6 feet of social distancing not nearly enough: CDC’s recommendation driving some experts ‘nuts’

[Orangesapples 1,954]

https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/04/6-feet-of-social-distancing-not-nearly-enough-cdcs-recommendation-driving-some-experts-nuts.html

 

Some experts in an increasingly loud chorus are criticizing federal recommendations that Americans stay 6 feet apart from each other to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. 

 

Richard Corsi, a Portland State University dean, has studied the spread of COVID-19 through both large and tiny droplets in the air and recommends people stay 20 feet away from each other when they’re outdoors.

Indoors, where ventilation is much worse, Corsi recommends extreme caution and carrying out essential tasks like grocery shopping when truly necessary.

What do he and a small group of aerosol science colleagues across the nation think about the 6-foot social distancing advisory from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?

“It’s just been driving us nuts,” Corsi said.

“I don’t think we’re being safe enough,” he said. “People need to understand that the airborne route, that’s a serious transmission pathway.”

Corsi’s advice is bolstered by a study published last week in the Journal of American Medicine by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher. It found that the virus can travel as far as 27 feet indoors when somebody sneezes and remain floating in the air for hours, waiting for the next person passing by to breathe it in.

 

Scientists also say the virus -- encapsulated in saliva and mucus droplets as tiny as 1/200th the width of a human hair – can enter the air when someone talks or even breathes.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine recently found the virus could linger in the air and still be infectious three hours later.

This week, the CDC said as many as 25 percent of people infected by the new coronavirus don’t show any symptoms and spread it unknowingly as they circulate in the community.

That, in turn, led the federal agency on Friday to reverse its position on masks and recommend all Americans wear face covering or homemade masks.

 

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

And they recommend masks. Which as we know, are better than not doing so.

 

The idea that one shouldn't wear a mask if they're not an expert mask wearer debunked again.

[Ban Hammer 14,332]

fortunately, us introverted misanthropes have trained our entire lives for this moment.

[OriZ 3,165]

Yeah, they travel farther than 6 feet, but it's the larger ones they're more concerned with, and those don't go as far. With every virus, there's a threshold that will make you sick. It's not enough to get just a tiny bit of it. I'm not sure a tiny drop that travels 19 feet can do that.