[HN Gopher] Study: Air purifier use at daycare centres cut kids'...
___________________________________________________________________
Study: Air purifier use at daycare centres cut kids' sick days by a
third (2023)
Author : mji
Score : 326 points
Date : 2024-08-25 15:15 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yle.fi)
(TXT) w3m dump (yle.fi)
| unglaublich wrote:
| Yes, please. My colleagues, who are parents, are constantly sick
| whenever their children are at daycare, and I have no interest in
| the constant coughing and/or getting sick myself.
| BenoitP wrote:
| On child #2, can confirm. We actually planned for it. By
| planning for no activities. Just bunkering and resting for 2
| months straight.
|
| We began partial daycare on Thursdays + Fridays in winter.
| Daycare is like Cancun for bacteria. Dry cold can weaken the
| skin, and cold is good for bacterial protein stability.
|
| The cycle begins: kid starts incubating on Thursday. On
| Saturday he's sick, and you hope for a good lottery. Diarrhea?
| Puking? Maybe not. But a runny nose most probably. These may
| ruin your nights, still.
|
| Sunday they are sick, and you begin to feel unwell. Monday the
| kids is recovering, but you're still in it. By Wednesday you
| should be good though. And then it's Thursday again.
|
| On another topic air filtering is great for the kids I'm sure;
| but I can't help wonder if it's just kicking the can down the
| road.
| wredue wrote:
| There's some studies showing parents of kids in daycare are
| sick upwards of 90% of the time.
|
| I don't know if it was that much, but when my kids were in
| daycare, it was definitely A LOT for sure. Work doesn't provide
| nearly enough sick time for that period of being a parent. So
| what are parents to do if they're not able to work from home?
| tuna74 wrote:
| I totally felt that!
|
| My kids almost never got sick in daycare (1-2 days per year),
| but especially the first year I felt like I had a cold most
| of the time. But it improved later years.
| switch007 wrote:
| Good news. Hopefully a country as wealthy as Finland can just
| roll this out countrywide without much thought, if not already
| standard
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Without much thought? Without much thought I would say that the
| recent experience of preventing children from catching
| communicable diseases have shown it to be a devil's bargain and
| we would be wise to keep their immune systems constantly
| exercised
| switch007 wrote:
| Without much thought regarding cost. Calm down lol
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| What evidence is there that it's possible to "exercise" an
| immune system?
| hirsin wrote:
| What recent experience? Do you mean keeping them home from
| school for covid? I don't think the knock on effects from
| that are remotely traceable to their immune systems.
| error_logic wrote:
| As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, one can be exposed (and
| have an immune response) to a viral load below what's
| normally considered symptomatic. Then the immune system
| learns, but doesn't have to go into over-drive which taxes
| the rest of the body more destructively.
|
| In other words: Filtering part of it from the air can make
| exposure more like vaccination than full blown infection,
| which is great.
| terminatornet wrote:
| Getting sick to stay healthy. Makes sense to me. Now will you
| be exposing yourself to zika virus or HIV? Seems like those
| would exercise your immune system quite a bit.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| There was a great deal of interest in how to remove airborne
| viruses during Covid.
|
| One of the biggest takeaways seemed to be that UV light destroys
| viruses in seconds.
|
| Seems like there a lot of things we could do
| plasticchris wrote:
| Yeah, even a single UV bulb in the cold air return might be
| effective. This is well known in hiking circles where UV is
| used to sanitize water.
|
| I might hook one up now that I have the idea.
| morkalork wrote:
| You can use UV to sanitize water to drink? Must be better
| tasting than those gross iodine tablets!
| amluto wrote:
| You can! It works best if the water isn't cloudy.
|
| You can also get chlorine dioxide tablet systems that are
| less nasty tasting.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| You can, but it does not leave any residual ability for the
| water to neutralize pathogens once you're done treating the
| water.
|
| If you dip a Nalgene bottle to fill it, then purify the
| contents, you would typically then bleed the threads by
| holding the bottle upside down and loosening the cap.
|
| With chemical treatment, the iodine in the water works to
| neutralize any pathogens that aren't flushed out of the
| threads. If you've used UV, you're kind of hoping that the
| flushing action has physically washed out anything
| lingering in the threads.
|
| Anecdotally, people using UV get more cases of waterborne
| illness, but I don't know if anyone has rigorously studied
| this. Hikers are naturally resistant to controlled
| experiments.
|
| If you don't like the flavor of iodine tablets, I recommend
| AquaMira instead.
|
| Source: AT ME-MA 2003, GA-ME 2010. UV was pretty popular by
| 2010 and for a couple years after. Not planning a thru hike
| at the moment, but I believe the Sawyer squeeze filter is
| super popular now.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| It is a standard method for disinfecting water in
| aqueducts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irradi
| a...
|
| > _UVGI for water treatment // Using UV light for
| disinfection of drinking water dates back to 1910 in
| Marseille, France. The prototype plant was shut down after
| a short time due to poor reliability. In 1955, UV water
| treatment systems were applied in Austria and Switzerland;
| by 1985 about 1,500 plants were employed in Europe. In 1998
| it was discovered that protozoa such as cryptosporidium and
| giardia were more vulnerable to UV light than previously
| thought; this opened the way to wide-scale use of UV water
| treatment in North America. By 2001, over 6,000 UV water
| treatment plants were operating in Europe_
|
| And yes, there are also commercial products for home use.
| amluto wrote:
| If you have an appropriately sized filter holder, I would
| just install a MERV 13 or 16 filter. They're very cost
| effective, widely available, and they will remove non-living
| crud, too.
|
| The main problem is that many central air systems use crappy
| _thin_ filter holders. A good low-resistance filter needs a
| lot of area, and a 4" or 5" thick format works well, 2" is
| marginal, and 1" sucks. A good filter holder costs under
| $200, takes very little effort to install in a new system,
| and is an incredible pain to retrofit into an existing
| system. And good filters are essentially unsupported in
| ductless systems.
| elric wrote:
| Hmm, I wonder how effective that would be. My small home's
| ventilation system is currently taking in about 100m3 of
| fresh air per hour. That's about 1600L/minute. Let's assume
| the intake duct is about 20cm in diameter, and assume we can
| place a bulb to illuminate a 50cm stretch of pipe. That's a
| volume of about 16 liters. So the air would be in visible
| range of the bulb for about half a second. Would that be
| enough for a UV bulb to do anything?
|
| This was back of napkin maths, could be way off.
|
| Edit: sanitizing incoming air is probably pretty useless, as
| the outdoor concentration of pathogens is likely very low to
| begin with.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Low in pathogens, maybe, but high in pollutants such as
| diesel particulates, second hand cannabis, wildfire
| emissions, etc.
| schiffern wrote:
| I looked into implementing this once. Some surprising things
| I learned:
|
| 1. You need UV-C (typically 222 nm), not just any old UV bulb
| off Alibaba/Wish/Amazon.
|
| 2. You need an extremely high UV light intensity to kill
| viruses if the air is just flowing past the bulb (vs shining
| UV on a coil to prevent bacterial/fungal growth, which is the
| typical usage), and you need more intensity the faster the
| air is flowing. Usually this requires multiple bulbs.
|
| 3. You need to replace your UV-C bulbs every 1,000 hours or
| so, because they rapidly lose intensity with operating time.
|
| Just putting a "black light poster" bulb in your ducts won't
| accomplish anything, other than perhaps giving you a false
| sense of security.
| bri3d wrote:
| > You need to replace your UV-C bulbs every 1,000 hours or
| so
|
| I don't think this should need to be the case. Low pressure
| mercury arc lamps (253.7nm) last 10,000 hours in water
| treatment applications - a much more palatable replacement
| timeline (1 year) vs every few weeks!
|
| The short-lifetime bulbs are usually 222nm Far-UVC bulbs,
| which are safe for human exposure. These shouldn't be
| necessary to treat air as part of an enclosed HVAC system.
| I feel that the hype around 222nm / "safe" UVC has done a
| disservice to just using "dirty" 253nm UVC, which kills
| everything just as well as long as you keep people from
| being able to look at it.
| schiffern wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. It's been a while since I
| looked into it!
|
| Even replacing bulbs every 1 year seems like a lot more
| than people are bargaining for. Most people seem to
| expect UV will be a "Set It And Forget It" solution
| (hence why they prefer it over filters), so they risk
| neglecting the necessary replacement interval.
| viraptor wrote:
| I found it interesting that I haven't really seen the UV
| sterilisation to be popular at healthcare points at large.
| Where I grew up, the local surgery had the UV on in the whole
| building after hours, and that was in early 90s EE. None of the
| places I've seen since then used it (as far as I'm aware),
| across many countries.
| taeric wrote:
| So from 10-13 down to 7-9? Nice.
|
| Will be neat to see if the kids were still carriers, but managed
| to keep the viral loads down such that they weren't "sick" during
| that time. I recall a study a few years back that said kids at
| that age were basically always sick, just not often symptomatic.
| funnym0nk3y wrote:
| However I think it is important for children to get sick. Humans
| need pathogens to train their immune system.
| AwaAwa wrote:
| While I personally agree with this sentiment, the last few
| years have made it amply clear that the population prefers
| padded rooms to icky playground sandlots.
| error_logic wrote:
| Nuance: They're still getting exposed and thus gaining
| immunity with the environmental filtering, just not so much
| viral load as to be out of school [as often].
|
| It's a win-win from that perspective and dismissing that
| serves no one in the end.
| Sakos wrote:
| This tiny but significant factor is also why masks, even
| surgical masks, are so helpful. They don't need to prevent
| 100% transmission, just reduce the viral load received or
| passed on.
| WithinReason wrote:
| How often and how sick? The more the better?
| appplication wrote:
| It's a good question. Obviously infinite sick is not
| desirable. If it were possible to induce antibodies via e.g.
| broad spectrum vaccinations would we see less sick kids in
| total?
|
| After all the merits are supposedly eventual conferred
| immunity, not physically being ill. No reason to think you
| need to be sick to benefit.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| The hygiene hypothesis is tenuous at best and dangerous
| (especially for immunocompromised peers!) at worst:
| https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/is-the-hygiene-hypothesis-...
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Hardly anyone even thinks about peanut allergies in a nation
| of 1.4 billion people (India) and kids don't drop dead like
| flies here.
|
| But sure, let's just call the hygiene hypothesis tenuous.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| That's not at all the same thing.
| yreg wrote:
| Peanut allergy prevalence in India seems to be 0.3%, while
| in the western countries it's 1.5-3%.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Or even seasonal allergies to like pollen too, right?
| There's just much more pressing breathing related issues to
| be concerned with (AQI etc)
| bn-l wrote:
| A: different genes, B: Different reporting standards, C:
| different access to healthcare for it to be reported
| elric wrote:
| I thought the recommendation was to introduce some peanuts
| at an early age in order to reduce the risk of getting
| peanut allergies?
| actuallyalys wrote:
| Like your article states, there's some evidence for exposure
| to _benign_ microbes reducing _allergies_ , but that is
| completely different than pathogens strengthening the immune
| system. Unfortunately some people seem to have remembered the
| hygiene hypothesis as meaning that microbes of all kinds are
| actually good.
|
| There's also a concept of immunity debt, although that's more
| of an explanation for certain diseases being especially bad
| the year following COVID restrictions than an argument for
| exposure.
| dabedee wrote:
| From the linked article:
|
| "Almost no virus is protective against allergic disease or
| other immune diseases. In fact, infections with viruses
| mostly either contribute to the development of those diseases
| or worsen them.
|
| The opposite is true of bacteria. There are good bacteria and
| there are bad bacteria. The good bacteria we call commensals.
| Our bodies actually have more bacterial cells than human
| cells. What we've learned over the years is that the
| association with family life and the environment probably has
| more to do with the microbiome. So one thing I would say is
| sanitizing every surface in your home to an extreme is
| probably not a good thing. Our research team showed in
| animals that sterile environments don't allow the immune
| system to develop at all. We don't want that."
| jph00 wrote:
| Commensal bacteria are generally not airborne, whilst
| viruses that harm the immune system often are. So surface
| hygiene can be overdone, but air hygiene is a good idea.
| Arnt wrote:
| That sounds plausible, but do you think it's better to be more
| sick than less?
|
| Or do you just think that having a few sick days per year is
| better than marching into work no matter what state you're in?
| A very different proposition.
| nradov wrote:
| I suspect it's probably better to shift the sick days earlier
| in life. We probably can't significantly reduce the total.
| There are hundreds of endemic upper respiratory viruses and
| we all eventually get infected with most of them. It's just a
| matter of time. Our immune systems generally degrade as we
| age, so over the long run it's probably better to get
| infected when we're younger so that we can build immunity
| that protects us when we're older.
| coryrc wrote:
| > We probably can't significantly reduce the total
|
| That's ridiculous. During the crisis times of covid, the
| incidences of other communicable disease dropped
| significantly. Plus, to be frank, this is just an idiotic
| suggestion with zero reasons to think there's some set
| number of days people are sick. Before having kids in
| daycare I was rarely sick. I had a child not in daycare and
| was never sick. Now we're sick all the time, which wouldn't
| happen if my wife could stay home with them or we didn't
| have kids.
| nradov wrote:
| That's ridiculous. The interventions put in place during
| the crisis times of COVID were obviously unsustainable.
| When restrictions were lifted, the incidence of all other
| types of respiratory viruses spiked up.
|
| I've had kids in daycare as well. Occasionally you get
| the sniffles. So what.
| Izkata wrote:
| "Other" meaning "flu", which only dropped because they
| stopped tracking it to give resources to SARS-CoV-2.
| There was a note on the CDC website that very few people
| actually noticed, and almost all claims of reduced
| transmission used the CDC's FluView as their evidence.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > We probably can't significantly reduce the total
|
| We can and we have. Through things such as the measles
| vaccine.
|
| People forget that child mortality used to be a thing.
| nradov wrote:
| Sure, childhood immunization is great but we're not
| discussing measles here. Measles is a single, relatively
| stable virus that's easy to vaccinate against. But
| children in daycare facilities mostly get infected with
| upper respiratory viruses. There are literally hundreds
| of such endemic viruses, especially rhinoviruses but also
| coronaviruses and others. We aren't likely to have
| effective vaccines against those any time soon. If
| children aren't exposed to them in daycare then they'll
| be exposed somewhere else. Those viruses aren't going
| away and will continue circulating through the population
| no matter what we do.
| _dain_ wrote:
| Immune system won't help against air pollution from traffic and
| factories and forest fires.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This oversimplifies the original idea behind what you're trying
| to recall. Being sick in and of itself is not the beneficial
| part, it's exposure that can be beneficial in certain cases. If
| you can get the exposure without actually falling ill it's all
| the better, it's a win-win. Note that not all exposure is good,
| for example you never want to be exposed to the bubonic plague
| if at all possible.
| duxup wrote:
| They're still getting sick.
| switch007 wrote:
| I've had COVID multiple times and each time my immune system
| takes a bigger and bigger battering, leading to many other
| issues.
|
| Are the benefits of this theory meant to start appearing any
| time soon...?
| lbrito wrote:
| Don't worry, there will still be plenty of sickness. The
| article says 1/3 reduction. If you have kids, you'll know that
| the resulting number of sick days is still huge.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Anecdotally can vouch for air purifiers. I bought an old earth
| bermed home. I suspected radon may be an issue. Purchased 2
| AirThings and they were off the government charts so to confirm
| Radon Daughters were being produced I bought more air purifiers
| and an Alpha Geiger Counter. I can hold it 2 inches from any of
| my filters and the alarm sounds. 640 CPM alpha radiation. That
| changed my project priorities. The filters only bought me some
| time as the air away from the filters is the same level of
| radiation as outdoor background noise but obviously the source is
| still emitting gas. I will probably just bulldoze this place.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Radon mitigation systems work. And they're cheap.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| You're right but it won't help in my case. I created an ad-
| hoc system that does the same thing but the source is not at
| ground level. Through some form of convection _I suspect
| around the chimney_ the gas is being pushed into the attic
| and then coming down in rooms they did not join the wall to
| the ceiling correctly. Most of the radioactive dust is being
| produced in the attic which nobody has touched for 60+ years.
| If I put the geiger counter in the attic it goes nuts. I 'm
| just going to level this place and build something correctly.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| That sounds wild. I don't know where you are but in the USA
| you could reach out to a university extension
| program/office and ask them to look into it. It's bizarre
| enough to catch their interest and come at no cost to you.
|
| Edit: it really is bizarre because Radon is primarily
| produced by reactions underground/in the earth and has a
| relatively short half life (3.5 days). I don't see how it
| could be atmospherically sourced without it being a hazard
| to the whole community, regardless of the bizarre
| convection currents that bring it into your house. It's
| unlikely to be produced in your attic.
|
| If I were you, I'd want to know more and understand how
| this is all happening lest you raze and rebuild and find
| you still have a problem.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Some forms of uranium rich slate when mixed into concrete
| can dispose radioactive gases.
| rini17 wrote:
| Radon decays into other longer lived radioactive
| elements, mostly isotopes of lead, which then condense
| down as dust and cause more problems than radon itself.
| So it might happen that these cumulate in the attic if
| circulation is just right.
| amluto wrote:
| Can you share your math? Radon does indeed have extremely
| nasty decay products, but they are very short lived
| (which is why they're so nasty). They're not accumulating
| in your attic.
|
| I would suspect fly ash as a possible source if the house
| ever had a coal-burning furnace. Or maybe someone had a
| watch-painting operation or mixed radioactive glazes or
| paints there. Someone with appropriate equipment could do
| a much better job identifying the source.
| Vecr wrote:
| Have you done the risk calculations? Are you assuming LNT?
| Really, at the construction costs now you could probably
| pay someone to do it and have that be profitable.
| pbowyer wrote:
| With the mention of "radioactive dust" are you sure it's
| radon, as that should not produce dust, and not some other
| source of radiation in the attic? Like I don't kow what, a
| lot of old gas mantle filaments.
|
| Any notion of whether it's b or g radiation you're
| detecting?
|
| Demolition is going to need careful monitoring to ensure
| you don't contaminate the entire site.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| If borne out this is pretty big. A huge amount of productivity is
| lost by parents taking care of sick kids or who get sick from
| their kids. Further it might even lessen the overall spread of
| seasonal diseases.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| If it reduces the strength of the child's immune system, this
| may rebound in horrible ways
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's no good evidence for "you need to get sick in order
| to have a healthy immune system", and it leads to dangerous
| nonsense like measles parties.
| The28thDuck wrote:
| Silly question: how does an immune system get "trained"? I
| imagine some of it is through familial transmission but
| getting sick seems to kick it into high gear.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Vaccines. Vaccines teach your immune system to fight
| specific viruses.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Ideally, their own mother's milk.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| So this is an extremely simplified answer but essentially
| some pathogen gets into the body. If they find a cell
| first, they generally get to do their job and try to kill
| the cell and replicate. But if a macrophage (a type of
| white blood cell) finds them first betfore they've
| intruded upon a cell, the macrophage eats it and
| disassembles it into little tiny pieces.
|
| The macrophage then hands over some of the important
| pieces to undifferentiated T cells. Those T cells then
| "differentiate" into one of two forms.
|
| The first are "Helper T cells" which carry the "design"
| for antibodies (immunoglobulins, i.e. proteins that bind
| to pathogens directly. These then share those antibody
| designs with B-Cells.
|
| The other type are "Killer T cells" which carry the
| "design" for T-cell-receptors that can detect "sick"
| cells for this specific pathogen or defect. They go hunt
| after the specific cell and essentially cause them to
| explode with the power of hydrogen peroxide. Then the
| macrophages eat up the dead infected cell and all the
| pathogens inside it and start the process anew.
|
| Now those B-Cells get the "design" for antibodies from
| the helper T cells and differentiate into two types.
|
| The first is essentially a factory that mass produces the
| antibodies and dumps them into the body. Those antibody
| proteins then bind to the pathogens and the macrophages
| can then directly attack the pathogens (because they have
| a bunch of big flags/alarms on them).
|
| The other type of B-Cell that they can differentiate into
| are memory B-cells. These keep the designs stored inside
| them and keep detectors for the pathogen on their cell
| membrane. Then they "go to sleep" until their detectors
| are activated by the pathogen. They live out their lives
| and replicate as needed to continue their lineage. When a
| pathogen shows up, they bind to either the pathogen
| directly or to some of the proteins it produces and they
| turn their factories on at full speed and start mass
| producing antibodies to start the immune response as fast
| as possible locally before the pathogen can do damage.
| They get depleted in this effort of course but if things
| go okay, the following immune response should trigger the
| creation of more memory B cells. (and when they don't you
| get stuff like immune amnesia).
|
| There are also "memory T-cells" but how they come about
| and how exactly they work is fuzzy and not super well
| understood. It's similar to memory B-cells but it's way
| more complicated and a bit "magic".
|
| But yeah eventually then your body beats the infection
| and things go back to normal with the memory cells
| hanging out in the body.
|
| Now the important thing with intensity of infection is
| that a mild infection will generally guarantee your body
| learns a sane, moderate response but a major infection
| can send your body into a panic and put the immune system
| into overdrive. That can train a response that attacks
| the pathogen but also attacks a lot of other stuff in the
| process (auto-immune response).
|
| You can think of this kind of like an analog version of
| machine learning on proteins (the training input). A bad
| fit can end up mischaracterizing healthy cells and bodily
| structures as "pathogens" and cause long term issues or
| even just severe reactions when you get a reinfection.
|
| Now for getting "trained" from the parent, this happens
| during pregnancy by diffusion of a subset of the
| antibodies from the mother to the fetus (not all types
| can but many do). Those stick around for a good while and
| eventually the child gets minor exposure to various
| pathogens and those shared antibodies kickstart the
| child's immune response enough to build up its own
| memory.
|
| Hope this helps.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Prima
| ry_...
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| There's a lot of evidence that exposure is required for
| immunity. That's how immunity works, no?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Maybe there is still exposure, but at a lower viral load?
| api wrote:
| In the extreme there is evidence that _no exposure_ to
| pathogens might weaken immunity, but that is not going to
| be a problem unless someone is living in a bubble or on a
| space station.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The other poster made a statement about the strength of
| the immune system. I don't think there's much evidence
| that exposure to virus A ends up contributing to a robust
| response to virus Z. There's some benefit if the
| infections are somewhat related, but not if they are
| dissimilar. So sure, exposure to a particular infection
| is likely to make your immune system more responsive to
| that infection, but it's probably not reasonable to say
| that it has gotten stronger.
|
| And then, measles in particular can actually damage
| existing immunity to other infections, making exposure to
| it quite a lot more dangerous than just the immediate
| infection. https://asm.org/articles/2019/may/measles-and-
| immune-amnesia
| DistractionRect wrote:
| This is what they were talking about, exposure __does not
| require__ you get sick. You can still be exposed, but you
| don't need to let the concentrations of pathogens to
| build up in stale air over the course of a school day.
|
| The results aren't in yet, and of course will be subject
| to reproduction/duplicatation, but I suspect that's what
| we're seeing here. People (children) are still getting
| sick, just less so, presumably because they're getting
| exposed to lower concentrations of pathogens. The article
| doesn't make it clear (or I missed it) if the reduction
| is in severity (time spent recovering from being sick),
| frequency (number of times one gets sick), or a
| combination thereof. If I'm right, I'd expect it to be a
| reduction stemming from both reduced frequency/severity.
| dv_dt wrote:
| There is a lot of evidence that exposure to Covid induces
| long term permanent damage to tissue and the ability of
| the immune system to fight off other infections.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > There's a lot of evidence that exposure is required for
| immunity
|
| Think about - immune system evolved over millions of
| years, is it plausible that it needed wild tribes of
| hunter gatherers to huddle in a nearly airtight box for 8
| hours and infect each other to work
| sitkack wrote:
| I think measles parties are hold over from before the
| advent of the measles vaccine (early 1970s). Now that we
| have a vaccine for it, the vaccine is vastly superior for
| many reasons.
|
| https://www.phind.com/search?cache=va2btahy5d5gjx0ejd888ue5
|
| https://historyofvaccines.org/history/measles/timeline
| pjc50 wrote:
| Still a problem: https://inews.co.uk/news/measles-
| parties-risk-children-life-...
|
| Vaccine misinformation has been a disaster.
| bluGill wrote:
| The immune system isn't a muscle.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Memory B and T cells would disagree with you. This is the
| basic knowledge for how vaccines work.
| jph00 wrote:
| They would not disagree with you after, say, a measles
| infections, which thoroughly destroys the immune system
| at many levels.
|
| It's not a good idea to confuse the impacts of vaccines
| and infections. Vaccines are carefully developed
| specifically to help the immune system. Viruses evolve to
| hurt it.
| nemonemo wrote:
| "sick days reduced by a third" does not seem to be a level of
| reduction that could induce a problematic rebound.
| Terr_ wrote:
| What you've written is unproven, and I see two facets of
| confusion:
|
| First, there's a huge difference between "strong" immune
| responses and "good" immune responses.
|
| Triggering the adaptive immune system is dangerous, like
| unleashing Skynet robots against a zombie apocalypse. You
| don't nuke a city at the first police report of one person
| biting another. Your body has a ton of cascading safety
| interlocks to try to avoid triggering more than is absolutely
| necessary.
|
| Second, there's a difference between "we need dangerous
| exposure to actual pathogens" versus "we need calibration
| against a mileu of benign species we co-evolved with."
|
| There's no evidence our immune systems are somehow "weaker"
| than our ancestors', but they do seem to be miscalibrated and
| trigger-happy.
| sitkack wrote:
| There _are_ immune system benefits to vaginal delivery
| which is primarily about the the transfer microbiota from
| the mother to the child.
|
| I am not disagreeing with anything you are saying, but
| often these are often conflated.
|
| https://www.phind.com/search?cache=f5pj4u7f9v0y8ri853qmaxg1
| thelastparadise wrote:
| What is the primary source of the bacteria? Is it somehow
| the vagina/labia itself?
|
| It seems C-section would have about as much overall fluid
| exchange, if not more.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I believe some of it is from the rectum, which you
| wouldn't get from a c-section.
| chongli wrote:
| No, it's the vagina itself which is heavily colonized
| with bacteria (lactofermenting bacteria and friends).
| With a C-section you're removing the baby directly from
| the amniotic sac into the world.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Practically 100% of children will have "dangerous exposure
| to actual pathogens" multiple times before they turn 20.
|
| If parents only get a choice as to when, I think nearly all
| would choose for them to be exposed younger and before the
| critical high school/college years, when the stakes are
| much higher.
| cogman10 wrote:
| When a disease is dangerous depends a lot on the specific
| disease. Measles for an adult is mostly a non-issue.
| Measles for a child carries a high risk of deafness and
| blindness. Chickenpox for an infant can be deadly, for a
| child is normal, and for an adult man can cause
| sterility.
|
| There's no blanket "best time" to get sick with an
| infectious disease. And some diseases, like chickenpox,
| later surface as painful shingles (which in the worst
| case can result in permanent nerve damage).
|
| The best thing to do is vaccination. It's safe for the
| vast majority of the population and sidesteps
| complications completely. Get your flu shot.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| It's funny on how we can be on a site where people spend
| all day working on how to account for things like dynamic
| conditionals, but immediately become absurdly reductive
| and incapable of applying the same logic to anything
| outside software. Real life also has a lot of if
| statements!
| cogman10 wrote:
| Life is a bunch of statistics and probabilities and we
| humans have a strong tendency to want to simplify those
| away. We are further very naturally bad at stats
| (probably due to our amazing pattern finding abilities).
|
| Heck, I think what makes a programmer good is something
| that can easily get in the way of fields like medicine.
| Good programmers like to create abstractions to put
| things into neat boxes. Programming is an exercise in
| generalization and specialization and, unfortunately,
| that can drive people to thinking "Oh, these diseases are
| alike so lets put them in the same box". That
| particularly gets in the way because MOST people won't
| experience complications from illness. Consider measles
| blindness, 30 million people get measles a year, 60,000
| will get blindness. That's a 0.2% chance of developing
| blindness as a result of measles (1 in 500). That can
| lead to unfounded skepticism because your observed
| reality "I don't know anyone that's been blinded by
| measles!" might make you think that the risks are lower
| than they are.
|
| And, heck, as a programmer if you have a method that
| fails at 1 in 500 cases you might even be justified in
| punting fixing that thing.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| > And, heck, as a programmer if you have a method that
| fails at 1 in 500 cases you might even be justified in
| punting fixing that thing.
|
| I don't necessarily disagree, but if I intentionally
| ignored a fix to a method that resulted in a service-
| level equivalent to a user going blind every 1 in 500
| times it ran, I'd get fired pretty quickly. But then
| again, I have also met many programmers who, when
| presented with such cases, pretend they do not exist.
| jph00 wrote:
| This is a common misunderstanding of the poorly-named
| "hygiene hypothesis". For a fuller explanation of how
| immunologists think about this today, see this article:
| https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/
|
| In short - viruses can actually harm your immune system and
| lead to long term problems. OTOH, we co-evolved with certain
| parasites that can help us.
|
| Airborne pathogens are not likely to be the helpful type
| we've co-evolved with -- they're much more likely to be the
| type we've only had to deal with since the creation of higher
| density living and rapid long distance travel. Therefore air
| filters are likely to help children's health both short and
| long term.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| To sort of complement what you are saying, the 'hygiene
| hypothesis' also ends up being a an excuse for not looking
| at other factors. (very similar to blaming genes alone for
| health issues)
| thrance wrote:
| I'd like to see the study first, how can we know that this year's
| flu variant wasn't just less infectious ? What was the sample
| size ? What's the p-value ?
| Retric wrote:
| I get your concern, but large effect sizes make up for a
| multitude of sins.
| vhcr wrote:
| Flu variants infectionness variability is just a so well known
| variable that the researchers would have to be really mediocre
| to not take that into account, the official press release
| mentions they're performing the studies on four kindergartens,
| so they're most probably comparing against each other.
|
| https://www.pandemicresponse.fi/post/can-the-spread-of-flu-b...
| lurking_swe wrote:
| have we learned nothing from the covid pandemic?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Evidently not. There was lots of early good results on air
| purification and UV, but there was absolutely no action or even
| official advocacy as a result.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Probably a matter of cost. E.g. in some territories
| plexiglass screens were put everywhere between clerks and
| customers - as a measure that was considered more easily
| mandated and done (basically, simply cheaper) than modifying
| air treatment infrastructure.
| elric wrote:
| What do you mean?
| _dain_ wrote:
| This is one of the three educational interventions with solid
| evidence of it working. The other two are air conditioning and
| free school lunches. People don't get excited over them though,
| because they have nothing to do with teachers or curriculum or
| educational theory.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| There's also the accidental study of air filters where the
| outside air quality was not that bad. study
| https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188 background
| https://wfis.org/installing-air-filters-in-classrooms-has-su...
| amluto wrote:
| Wow. That paper made no effort to even contemplate whether
| the improvement was related to reduced particulate matter or
| to reduced organic gasses. The filters were installed in
| response to a _gas_ leak -- one would imagine they were
| carbon filters.
|
| Sadly, the literature on the effect of gas concentrations on
| human intellectual function is incredibly muddy.
| mmcloughlin wrote:
| Perhaps there is some evidence that people do get excited about
| free school lunches: Governor Tim Walz's lunch policy in
| Minnesota has been a part of the buzz surrounding his recent
| Vice Presidential nomination.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/19/universal-free-school-lunche...
| olalonde wrote:
| > free school lunches
|
| What are you referring to?
| pjc50 wrote:
| They're referring to free school lunches. That is, a lunch,
| at school, which is free. In the sense that it does not have
| to be paid for on the spot or by the child or family on
| account. i.e. part of the educational provision itself.
|
| (carefully phrased to avoid "no free lunch" nonsense)
| olalonde wrote:
| I understand, I meant what solid evidence that it is
| working?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I wouldn't call this a statistically significant result, and the
| fact that the buildings in question had good mechanical air
| ventilation could very well explain the results:
|
| > "Utilizing the model, we used portable air cleaners in two day
| care units (A and B, number of children participating in the
| study n = 43) and compared infection incidents between the two
| intervention units to the rest of the units in city of Helsinki
| (n = 607). The intervention buildings had mechanical supply and
| exhaust air ventilation."
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S295036202...
|
| You also have to consider external air quality, as ventilating a
| building with polluted air would have negative effects like
| increased asthma. In that case perhaps a sealed building with air
| purifiers is a better option, but then CO2 buildup is a concern,
| so you'd need CO2 scrubbers, which are expensive.
|
| That's why clean air regulations matter, and getting off fossil
| fuel combustion as an energy source (and limiting
| pesticide/herbicide use in agricultural zones) is the easiest
| route forward.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Could this be combined with masks for greater efficacy?
| bluGill wrote:
| Most likely but nobody will allow you to suggest that.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Kids of daycare age probably can't wear masks effectively
| enough to make a difference, and if they can, it's not
| obvious that it's worth the effort.
|
| _Adults_ could probably reduce how many colds they get by
| wearing masks everywhere, but most people don 't think it's
| worth the effort.
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| Masks have directly contributed to a speech development
| epidemic amongst youth who were deprived of their ability to
| see and mimic mouth movements during their prime developmental
| stages. This has hit underprivileged kids who do not have
| english spoken at home especially hard. Masks aren't free.
| maeil wrote:
| Is there research that shows this? Should be incredibly easy
| to prove given a large percentage of the world consistently
| masked and another large percentage of the world consistently
| did not mask.
|
| For reference, I live in a country that had one of the
| highest masking rates in the world (probably top 10), and
| this does not seem to be an issue here whatsoever. Not a
| single time I've heard it mentioned, and given just how huge
| the focus on child development is here, there's no way it
| wouldn't be a massive topic.
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| I've spoken at length with individuals directly responsible
| for rehabilitation of such children. But of course if the
| facts go against the government narrative, the "studies"
| will not report them. Talk to people, not studies.
|
| Do you have many cases of children being in homes where
| they have limited access to people speaking the national
| language? Do you talk to individuals who are directly
| responsible for teaching those folks the language?
| maeil wrote:
| I think it was clear from my comment that I haven't heard
| a single person (not just study) here talk about it.
|
| While it's reasonable such an adverse effect would be
| stronger in cases where at home a different language is
| spoken than the national language, it's very unlikely
| that it would _only_ have a noticeable effect for exactly
| those families, with zero noticeable effect otherwise.
| And here, where masking rates were extremely high and
| amount of attention put on /money spent on child
| development is higher than almost anywhere else in the
| world, no one has ever brought it up.
|
| This doesn't even touch upon the fact that unprivileged
| families are much harder hit by epidemics (let alone
| Covid) in general, due to a host of other factors.
|
| > But of course if the facts go against the government
| narrative, the "studies" will not report them.
|
| The studies showing that masks were incredibly effective
| at preventing disease spread went against the US
| "government narrative" at the time, since I imagine
| you're talking about the US.
| NorthTheRock wrote:
| > Talk to people, not studies.
|
| So literally calling for anecdotes over data?
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| Anecdotes are data.
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| "Data" is anecdotes obfuscated and p-hacked to fit the
| narrative the reviewers mandate. Anyone who has published
| in journals knows this.
| terminatornet wrote:
| not true
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9637007/
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| I've talked to the boots on the ground. Government
| scientists publishing the official narrative are useless.
| immibis wrote:
| Why can't you provide any information, then?
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| I just did. The specifics are of course confidential
| personal information from minors, you want me to publish
| them here?
| terminatornet wrote:
| source: trust me
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| Even if you do elect to trust the government mandated
| studies more than the special education teachers directly
| involved in the situation, the very study the parent
| cited attempting to discredit me also reaches the same
| conclusion as me: masks cause developmental damage and
| their use must be carefully considered, especially as it
| pertains to forcing young children who can't say "no" to
| comply.
| jbm wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to your views about government policies
| manipulating which items get studied (see: previous
| conservative Canadian government muzzling scientists who
| made comments about oil)
|
| I also agree that personal anecdotes from trusted parties
| are more valuable to my decision making than "data" --
| but those are personal anecdotes, not anecdotes from
| anonymous Internet personas.
|
| We aren't your friends and we don't know you. Why should
| we trust you if you are vaguebooking about something that
| is a common conspiracy trope?
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| N95/FFP2 Masks are even higher effectiveness. Even just one
| wearer can often avoid infections for years if the mask is used
| and fitted well. If most people are wearing them we would wipe
| out most respiratory disease spread. They are ridiculously
| effective and it's why they have been used in hospitals for
| decades when dealing high contagious conditions.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Certainly, but the cost (in this case probably even the
| _actual_ cost, but mostly in terms of impact on everyday life)
| is vastly higher with masks - they 're inconvenient and
| annoying, and make social interaction harder.
|
| Meanwhile, air purifiers use a bit of power (probably less of
| an environmental impact than the inevitable littering of masks
| which are basically all microplastic while looking like
| harmless paper), probably cost less per filter change than a
| week's supply of mask, and have a relatively negligible comfort
| impact.
| encoderer wrote:
| Even better (where weather allows) is fully outdoor daycare. We
| were fortunate to have only the briefest of shut downs during
| COVID.
|
| Obviously impractical in many areas but it's part of the
| California dividend
| Rendello wrote:
| It was a big thing in the early 1900s too:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_air_school
| esafak wrote:
| And it's good for your eyesight.
| euroderf wrote:
| Yes. Lots of new results in this topic. Get outside and
| exercise those eyes.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| So long as you are far enough from a major freeway, major road,
| major airport, or major port. With those requirements the
| number of californian daycares or schools that meet that
| criteria shortens significantly.
| modeless wrote:
| Near UV seems really promising for preventing indoor disease
| transmission as well. Has there been any more research on it
| lately?
| amluto wrote:
| Do you mean far-UVC, around 222nm? It seemed like the major
| issues were the sources being expensive, the sources being from
| dubious vendors with no standard certification (I would be
| concerned that my "222nm" source might have a lot of
| inadvertent emission at other wavelengths), and possible damage
| over time to whatever you aim it at.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| The bulbs only last maybe 1000 hours as well which combined
| with their price narrows their usage.
| modeless wrote:
| Yes. Those problems seem relatively easy to fix compared to
| the immense benefit of a significant reduction in disease
| transmission across the board.
| emeril wrote:
| isn't UV light dangerous for people?
|
| perhaps there's certain wavelengths that kill viruses/bacteria
| but don't increase cancer risk?
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| 254nm is used as part of GUV and it's not good for people and
| black out blinds are used in hospitals where they are
| installed when sanitising. Far UV 222nm is not damaging to
| humans that we know of but it's a peak of destruction for
| viruses, bacteria and fungus.
| duxup wrote:
| Is there any information on the type / price of these air
| purifiers?
|
| There's a lot of "air purifiers" out there on the market.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| In a lot of tests Corsi Rosenthal boxes tend to outperform most
| commercial offerings and they are very cheap as they are a box
| fan duct taped to some MERV13 filters. Effectiveness is a lot
| about air exchanges an hour.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I have one of these set up on each floor of my two story
| house to cut down on particulates from dust, pets, and
| cooking. If they also help protect from disease that's just
| icing in the cake.
| djmips wrote:
| Box fans are noisy and in my experience fail early when
| running constantly. When their bearings fail they can atomize
| the grease.
| amluto wrote:
| It would be awesome if they were IKEA purifiers. Cheap media
| and excellent CADR/W.
| plasticchris wrote:
| With my experience around poorer schools in the USA I would worry
| that the filter wouldn't get replaced for decades and itself
| become a breeding ground for molds.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| There has been a number of these studies in schools and hospitals
| showing HEPA filters reduce up to about 2/3rd of infections. We
| now know many viruses are airborne including Covid and Al
| Hubbard's studies on how long virus is viable has shown it can be
| hours and it's helped by high CO2. Air circulation and reducing
| CO2 makes a big difference as well.
| lolinder wrote:
| Do we have evidence that CO2 is causal or is it still just a
| correlation? In general, poor ventilation + humans = high CO2,
| so unless there was a controlled experiment done that's a
| pretty strong confounding factor.
| icelancer wrote:
| CO2 in terms of illness is merely a proxy for good air
| movement and exposure to the outside environment. It has its
| own impact on mental capacities of course.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| > Results showed increasing the CO2 concentration to just 800
| ppm, a level identified as well ventilated, resulted in an
| increase in viral aerostability. After 40 minutes, when
| compared to clean air, around 10 times as much virus remained
| infectious when the air has a CO2 concentration similar to
| that of a crowded room (3,000 ppm).
|
| > Dr Haddrell said: "This relationship sheds important light
| on why super spreader events may occur under certain
| conditions. The high pH of exhaled droplets containing the
| SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely a major driver of the loss of
| infectiousness. CO2 behaves as an acid when it interacts with
| droplets. This causes the pH of the droplets to become less
| alkaline, resulting in the virus within them being
| inactivated at a slower rate.
|
| https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/2024/virus.html
|
| Ambient carbon dioxide concentration correlates with SARS-
| CoV-2 aerostability and infection risk
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47777-5
| lolinder wrote:
| Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for.
| LordKeren wrote:
| I have never seen a evidence that CO2 is a casual agent of
| disease (extremely obvious exceptions excluded)
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Do you still need HEPA/air purifier if you have decent ERV/HRV?
| xyst wrote:
| Any HVAC professionals or plumbers know if a mini-split A/C
| system can be outfitted with UV bulbs?
|
| Have a few Levoit air purifiers that sit flush against the wall.
| But would be nice to have an extra layer at the source.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| This would he huge. Aside from the huge benefit, it would be
| great not having runny nose or cough 6 months of the year.
| elric wrote:
| I installed a Zehnder ComfoAir Q ventilation system in my home.
| It has heat and moisture recuperation capabilities. It's
| currently refreshing the air at around 100m3/hour. It has an F7
| (aka "ISO Fine" or "MERV 13") filter. Since installing it, my
| asthma has improved a fair bit, and I'm sneezing a lot less.
| Added benefit, virtually no mosquitoes have been able to enter my
| home. I'm still considering getting an extra filter addon to
| filter out more fine soot from car exhaust etc, but even without
| that option I've been very happy with the results.
|
| Edit: hit reply too soon. Wanted to add: are air purifiers as
| effective as increased ventilation? Should we combine the two?
| turtlebits wrote:
| Get an AQ monitor and a standalone filter, it will be able to
| constantly filter air vs the once during fresh air intake.
|
| Also my ERV only runs on demand (~1/3 of the time, which is not
| enough filtration)
| elric wrote:
| Why does it run on demand? Mine runs 24/7, though it ramps
| down to lower speeds at night or when I'm away.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I've installed HRV myself too. I have a reasonably easy to
| access roof space, but for a large guy still took over half a
| day. Cost 1.5k NZD, but not mosquito free, it's warmer indoors
| plus when neighbours fire up their fireplaces I only get an
| occasional little whiff of it.
|
| Best thing I did for my house so far!
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| It's amazing that this seems surprising to people after COVID.
|
| Next up:
|
| * Air purifiers in schools cut parent's sick days too (not just
| "I need to care for my kid" days - "parent is sick" and
| "childless coworker of parent is sick" sick days)
|
| * Air purifiers in strategic locations (high density offices,
| public transit, schools, ...) cut sick days across the
| population.
|
| I think this will be our generations "realizing that washing your
| hands before surgery makes patients die less", and it's quite
| embarrassing that with all the knowledge about viral transmission
| we couldn't figure this out _before_ the pandemic, and even more
| embarrassing that we couldn 't figure it out immediately after we
| tested many of these things at a large scale.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _I think this will be our generations "realizing that washing
| your hands before surgery makes patients die less"_
|
| Surely not the same thing as Semmelweis. We want to destroy
| microbes (and viruses) in specific contexts, not
| indiscriminately.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > We want to destroy microbes (and viruses) in specific
| contexts, not indiscriminately.
|
| Apart from the known useful ones, like gut flora: no, we
| really do want to destroy them indiscriminantly. We bleach
| surfaces to do this, we can bleach air too.
| jMyles wrote:
| Let's be a little more cautious and observant in our
| approach to antimicrobial stewardship.
|
| Yes, we can bleach surfaces, but pathogens (in relatively
| rapid terms) develop resistance [0].
|
| Yes, we can reduce bacteria at factory farms to small
| numbers with the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in
| animal feed, but it's easy to observe that this trains
| pathogens to avoid our most powerful chemical antibiotics.
|
| And so it is with fomites, respiratory pathogens, STDs, and
| probably even with measures to control arboviruses.
|
| We live in an ecological balance, and discretion is the
| better part of valor with regard to ensuring that this
| ecology becomes more likely to nurture increasingly better
| health outcomes.
|
| 0: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7464077/
| immibis wrote:
| Humans actually live way outside of the ecological
| balance point. We can move the balance point, or the
| ecology will return us to that balance point.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| The challenge isn't just "figuring it out"; the challenge is
| also _actually putting it in place_ even knowing that. Because,
| astonishingly, there seem to be _actual people against the
| concept of air purification_. (Just read through this comments
| section.)
|
| There were doctors and surgeons against the concept of
| handwashing, too, but fortunately they lost. Unfortunately, it
| took a long time for them to lose, and a lot of people died as
| a result. How do we skip that part?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _air purification_
|
| <<Air purification>> interpreted as "destroying all life in
| the air you breathe"? That would be an extraordinary claim
| and you would have to prove that it is a good idea.
|
| ("Air purification" can be interpreted to be about chemical
| and mechanical qualities, before the consideration of the
| living entities in the air.)
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Let's go with "air purification" as in "what air purifiers
| are supposed to effect, as observed in the study being
| discussed in this thread"
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _what air purifiers are supposed to effect, as observed
| in the study_
|
| Which would be? Have you seen details in the submitted
| article? I suppose this is the study (but the page is
| bouncing me): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic
| le/pii/S240584402...
|
| I have an air purifier working not two meters from me -
| and it is an HEPA filter with forced ventilation. Not an
| "air disinfectant".
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Per this study, the number of sick days.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Lots of places are going to do the regulatory minimum for
| ventilation, and I sure haven't seen any much change to
| regulations.
| schiffern wrote:
| >fortunately they lost
|
| ...only after they caused a delay of 2-3 decades, directly
| leading to thousands of unnecessary patient deaths.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18788.
| ..
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
| shots/2015/01/12/3756639...
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Yeah and we're also going to end up with decades worth of
| dead and disabled people to end this willful
| ignorance/malicious stupidity. The "COVID is over" crowd
| already demonstrated this. Bad ideas rarely die until all
| or most of the people who have them do. And even then, only
| sometimes!
| immibis wrote:
| This is downvoted because it is true but inconvenient.
| Humans tend to prioritize feelings over facts - just like
| with handwashing, "if this were true, I'd have killed
| people, therefore it is not true."
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Yeah, I'm very aware. I'd love to know what it'd take to
| skip over that part.
| euroderf wrote:
| > There were doctors and surgeons against the concept of
| handwashing, too, but fortunately they lost.
|
| Did the thinking go something like "Every pathogen that does
| not kill our patients only makes them stronger"?
| schiffern wrote:
| The controversy predates the germ theory of disease and the
| concept of "pathogens."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
| immibis wrote:
| The thinking went something like "If this were true, I'd be
| wrong, therefore it is not true."
|
| and possibly "If this were true, I'd be responsible for
| killing a hundred people, therefore it is not true."
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Those are definitely dangerous patterns. Another
| dangerous one doesn't even perfunctorily start with "if
| this were true", but instead starts with dismissal as a
| perceived status-challenge ("Bah, why would we do a low-
| status thing?")
|
| > some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they
| should wash their hands and mocked him for it
|
| The common thread in _all_ of these, though, is not
| embracing a fundamental mindset of "If I'm wrong I want
| to know that and change and improve".
| mminer237 wrote:
| It was more thinking that made no logical sense and was a
| bit of personal insult. Remember, the leading scientific
| theory at the time was that illness was caused by bad air.
| It would be the same as you suggesting to your doctor today
| that he wouldn't have killed his patient if he was wearing
| more deodorant. He would both think you are completely
| crazy and insulting.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| If you had evidence showing that it seems to _work_ ,
| then whether the mechanism of action was understood yet
| or not, they _shouldn 't_ be perceiving it as crazy or
| insulting; they should be _doing_ it, and in parallel
| seeking to _understand_ it.
|
| (It's also possible for a study to be flawed, but even
| then, the reaction should be to do better, not to react
| with "crazy and insulting".)
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The medical establishment for years told everyone that viruses
| were spread by contact and not by air.
| throw7 wrote:
| Indoor air environments are usually poor. Just having outside air
| from open windows would be an improvement.
| coding123 wrote:
| I actually hope building codes eventually include some kind of
| positive pressure system in the future where incoming air is
| hepa'd. PPSystems tend to clean the air the most.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| Can anyone provide or link to some solid guidelines on what
| kind/brand of air purifiers actually do real effective filtration
| vs. garbage products? I have found that a great many of these
| "air purifiers" have great marketing and make amazing claims.
| sbochins wrote:
| I've been happy with Austin Air purifiers. Most of the other
| brands help, but don't handle most VOCs. If you have allergies
| or other issues, it's better to stick with top quality brands.
| https://housefresh.com/austin-air-healthmate/
| tiahura wrote:
| A 20" box fan and 4 20" furnace filters
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Unless you live in a place with very cheap electricity,
| you'll save money in the long run by getting a purpose built
| air purifier
| tedunangst wrote:
| How much money over how much time?
| alliao wrote:
| nothing comes close to crbox in terms of performance... the
| gold standard IQAir do give you close to perfect single
| pass filtration but the cfm is so low and noise much
| higher...
| bjoli wrote:
| 4x merv 13 filters.
|
| A fan.
|
| Now you have yourself a high performing air purifier.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yup. We have several of these running. Helps with allergies
| and when one of us got COVID the rest did not.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi%E2%80%93Rosenthal_Box
| alliao wrote:
| cr box basically owns everything else go build a couple
| yourself, it's great, if you live in the US you can order kits
| too
| retrochameleon wrote:
| https://youtu.be/gaQTYrisieA
|
| This is an extremely well researched and presented video that
| exposes the fact that HEPA purifier marketing is a bit of a scam.
| The most important factor in air purifiers is not the filter but
| Clean Air Delivery Rate. You can only make a difference if you
| are moving air through the filters faster than particulate is
| introduced into the air.
|
| I just returned a Medify filter because their advertised square
| footage is way higher than what the purifier should support based
| on the info in the video; it is inadequate. No idea how they are
| calculating their numbers - not to mention it's probably at the
| max speed setting - but it doesn't align with the sources from
| the video.
|
| On top of that, smaller air purifiers must move air faster, be
| noisier, and the smallest sizes of particulate are captured most
| effectively at low velocities.
|
| Use something like this to make a nicer version of a CR box:
| https://acinfinity.com/component-cooling/cabinet-fan-systems...
|
| Or buy one of these: https://www.cleanairkits.com/
|
| Those seem to be the best options that ACTUALLY work.
| schiffern wrote:
| Yes, almost all websites give the filter "square footage" at a
| measly 1 air change per hour. So essentially they take the
| CADR, divide it by the (assumed) height of the room, and that's
| the square footage or square meters. Very flawed methodology!
|
| Typically for respiratory pathogens you want to shoot for 6+
| ACH, so as a very rough initial guess I often simply divide the
| rated area by 10.
|
| And yes, every manufacturer only gives specs for the highest
| fan setting. This is misleading because typically this fan
| setting is very loud, so few people actually run it 24/7 (and
| those who do will probably suffer hearing loss).
| jimberlage wrote:
| As much as I hate the amount of illnesses my kids get from
| daycare - maybe this shouldn't be a goal? In workplaces,
| hospitals, etc. we definitely want to reduce illness. In
| daycares, the kids are all building their immune systems and the
| contact with germs is a vital part of that.
|
| I definitely understand the teachers don't want to be sick, and
| it's a hardship on parents to keep kids home, so it's not all
| about the kids' health. But the kids' health might be better
| served by letting them get more minor illnesses, not less.
| analog31 wrote:
| Even a third less is probably still plenty. And the putative
| immune system benefit strikes me as hypothetical unless the
| exposure and effect are quantified.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| What do you think about vaccines?
| analog31 wrote:
| Well, I've got all mine, unless another booster is
| available that I don't know about. One thing about vaccines
| is that you know exactly who got them, and who didn't. This
| probably makes it a lot easier to study.
|
| And I'm willing to believe that some childhood exposure to
| pathogens is beneficial, but I don't think we know how much
| of a good thing is enough, or too much.
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| There is zero proof that this is the case.
| alliao wrote:
| I'd agree based on my own bias which appeals to nature, and
| thus can only agree if the environment's somewhat untouched.
| but we've introduced so much into our environment, from
| tyre/brake dust to micro plastic to covid, I'd really much
| rather we just clean the air. we are not anime protagonist that
| evolve in real time, evolution in the real world consists of
| the unfit dying, and the ones that lives reproduce etc
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