with similar sized aerosols were performed in situations according to potential use by laypeople.
In 2022 we'll have enough real world data to tell you if masks work or not. Just you wait. All we have to do is check the literally billions of people that wore them and in what situations and in what frequency. There is so much data that such an experimental ideal will never be seen again in our lifetimes.
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It was still a recklessly dangerous thing to say. I'm not going to praise the Democrat reaction to COVID just because the Republican response was insanely worse.
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Funny)
>glasses wearers seem to have lower rates of COVID infection
It has been called "nerd immunity".
Re:Depends on ventilation (Score:5, Insightful)
This. Studies clearly show that both droplets and aerosols play a part, and the CDC makes this clear on their website. Droplets contain large quantities of virus but travel a limited distance. Aerosols contain tiny amounts of virus but persist and accumulate.
The one thing that's "hygiene theatre", and that I honestly think has done more harm than good, is people's obsession with fomites. Early on it wasn't known whether fomites were a major means of transmission, and it was suspected that they were. I myself, when eating delivered food, would only eat things that I could put in the microwave until they were steaming, just to be safe. But with time it became increasingly clear that fomites play a minor role at best in transmission, and that the vast majority of transmission is directly between individuals through the air.
Minor, but nonzero. And a reduction in transmission of even 1% can make a huge difference in aggregate when applied exponentially. If you really want to stay awake at night, there's probably a role for aerosolized fomites [nature.com].
That said, I agree with you in principle, though I'd go one step further and say that most of the U.S. coronavirus cases are the direct result of the "we're don't want to call it an airborne virus because it will cause panic" attitude by so many in the medical field during the early days of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, folks on the right side of the aisle seem to interpret reevaluating reality based on new information as "flip-flopping", and thus assume that people who do so don't know what they are talking about. So their fear of the "a word" did the general public a huge disservice by causing the Trump administration to massively delay and minimize the messaging that should have happened early on. By the time they finally agreed to call it airborne instead of droplet-based, the pandemic was in full swing, and the anti-maskers truly believed they were right, because that's what the experts said at the beginning.
You always start with the worst-case — assume aerosol transmission, which means you need to worry about aerosols, droplets, AND fomite transmission. If you later determine that something isn't particularly aerosol-transmitted, you roll things back a little at that end. You never roll back the other end (fomites), because apart from blood-borne viruses, everything spreads by fomites.
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One of my
re: wiping down surfaces (Score:2)
100% agree on this one! The mania over wiping down surfaces with sanitizer was completely out of control. For example, one restaurant in Maryland I went to decided to offer only outdoor dining during COVID, where you'd sit on a big concrete patio on wood picnic tables. Someone would come around every 15-20 minutes with a big spray bottle of sanitizer and a towel, spraying down and wiping off the picnic tables. Never mind these were sitting out in the direct sun, and sunlight is known to kill off the viru
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We don't need a study to prove the obvious.
No, no, no. So many of the covid interventions have been based on the fact that they're obvious so we should do them without question. If they're so obvious it should be really easy to find real world evidence of efficacy.
"It's obvious that limiting your socal interactions will limit spread". Without restrictions covid's R0 number was estimated as between 3 and 4. Without restrictions I probably 'interacted' with upwards of 1000 people per week on the train, in the office, in shops, etc. During lockdown I
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We don't need a study to prove the obvious.
Exactly. At some level, the headlines like "No proof it keeps covid at bay" are absurd.
Next up: No proof that 2+2 = 4. We spent a lot of time and money focused on education theatre. Just one hitch... not a single study has shown that all these formulas being taught are accurate.
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not a single study has shown that all these formulas being taught are accurate
I just counted on my fingers...the formula is correct.
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I just counted on my fingers...the formula is correct.
You say that, but do you have a study to back it up?
Media loves studies. If there's not a study, then it didn't happen. On the flip side...
if a paper or two fo dubious quality came out showing 2+2=20; the media would take that as 100% gospel.
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The Japanese actually did do a study into this last year. They used their new supercomputer to simulate particles with various types of dividers in place.
Basically dividers are of only very moderate benefit. Far more important is having ventilation. It's not easy to arrange in many offices.
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You could probably sell the shit out of COVID-prevention binkies right now.
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"We believe in science"
"Proving obvious claims is not needed, and I define what is obvious, and you have to do it, or else"
Choose one.
And then decide about a minimum efficacy of whatever measure should be forced upon everyone next, so to not bring about more endless rules and regulations and coercive force into the daily lives of regular people living their lives.
"Eh it can't hurt and it may do some good" is the argumentative level to persuade toddlers and "It does some good and your effort and nuisance is
Cone of Silence (Score:3)
Part of any analysis of effectiveness needs to include the phrase "when used correctly". Then needs to examine whether in practice it really is used cor
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Well, it also depends on details about "how they put holes in the plexiglass to allow sound transmission". A solid shield of plexiglass would be safe against COVID, but you'd soon run out of oxygen. So that's never used. A big enough plate of plexiglass is reasonably impervious to penetration by COVID, but you can't hear what the people on the other side are saying. So that's rarely used.
And those "use a plexiglass face shield" things ... well, there *ARE* studies, and they found it offered both sides l
Layers of protection (Score:5, Interesting)
Bio screens were never sold as a panacea.
They were just one of several prudent precautions, like masks for both potential spreaders and potential infectees.
Security, physical, digital or bio has always been about layers of protection, so that the weakness of any one layer doesn't result in total failure of protection.
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Bio screens were never sold as a panacea.
They were just one of several prudent precautions, like masks for both potential spreaders and potential infectees.
In the popular cant phrase, they "help" protect against the virus. But how much do they help? Without quantification, such statements are so weak that they are almost meaningless - and certainly unhelpful.
All science begins with ideas that become hypotheses: "maybe such-and-such is true". But it doesn't become real science until it has been experimentally tested and quantified.
Security, physical, digital or bio has always been about layers of protection, so that the weakness of any one layer doesn't result in total failure of protection.
Such statements demonstrate a huge weakness of modern Western society: its aversion to numbers, and thus to precision.
Remember that
Re: Layers of protection (Score:2)
You're not wrong, but you have missed the point at issue. Yes, layering is a fine strategy, but only layers that actually work make sense. Using the wrong layer is an anti-pattern. Can make the situation worse, not better.
Re:Layers of protection (Score:5, Informative)
"Hey, scholar.google.com [google.com], tell me about the effectiveness of masks."
No cherry-picking.
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And yet there's not a real world dataset out there that shows mask efficacy. Not one.
So, surgeons wear masks because they like the way they look?
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Exactly. Science begins with such assumptions, which are as useful - in their proper place - as the foundations of a house. But you can't sleep or enjoy life much in foundations.
If such an assumption seems potentially worthwhile, it must be tested as rigorously as possible. Then it can perhaps be admitted as a hypothesis or even a theory. After a while, if not disproved, if may be adopted by engineers and other technologists who accomplish useful results with it.
Re:Layers of protection (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also no clinical evidence that salt raises blood pressure. These are all just assumptions. [google.com]
You are either a moron or a troll.
In any case, all you just said above should be ignored as non-information that it is. As noise, pretending to be words.
Re:Layers of protection (Score:5, Informative)
I wore a mask when going out. Still got covid.
Wearing a mask was never about preventing the wearer from getting the virus. A cloth mask is not the same thing as those yellow PPE suits made of laminated plastic fiber that infectious disease researchers wear. The job of the mask was to slow the spread of the virus within a nation by catching some of the respiratory droplets of the wearer. That task was not expected to be 100% effective either. The mask was just to catch the low-hanging fruit and slow things down so the hospitals could keep up with the influx of patients, as well as provide more time for the vaccines to be created.
Sample size: The entire human history of fighting infectious diseases.
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Posting to fix mod.
Also, I would take this a step further. The cloth masks were never great at preventing me from catching the virus. However, when we all wore them, they were much more effective at preventing us from catching the virus. They are much more about protecting other people from catching the virus from you, than they are to protect you from catching the virus from others. That's an incredibly important distinction. You want to protect yourself? Go with the PPE the nurses and doctors wear - yeah,
Whatever it takes! (Score:2, Informative)
Whatever you use to stop, hinder or just slowdown the spread of infected droplets will help.
We wear masks not to protect us, but to protect the others from our droplets.
Re: Whatever it takes! (Score:2)
Depends on the mask! I recall seeing some data that suggested N95 masks protect the wearer even more. I'm guessing it's because when you inhale they get pulled to the face and seal even better and when you exhale the seal gets weaker.
Until my vaccinations kicked in, for many high risk situations I wore an N100 or P100 elastomeric respirator (modified not to have an unfiltered valve), and I bet this protected me at least as well as it protected others.
Just because something is not 100%, doesn't mean.. (Score:5, Insightful)
it has no value.
Masks, vaccinations, keeping away from stupid people who get their science from celebs. All have value, some more than others.
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Even if something is only 10% effective doesn't mean it's of no value. Tweaking r from a little bit > 1 to a little bit 1 is huge.
Circulation patterns (Score:3, Interesting)
Echoing other observations -- it depends entirely on how the air circulates in the space. There have been several articles in the popular press showing from actual Covid cases how the droplets from an infected individual spread across a restaurant in the airstream and infected folks downwind. Air movement for commercial kitchens, labs and industrial settings are often designed to ensure that air movement is away from the worker and out of the space. This is particularly critical when handling dangerous substances that must not be inhaled. In office settings the layout tends more to just stir it around -- and to minimize conditioning costs outside air flow is minimized. Large buildings sometimes have maximum allowed CO2 levels and hold as close to it as possible -- why folks get sleepy in the afternoons. The plexiglass barriers provide the same local diversion that face shields afford -- just diverting the flow. But unless air is exhausted directly overhead it accomplishes little. I would hope their might be a rethink of how spaces are ventilated -- Covid is unlikely to be the last airborne virus. But that will cost money and won't be particularly theatrical. so I won't be holding my breath.
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I hope there's a revolution in air circulation standards. It's already become clear that the most efficient forced-air cooling system is one where the cold air is distributed as evenly as possible through the floor and leaves as evenly as possible through the ceiling, providing cooling directly to people and displacing hot air toward the outflow, rather than mixing cold air into a layer of warm air before it gets a chance to descend to occupant-height. Well, direct floor-to-ceiling or ceiling-to-floor sys
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Airflow can get complicated, too.
I was faced with a choice at one point of accepting a ride in a car or walking 2 1/2 hours each way, so I accepted the ride, but my plan was (in addition to being double masked, N95+surgical) to just roll down the rear passenger side window where I was and, not stick my head out the window, but basically breathe straight from the airstream. Partway through, I realized how stupid of a plan this was. The intense buffetting from the windstream would likely be entraining any a
Re: Circulation patterns (Score:2)
I remember seeing a study on airflow in cars and they worked out a specific pattern of window openings that worked well. Worth looking up if you can't get vaccinated.
By the way, last I checked, the CDC said never to layer N95 or KN95 masks with another mask. They don't say why. (Here is my own guess, which could easily be wrong: maybe a second mask increases humidity which can damage the electrostatic filtering of the 95 mask?)
I once had to get a ride to and from the car repair shop before I was vaccinated.
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I would think if the mask science is to be believed. The floor to ceiling would be about the WORST thing you could do. A big part of theory why masks are said to help is they decrease the velocity of air leaving the infected person and therefore allowing droplets and even smaller particles to fall the ground sooner.
Creating an artificial thermal to lift these things back up - seems like a pretty terrible idea. I would expect ceiling to floor would generally be better for disease control, but probably not ef
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I hope there's a revolution in air circulation standards.
I agree. I hope there are changes to the International Building Code [wikipedia.org] as a result of the pandemic. Sick Building Syndrome [wikipedia.org] has been known for decades, but the cause has been poorly understood. It's correlated with indoor CO2 levels, but that hasn't been identified as the cause. The higher CO2 levels are likely the result of large amounts of human respiration, but the resulting aerosolized particles are the cause.
There is a lot of opportunities for research in building science as a result of the pandemic.
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I think there was enough of studies about distance (Score:3)
There was a lot of study about the distance the droplets travel through the air before drying up and killing the virus. The whole 'keep 2 meters of separation', the studies of air flow and how it can cause infection to spread to 'sterile' areas and so on. Plexiglass is not a magical substance that needs a separate study, it's just a solid obstruction the droplets must get around to reach the potential victim. It adds separation distance - despite having my face 1m from the salesperson's face in straight line, the actual nearest unobstructed path is 2 meters long.
Do we actually need separate COVID-19 permeability studies for plastic sheets, steel, concrete, plywood, glass, polycarbonate, brick, drywall, styrofoam and so on, or can we just assume if it stops great most of airflow it stops COVID-19? Or is there any such solid known that has been found very inefficient against the airborne transmission?
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Seems like lack of promotion of proper ventillation (WHO really dropped the ball there) rather than a problem with plexiglass of all things. Particles lingering longer around a person who is their spreader isn't a problem if for the same reason why they linger there, others are isolated from them better, and certainly better than getting directly coughed at.
The article being on Bloomberg of all possible sources, makes me feel someone shorted some plexiglass manufacturer stocks and looks to cash in on the in
If you feel that strongly about it... (Score:5, Insightful)
...then remove all those pointless pieces of plexiglass covering the salad buffet at your local restaurant.
And open up that deli and meat case already. No sense in covering any of that.
Wait, you want to keep all those? Why? I mean, if we're going to dismiss a deadly virus, why the hell bother protecting against anything...
Not a good analogy (Score:2)
Those food tubs are virtually sealed. An equivalent to covid screens would be having a few square inches of glass at the bottom and the rest exposed.
Screens may have some utility but in general there just covid theatre , more for look-we're-doing-something and to give people peace of mind than actual utility. Ditto hand washing even though its already been proven (google it) that surface transmission for covid is virtually non existent.
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...Ditto hand washing even though its already been proven (google it) that surface transmission for covid is virtually non existent.
Speaking of shitty analogies, this is horrible. Basic hand-washing can and will prevent the spread of MANY diseases. And when humans are NOT already fighting or succumbing to another infection or virus, their survival chances increase dramatically if they ever contract COVID.
Some security "theatre" should probably stay, regardless of it's effect on one virus. Plexi may prove not very valuable, but I guarantee hand sanitizers are the next thing to get jettisoned from a society hell-bent on ignoring common
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We're not talking about basic hand washing, we're talking about virtual ADHD levels of hand cleaning using alcohol based sanitisers which have dubious value against viruses and as I said, its been shown that covid does not transmit via hands to any reasonable extent.
"a society hell-bent on ignoring common fucking sense."
Says someone who doesn't have any but is clearly just another neurotic probably hiding under the sofa as he types his post.
Yeah, you're missing the point .... (Score:2)
Nobody's saying the sneeze guards over food should go away. The plexiglass they're annoyed with is all the superfluous stuff like the big plexiglass dividers my office purchased that stand up between each person's cubicle. 90% of them are broken in pieces and had to be taped together to keep them standing upright because people constantly wheel their rolling chairs into them by accident and knock them over. They really serve no useful purpose because your cubicle-mate isn't even facing your direction.... h
Application of something that worked elsewhere (Score:3)
It's actually rated "corvid-19" compliant. (Score:5, Funny)
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Except that we didn't know that (Score:5, Insightful)
In the early days of the pandemic we simply didn't know, we asked people to wash their hands, wipe stuff and spread disinfectant. Not a bad thing to do but it turned out not to matter that much. Airborne transmission turned out to matter more than we thought, now we know, but it doesn't mean that plexiglass shields were a bad idea at the time, especially considering the shortage of masks. We also have to consider variants, the virus we have now isn't the same as the one that came out of Wuhan, and we could have selected strains that are better at airborne transmission (didn't check, I may be wrong).
Notice that all studies are recent, and they have the benefit on hindsight. They conclude that plexiglass is ineffective by studying cases in places where it is used, so couldn't have come to these conclusions without having plexiglas shields installed in the first place.
Also the comment comes from the "American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers", which are, I presume, very interested in ventilation. It doesn't mean the science is bad (company-sponsored research can be and often is as good as academia), but there is a conflict of interest and it has to be mentioned.
So yes, maybe we spent millions in plexiglas for nothing (around $2 per person, yay, big deal...) but I don't like the tone of articles that use the power of hindsight to attack people who took sensible decisions in face of uncertainty and turned out to be wrong.
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Not a bad thing to do but it turned out not to matter that much.
Based on what? The problem here is that everyone did in fact advocate washing their hands so we really have no basis of comparison how bad it could be otherwise.
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In the early days of the pandemic we simply didn't know, we asked people to wash their hands, wipe stuff and spread disinfectant. Not a bad thing to do but it turned out not to matter that much. Airborne transmission turned out to matter more than we thought, now we know, but it doesn't mean that plexiglass shields were a bad idea at the time, especially considering the shortage of masks.
That's fine, it's all water under the bridge (except as a learning for next time).
Can we take the darn things down now? And can one recycle plexiglass? And can we tell people it's OK to not worry so much about disinfecting surfaces (like the group meeting we're about to restart at a church who still have the "wipe everything down between meetings" requirement)?
hmmmm (Score:3)
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I demand proof (Score:4, Insightful)
That getting your spittle all over my face because of your imperfect mask wearing can make me sick. Until I see evidence that your liquid spray spreading germs on my face will make me sick, and it needs to be peer reviews, twice, and cited multiple times in other peer reviewed studies, and not debunked on Fox News or page 3 of the Google search results, only then will I let you infringe muh freedoms with your plexiglass. Also if it's not 100% perfect or effective it's not worth doing. We didn't fight the Nazis for nothing!
And since this is 2021 I feel like I need to say this though I really shouldn't have to: This post is sarcastic.
Likely more harm that helped (Score:3)
It allowed restaurants to give the appearance they were safe when they really weren't. You had people happily obsessing over their mask while they were outside walking into the restaurant and sitting in their little plexi glassed cubicle to eat thinking they were somehow safe. Studies showed that indoor dining remained a vector for spread, even with the plexi glass and 25% occupancy.
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Studies showed that indoor dining remained a vector for spread, even with the plexi glass and 25% occupancy.
Studies show that driving cars remained a cause of death even with 100% of people wearing seat belts.
The question is whether the the spread was decreased with plexiglass and/or reduced occupancy.
Masks and Shields (Score:2)
Conflict of Interest? (Score:3)
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers according to their wiki page, is an American professional association seeking to advance heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems design and construction.
It's kinda like a surgeon who recommends more surgery.
Near Cough (Score:2)
In these days of Covid our tolerance of a near cough is very low and it is hard to tell someone to far cough even in the best of circumstances.
The greatest benefit from using plexiglass is it is a great way to turn a near cough into a far cough because nothing says "Far cough" like a pexiglass shield!
Probably can't hurt (Score:2)
It was certainly nice having people and places be more hygienic.
It's kind of unfortunate that everyone's all "well, we can go back to being slovenly now".
Plexiglass... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it help : yes
Should businesses have spent billions on better designed air conditioning instead, and could the Air conditioning installers done this quickly : no
A relatively cheap and quick solution was not perfect but could be done quickly and helped if only a little in tandem with other measures
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Other diseases also (Score:2)
Covid is not the only disease that spreads via air droplets.
Is this a guarantee? No. But it is kind of like wearing shoes. Not going to stop a nail, but it will stop a sharp rock.
Get the vaccination (Score:3, Funny)
There is a difference... (Score:2)
well duh (Score:2)
Stores do it for the profits, not the public health benefits. If a quarter of the US believed it was bad luck to go thru a door without a horseshoe hanging over it guess what, all the stores would have them.
Is that the main problem? (Score:3)
I don't have a problem with screens. It seems quite plausible that they help, both with droplets and with separating ventilation movements. I would rather have the screen than not.
But I think the same argument should certainly be applied to other solutions.
"We disinfect surfaces every day" - how does that help, when the virus only lives for about an hour in most circumstances? And fomites are not even the problem.
"Wash your hands." Again, I am not against washing hands, but it can lead to eczema, and it has been pretty well document that it does very little to stop the spread.
"There is no evidence that masks help." Ok, so why recommend perspex screens but not masks? But all logical standards, masks should work at least as well as perspex screens.
As an example of evidence lead public health policy settings, this was an absolute disaster.
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Here's a case of someone catching Covid while in their hotel room. https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-returned-traveller-catches-covid-19-while-in-hotel-quarantine-at-pan-pacific-perth-ng-b881888233z/ [thewest.com.au]
Another case of a quarantine worker who contracted Covid, but they don't know how.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/03/victorian-returned-traveller-tests-positive-to-same-uk-covid-variant-as-family-across-hall/ [theguardian.com]
In all of these cases, it is though it was Covid in aerosole
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However this is done by Private Enterprise.
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Oh joy, another free market fundamentalist. After the whole entire mortgage crisis thing nearly bankrupted the world economy ...
You mean the government-manded loans to people who couldn't afford the payment on the houses they were buying? And the same government also providing 0%-interest-loans to speculators, who bought up those risky assets hoping to make a large profit with "government free money". And the whole house of cards collapsing when those folks who bought houses they couldn't afford, actually didn't pay for them? That mortgage crisis? I'm not sure that was the fault of a free market.
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It was the derivatives where you could buy insurance that would pay out if a mortgage defaulted even if you had nothing to do with the mortgage, which multiplied the effects and was a bigger disaster then the mortgage crisis. That was the fault of the free market.
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Oh, to the contrary, I think the government bailing out the mortgage industry to the tune of $12 Trillion is a great example of its borrowing strategy.
This is one of those bullshit numbers that people like to push. It requires basically counting actual dollars that can be accounted for and then adding in huge numbers that are pulled out of thin air. The entire mortgage market is $12 Trillion, it's not like the government suddenly paid off everybody's mortgage. Stop promoting garbage,
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According to David Min, a critic of Wallison at the Center for American Progress, "as of the second quarter of 2010, the delinquency rate on all Fannie and Freddie guaranteed loans was 5.9 percent. By contrast, the national average was 9.11 percent. The Fannie and Freddie Alt-A default rate is similarly much lower than the national default rate."
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