Updated scientific information re social distancing

[kestrell]

Turns out the six feet guideline was based on 1930s science, pre-fluid mechanics, and the cold dry winter environments indoors mean droplets evaporate more slowly
https://scitechdaily.com/social-distancing-isnt-enough-to-prevent-infection-how-to-detect-covid-19-super-spreaders/

Comments

Quote this as if you're Lorenzo Music voicing Garfield

[dewline]

Oh.

Joy.

[bibliofile]

OK, now I'm putting my mask on in the car and not in the parking lots.

[bibliofile]

Because of course we're working on research from ninety years ago. Geez. facepalm & all that

[kestrell]

What I find really fascinating about these results, in an academic way, is that for decades I have attempted to explain to otherwise intelligent people, people with college degrees, that if you can smell something, such as perfume, or cigarette smoke, that means molecules are drifting toward you and into your nose, and thus your respiratory system.

When I had biological eyes, and glaucoma and iritis and a bunch of other things, secondhand cigarette smoke could trigger an attack, so I would politely ask friends who smoked if they could please not smoke near me, and they would say, Oh, I'll move farther away, and then move two feet away to the other end of the sofa or whatever.

There are just so many parallels between getting people to respond to the dangers of smoking and to the dangers of contagious diseases, I'm going to try to remember that next time I wonder why so many people react as if they don't quite understand what the word contagious means.

[duskpeterson]

Interesting article. I've been hearing epidemiologists say for months that six feet isn't a hard figure, but this makes six feet seem even fuzzier than before.

[cvirtue]

The most believable distances I've seen (by which I mean "read about months ago") are in the range of 20 feet or more for social distancing. However, the public in general seems only willing to adopt 6 feet, including the journalist public and what they publish.

[kestrell]

Yes, it reminds me of similar reactions people had to the dangers of smoking: they'll accept some science, but only so far and no farther, literally in this case.

[siderea]

I was just pointed at this article, and tracked down the 1930s science in question.

Turns out they're talking about something called the Wells curve, from his Nov 1934 article "ON AIR-BORNE INFECTION: STUDY II. DROPLETS AND DROPLET NUCLEI" in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Here's how Wikipedia's article on the Wells curve opens:

The Wells curve (or Wells evaporation falling curve of droplets) is a diagram, developed by W. F. Wells in 1934, which describes what he thought might happen to small droplets once they have been exhaled into air.[1] He thought that coughing, sneezing, and other violent exhalations produce high numbers of respiratory droplets derived from saliva and/or respiratory mucus, with sizes ranging from about 1 µm to 2 mm.[2][3] Wells' non-experimental guesses included that such droplets have two distinct fates, depending on their sizes.

According to wikipedia, it's a theory paper, not even an experimental study.

Friendly reminder, the six foot standard for social distancing was established in the 19th century, and was experimentally disproved by Doust and Lyon in Oct 1918 in the Journal of American Medicine, and the Boston Fucking Globe was publicizing their new 10 foot standard mere days later. My most previous rant on this: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1575317.html

[siderea]

What I find really fascinating about these results, in an academic way, is that for decades I have attempted to explain to otherwise intelligent people, people with college degrees, that if you can smell something, such as perfume, or cigarette smoke, that means molecules are drifting toward you and into your nose, and thus your respiratory system.

So much this. Quoting for truth and beauty and also so I get a copy in my email. You mind if I quote this as an example of the phenomenon if I write about it?

[kestrell]

Thank you for providing all those great details but, before I scurry off to read the Wikipedia article, I'm curious: does the f***ing epithet applied to the Boston Globe reflect a positive or negative judgement regarding the quslity of their research? I mea, usually the epithet conveys a sense of the negative, but sometimes is conveys a positive quality.

[kestrell]

I don't mind at all, please do use it.

[kestrell]

Okay, this answers the question in my previous comment...

[kestrell]

I think a lot of the contagion incomprehension comes down to the fact that many, many people still don't 100% believe that things that they can't see actually exist. If they can't see the perfume droplets, the particples in the cigarette smoke, the germs when someone coughs, well, then, those things can't possibly exist in clouds of molecules that have any real force, physical or consequential. And certainly the people you like and identify with, share similar characteristics with, respect, etc., they're "clean," undiseased, and as uncontaminated/uncorrupted, as you yourself are.

Miasma theory, on the other hand, is something they can believe in because the idea that certain people, people you already regard with suspicion, such as people of color, foreigners, or people with disabilities, are already considered to be "unclean," and miasma theory fits very neatly into that kind of mindset.

I've heard from people with disabilities, especially those with wheelchairs and/or oxygen tanks, who say they have no problem with social distancing because non-disabled people will cross the street in order not to be anywhere near them. I can't help but think that this demonstrates that ancient stereotypes of PWD as "unclean" is very much thriving in our current culture.