You right on track Kes and let me add that the good old USA is testing about a million people a day. Which of course will lead to discovering more cases. And the weekly deaths have been decreasing as Kes says.
Stu, I agree with the concern, and recommend everyone take the precautions they feel necessary for their individual circumstances. I remain hopeful that, although certain areas may see an increase in hospitalizations, even during the height of the emergency, there didn't seem to be any hospitals overrun like we saw in Italy, Spain, and the UK. Even at the height of the emergency, the equipment that was needed was made available. (HUGE case in point was New York, where an entire hospital ship was dispatched, and JAVITS, which largely laid empty through the worst of it.) We are in a much improved stance now, not only as regards the availability of PPE and equipment, but also in how better to treat those that become infected. I watched an interview a week or so ago. It was a doctor in (and I think director of?) a New Jersey hospital I think on MSNBC. Among other things, he was talking about the trials of some of the treatments for COVID, when asked if he had familiarity with the cocktail Trump was given. Two key points I found quite interesting from the discussion: 1) it appears the disease may have mutated to a much more contagious, but less lethal version. He didn't talk too strongly but pointed out that appears to be the case, which I've seen theorized a number of times over the last couple months. 2) although the number of positives have been rising, many of them are due to a different testing scenario. Previously, a vast majority of the positives came from symptomatic individuals, or suspected contacts. Now, many positives are as a result of requisite screening tests for people that are planning elective procedures, or come in for other reasons. Many cases like these would likely never have been discovered, but now with things opening back up, a different set of cases is being found, contributing to the apparent rise in cases. The relevant point to your post, Stu, is that yes, these are positive cases and yes, they are in the hospital. But that doesn't necessarily equate with an increase in the number of severe COVID cases requiring hospitalization. Now, it may be that some areas will see a rise in the number of severe COVID cases, but just seeing the statistics that a rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations doesn't automatically MEAN that is what has happened. As always, context is key, and we seem to increasingly not be provided with all of the necessary context and information, leaving disparate interpretations possible and no data-based way of determining which interpretation is correct.
Here's an interesting article on the fear of flying in Covid times. This article say's that the chance of getting Covid from flying is extremely unlikely. I'll leave to Kes to read the whole article and give us an evaluation. It seems to be his wheelhouse! Quantifying the Incredibly Unlikely Aerosol Transmission of COVID on Airplanes
Kes, being much more incite full and intelligent than I am (Scott behave now) can answer my additional question but I’m driving today up the interior of Florida in a not so busy area and noticed a motorcycle rider wearing a mask, lol, not a helmet. My first thought was yeah okay so he’s thinking aerosol infection but not really concerned about possibly crashing and hitting his head on the curb. Side note a very prestigious weatherman who worked in SW Florida for over 30 years and handled my private weather forecasting died a month after retirement while riding his bicycle when he crashed and his head hit the curb. Kesley what’s the latest that the available avenue is thru air infection?
Ralph, anyone that can harvest edible food from the efforts put in from their own brow has a talent and level of intelligence equal or greater to any other field. Some of the smartest and most resourceful people I've known were farmers and all the "awww, shucks" and "gol' darns" doesn't hide that fount. Just because I have training and experience applicable to interpreting data and statistics doesn't mean anything as relates to relative intelligence. As far as I have seen, there still hasn't been a classification that this is airborne. However, that classification has a very specific meaning and doesn't mean it doesn't transmit through the air. The most common route of infection seems to be from respiratory (and vocal) droplets that are carried along with the air expelled. It would also appear that viral load (concentration of virus particles and length of time breathing exposed to the virus particles) has a large impact on how likely one is to contracting the virus, as well as the severity of the infection. (i.e. - being in a 10' x 10' room with 10 infected people for 24 hours is much more likely to cause a severe, abrupt infection than walking/biking on a sidewalk outdoors and passing by those same 10 infected people. In the room, the virus concentration is confined and continues to rise, and the exposure is for 24 hours, imparting a high count of virus into the body. HEPA filters are of limited utility even if the air change rate is high due to the air distribution of virus particles and the various velocities/paths of the air within a given room. Outdoors, the virus concentration is exceedingly low and the interaction is for very short duration, if any, mostly because dispersion is universal.) I likely won't be able to get to T's article until tomorrow, so I hope the above hasn't already been proven false!
[1/2] Okay guys, I've made it through the study, and here are my thoughts. I haven't proofread this yet, but I need to get to something else and wanted to wrap this initial stage up. I'll come back to it and see if I need to rearrange any wording at a later date, so please forgive any typos or other errors. The test setup appears to have been very well considered, and I agree with most of the assumptions they made and conclusions reached, especially considering the large amount of variability they were trying to model/reduce. The first large part of this is a quick dive into HEPA filters specifically, followed by some of my thoughts about some of the conclusions. As always, these are my thoughts, and many could quite possibly be in complete error, but the conclusions at least are based on data, even if the logic ends up being faulty. For those interested, here is the actual test report, rather than to the link previously provided referencing a write-up of the report: https://www.ustranscom.mil/cmd/docs/TRANSCOM Report Final.pdf HEPA filters are very specifically defined by the Department of Energy (which is the defining authority in the US) as removing 99.97% of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 microns. It is theoretically possible for a certified True HEPA to remove exactly 0% of all particulates sized <0.3 microns and >0.3 microns but still be approved as a True HEPA filter. This is extremely unlikely, and many HEPA filters have been tested at various additional sizes that show similar removal efficiencies down to a certain threshold size. However, some have also been tested that were less efficient at different, non-specified sizes. To explain, this is a similar concept regarding EPA testing protocols for automobile gas mileage ratings. Automakers tune their transmission algorithms to provide the best possible results as reported in the defined/controlled test. Real world driving almost always ends up worse than the EPA-approved test. (The EPA testing was revised within the last 10 or so years to partially address this, but there is still disparity due to how each person uses their vehicle in the real world.) With this context, consider the HEPA filter in which the manufacturer also must consider dP (pressure loss across the media), air flow, and cost, and you can start to see that it may not be to a manufacturer's benefit to meet a 99.97% (or better) removal efficiency at ALL particle sizes, when the requirement is exclusively limited to exactly 0.3 microns. There also is less pressure from the public to improve overall efficiency because the exact definition of what HEPA means is not generally known. Interestingly, a HEPA filter "tuned" for 0.3 microns can also have less efficient removal of larger particles as well, which is somewhat counterintuitive. How this relates is that the coronavirus (I think?) is on the order of 0.1-0.15 microns. This does not, however, represent the overall particle size when it catches a ride on a respiratory droplet, which would (at least initially) increase the size significantly (as well as significantly increase the range of sizes, which were referenced as 0.5-1 micron, and above 2.5 microns, in the test setup). The test used 1 micron and 3 micron aerosol tracers, which assumes no dry virus is expected. (This may not be a good assumption considering how dry the air in a jet is since the particle, water + virus, would evaporate rather quickly, leaving just the virus behind. Does this help or hinder filtration? Does this help or hinder the air path the virus takes? Questions not answered with this setup, nor anywhere else to date.) What all this is intending to say is that there is a huge amount of variability (and unknowns) in any test setup that depends on HEPA filtration, which can also be walked all the way back to variability in manufacturing, supplier, installation, maintenance, particle distribution, air flow... One of their choices was to use 3-ply surgical masks, even though they recognize that cloth masks are by far the more common choice. This actually bounds the variability reasonably well. If cloth masks confer no protection, then they would be comparable to the no mask testing (some studies support this). If cloth masks confer good protection, then they would be comparable to the mask testing (some studies support this). You could interpolate the in-between cloth mask cases. I would have liked to have seen some comparison with N95 masks and cloth masks, just because I'm a data nerd, but it probably wasn't necessary for the goals set forth in this testing. The assumptions used for the virus shedding and viral load required for infection seem reasonable, but this, too focuses on a narrow band of a possibly large variability spectrum. As noted, having a rigid, non-talking dummy passenger is a necessary setup concession, but likely provided improved results as compared to a human talker in neighboring seats. One observation was that an empty seat between passengers is likely of little protection, but when comparing this to an active neighbor, this may actually become a larger protection factor than shown in the study.
[2/2] As they noted, the large exchange rate (assuming very high removal by the HEPA) and vertically downward flow path of the air were likely the largest factors in reducing risk of infection. (They included HEPA-recirculated air as the third large protection factor). (They missed an obvious conclusion from these results: sit in the back row and you probably don't need a mask, and may not get caught if you don't have it. ) Of particular interest, they include in the same sentence naming the largest protection factors: Which is something that didn't seem to be in agreement between the conclusions in the article and test result charts included in the article. Some of the quotes from the Cranky Flier write-up: Perhaps a bit misleading to the reader, but this is actually correct as I understand the test: Yes, the test does get to the point, but the inference is that the mask were shown to be effective here, too, which doesn't seem to be the case. These next two quotes, though factual, combine to give a very misleading impression that a quick read-through could give the impression that masks provide a 20x protection factor, when in fact, that is not the case. These two are completely unrelated, and provide an almost useless comparison. The author then reiterates to I am going to preface the rest of this section (and response to these quotes above) with my personal belief that each person should choose the protection most in line with their own risk profile. I can also support mask mandates in areas where close contact is unavoidable and the general population cannot be expected to forego that service/location (grocery stores, maybe?). I am also going to say that I universally wear a mask when I am within 10' of anybody except my family due to my family's risk profile, so I am definitely not an anti-masker even while arguing for defending the public's freedoms. I will go further to state that anyone that universally denounces masks without consideration of any data, present or future, is a low-information individual. By the same token, anyone that screams universal mask mandates regardless of any and all other consequences is also a low-information individual. In the US, though, making decisions and statements even as a low-information individual is not a crime. Hell, we let low-information individuals vote once they reach the age of 18. All of this is to try to show that I like basing my arguments/decisions on information, not politicized phobia, hysteria, and declared team/group thought. With that being said, I find it extremely damaging to the message of how effective masks are (or could be) when you force the mask message into data that specifically does not support the message. For instance, the "777 - inflight - AFT - 47B - BNM - Tests 1-3" compared with the "...BM - Tests 4-6". The worst result was seat 47A at 0.0545% no mask and seat 47C at 0.0393% with mask. Comparing the same for seat 47E gives 0.0590% with no mask in seat 47D and 0.0543% with mask in seat 47D. Using the study's approach, this equates to 99.9455% vs. 99.9607% "removal" for 47B and 99.941% vs. 99.9457% "removal" in 47E. And another, actually used in the article, the "767 - inflight AFT - 37E - BNM Tests 7-9" and the "...BM Tests 10-12". The worst result was 0.0143% for no mask in seat 39A, and 0.0110% for masked in seat 39A. This equates to 99.9857% vs. 99.989% "removal". The CNM vs. CM example used provided a much starker difference between mask (0.0158% vs. 0.0016%) which would be expected due to unprotected coughing. However, even this no-mask result was lower than the mask result in many other tests. As noted in additional tables in the study, the averages are even closer (which you would expect when averaging anything). These directly comparable differences are almost all within reasonable variability of the tests and would not appear to support universal mask usage! I actually take offense to the selection of the "best case" quote in the article, because the best case in BOTH mask and no mask is THE SAME for most of the aircraft. (Per the data, sitting behind the sick person is almost universally safe.) In actuality, and actually discussed, you don't know in real life if, or whom, or how many other passengers are infected. And in that case, you CANNOT EVEN USE the "best case" as a reference if you are talking mask vs. no mask. You must talk about worst case, because THAT is the risk profile you are evaluating. As noted previously, the study excludes masks as a significant protection factor. In fact, the only reference supporting wearing a mask: This is specifically what wearing a mask is most useful for protecting, and most of the protection is in preventing the droplets from leaving the infected person in the first place. A better interpretation might be: COVER YOUR COUGH. Thank you, Terry. I did find this to be a very well-conceived test, especially for its intended use. It also provides useful data outside of those bounds, when considered properly. The major point was that our young service members can reliably fly public aircraft in relative safety, and identified the major protection factors most likely to provide that level of safety. They were fair in their assumptions, conclusions, limitations, and possible skew factors. I also found the article to be pretty good and accurate, and I didn't see anything intentional or malicious about the obfuscation. What I find is an unfortunate confluence of data and message that don't belong together, which gives support to an anti-mask message due to a bias that may not be there.
Thanks Kes, I appreciate the in depth analysis. While I do not have any plans to fly in the near future, I will go ahead and wear a N95 mask as a little extra protection.
I support wearing masks when out and about in close contact (and not eating). Coughing and sneezing are obvious problems...yeah you can "cover your cough"...sort of...usually...but it still sprays around a bit. And how about the guy talking loudly and spewing spittle all over the place? How many would support having open surgery and their surgeon not wearing a mask?
The virus is raging in Europe again. Riots are breaking out as people protest against more lockdowns. They've already screwed their economies into the ground and it hasn't done anything to stop nature. Here's an interesting quote New protests loom as Europeans tire of virus restrictions "All of Europe is grappling with how to halt a fall resurgence of the virus before its hospitals become overwhelmed again." Sounds like they're trying to flatten the curve. You have to wonder who Europeans are blaming the virus on. It is because Trump didn't take it seriously? Don't think so. Is it because their leaders don't wear masks. Don't think so. The virus will take lives and destroy livelihoods if politicians react recklessly. We're fortunate here that we've kept our hospitals from being overwhelmed and not destroyed our economy. Somehow the media has convinced the delusional, gullible and plain stupid that this disease can be beaten without a vaccine and therapeutics.
gipper - you touch on a point I made some time ago that a full assessment of leadership needs to take everything into account, including the economy, when considering how the leader performed. When considering all angles, it's hard to argue that Trump didn't strike a balance that many in Europe would appreciate. It appears that the Left Coalition would much rather see restrictions similar to those implemented by China than those that allowed freedom of choice once things were flattened.
I saw that another new mutation that started in Spain seems to be driving the current surge in Europe.
Meanwhile a learned expert on epidemiology Dr. Birx has had enough of a guy with absolutely zero qualifications except he mimics everything that Trump says or wants him to say... Dr. Atlas.... and she has excused herself from his team. Who can blame her? That's like asking the Iron Chef to listen to the line cook about meal preparation.
And as I said long ago... this ain't going away. Which is why I quickly became very disgusted by all the "flatten the curve" actions that are still in place 7 months later. Flattening the curve was a good thing, but since the virus will be with us for probably FOREVER (we haven't killed one yet)... mask mandates would need to be permanent along with periodic lockdowns. . Sorry... my risk profile does not require a lifetime mask and sure as hell doesn't agree with destroying my livelihood whenever politicians get a little antsy about case loads.
I agree Scott that it seems unlikely that we are going to get a vaccine that will eliminate it like we have pretty much eradicated polio, smallpox, the measles. /etc. I do think that the current efforts to have population wear masks is a good policy. But even a vaccine that reduces its spread by 50+ %. along with some effective treatments will be our best outcome.
Kind of curious....... why would you disagree that Atlas.... a radiologist is not as qualified to manage this raging pandemic than Birx or Fauci?