Six-foot rule to protect against coronavirus is questionable, MIT professor says (The Boston Globe)

It looks like we may need to be even more careful. This may help clarify why there are so many unexplained cases of transmission.

Six-foot rule to protect against coronavirus is questionable, MIT professor says

From the article:

This article was based on a piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week.

 

I had assumed 6ft was for normal breathing.
Anything else stay as far away as possible was my thinking.

 

The six-foot rule was for everything, since you can't always tell ahead of time when someone is going to cough or sneeze. As the article points out in detail, six feet was assumed to cover those cases.

And even for normal breathing, six feet may not be enough. As I quoted in my first post:

This gas cloud - also known as an aerosol - has been shown to be able to persist in the air for up to three hours. So if you simply walk through the space where an asymptomatic but contagious person was breathing a few minutes ago, it's possible for you to inhale enough viral particles to become infected. This is just another reason why this is such a nasty virus.

 

This is what I find so frustrating with the plethora of "sources" etc out there & no real way judging the quality or accuracy of the information.

Great, so now 6 feet may not be enough. We have brought our countries to a standstill, made life extremely difficult and stressful for vast numbers of people & now that's not enough.

The danger with this (& I'm not qualified to challenge the facts within the article) is that people will just think " well, f*** it. If the advice I've been following for weeks leave me exposed I might as well just go back to my normal routines. "

 

That'll be some very hefty fines accumulating

 

Yep, but the person who is going to cough or sneeze has some idea and there is an onus on them to get as far away from anyone nearby and cover up.

I think by issuing simple guidelines like 6ft and 15 minutes, some people assume this is a fact. It's really a general guideline but by now people should be thinking every thing is a risk and stay away as far as possible for as long as possible.

Edit:I wouldn't linger in anyone's vapour cloud, 6 ft or not, I generally hold my breath if I get within an asses roar of anyone.

 

I see the problem as being the ridiculously mixed messages government is sending out.

The six foot for fifteen minutes rule seems to have been drawn up in terms of 'If you have been within six feet of someone infected for fifteen minutes you are so pretty darn sure to have caught it you must go not just into lockdown but formal personal quarantine.' I never thought of it as indicating that you were safe if you didn't quite make the fifteen minutes.

I would hope that people are not quite so stupid as to take it that way (hope springs eternal).
If this were Martians and we were told that as long you don't talk out loud they won't know you are there would people rely on that being the case? At least with Martians you can see them and recognise the distinctive green colour.

 

They did stay well apart from.each other in the choir, but they were there for at least 2.5 hours. As we don't understand quite whether the initial dose might predict severity, whether length of initial exposure affects the dose etc.

Also it's possible that the person who handed round the music sheets (if they did) was contagious or had touched something contaminated since last hand sanitizing.

A lot of unknowns.

Most of us are staying as far apart as possible with a minimum of two feet between us, but we're usually just passing by & not lingering.

 

I don't think people would take it that way but I think almost everyone will be assuming that if they're six feet away from someone who isn't coughing and sneezing, they'll be OK - because that's what the govt is telling us all.

 

I don't think they are stupid but the message is very unclear.
I am sure plenty of people out there think they are safe if they don't spend 15 minutes within 6ft of someone.
Just about every news article I read says something like "generally you need to be within 6ft of someone for 25 minutes to be considered at risk"

I think the journalists are actually stupid to keep saying it, without ever questioning it, but I don't blame somebody who has taken it literally, plenty of people have no science background and rely on the media for their information.

Edit :I just got the official public information booklet in my letterbox and under social isolation it says "You should avoid spending more than 15 minutes in close contact with other people"

 

The singing itself probably caused it. People often really belt it out of the lungs when singing which would have caused vapour clouds everywhere in the vicinity. Similar to when a runner exhales heavily.

 

Another caution to consider is that it is the beginning of allergy season for some. Many are sneezing and we don't really know how long viral particles linger in the air.

 

In our first cohort in Bavaria, one person was infected sitting back to back with somebody in a cantine that already had the virus and just quickly turned around to give the other person the salt shaker that he had asked for (article in German here)

That would confirm the idea of infective aerosol and wearing masks might help to keep some of the droplets in.

 

Sorry I've not read the article linked, but we can't know the person infected wasn't in contact with another asymptomatic person.S

Also in crowded canteens there's the possibility the other person moved their chair by grabbing the chair back before they then touched the same surface to pull the chair out.

Again, lots of unknowns, which isn't to say we should take unnecessary risks. This is where testing would help us to understand more about the spread as well as protecting by preventing it.

 

I am very freaked out by the fact that my friend was sorting some rubbish for me in my front porch (open to the street but enclosed on both sides)- taking it to the dustbins. I looked through the peep hole & as she wasn't there I held my breath (in case her breath was in the porch) & opened the door to put some letters out for her to post. At that very moment she appeared in the porch entrance (about2-3ft away from me) & when she saw me, instead of jumping back, she spoke to me & moved towards me to get the final rubbish bag So she came within 2ft of me.
I threw the letters at her & slammed the door in her face the whole thing took less than 4seconds & I didn't breathe in again until the door firmly shut..... but I didn't factor the wind into my planning. It likely blew her exhalations into my house, & I was so ill, barely able to stand at that point & cognitively useless- otherwise I wouldn't have been so stupid as to open the door without yelling at her to stand back, I pretty sure that if she had it, then I may well have it now too. Am really scared.

And it showed me how her "i'm not giving in to fear" approach is making her blasé & not only not making her vigilant enough to protect herself, but not enough to protect me either. I'm finding it hard not to feel angry with her.

I grateful to her for her help but I wont have her near to my property again.

It's amazing that people who are normally mistrustful of the government have suddenly started hanging on their every word & not thinking for themselves/doing any personal research about it.

I dunno maybe having ME & knowing how utterly crap much of the establishment advice can be, has made me more sceptical about their dictats than id have been otherwise

 

I think there are a few doctors and nurses living in my village, which is probably helping the information and advice that's being put out via the parish network. They cancelled all village and community activities even before the government banned 'large gatherings'.

 

True, we don't know the exact circumstances (maybe person A had sneezed into their hands before and touched the salt shaker and then gave it to Person B?)

It was in the very beginning though, 13 members of a company had been infected after an infected person from China had visited in January. Back then they traced every little step everyone has taken so I think they can at least be sure that it was Person A that infected Person B.

This is a deepl translation of the explanation from this article

"Drosten explains why one can also be infected with corona via the air

It sounds absurd, but according to the virologist it happened exactly the same way: Two people sit back to back in a canteen while eating, one asks the other to hand her the salt shaker. Obviously a fatal mistake: because a corona infection is said to have been the result. Drosten had already described the situation on Monday - in the current podcast he explains in more detail how an infection could occur despite the back-to-back position.

'Of course, they were talking very closely at times, they probably turned towards each other,' says the researcher. This could have led to transmission of the pathogen.

But there are also air movements in the room that could be responsible for the corona infection. Because although you breathe and cough forward. 'However, a medium-drop aerosol remains in the room air for a while and if there is air movement, it is transported further - regardless of whether someone is sitting with their back to you,' explains the virologist."

 

Burka may become very fashionable soon ))) Oh Lordy Lord, as they say in the deep American south.
I think that this virus will change many things, and folks may want to live in more rural settings, more suburbs, not in the dense high rises of modern cities. Here in Montreal, there is a catastrophe in the senior citizen residences; the contamination, sickness, and death tolls are very high. One epidemiologist
( others have brought it up) this morning ( on Radio Canada) suggested the Island of Montreal be closed off and no entry allowed except for necessities. The virus is mushrooming here overnight in huge numbers.