An Easy Way to Fight Covid-19
The most diabolical property of Covid-19 is pre-symptomatic spreading. Some infected people without any symptoms yet, not even a fever, still testing negative, can shed virus with every breath they exhale and every word they speak (or shout or sing). Furthermore, scientists now know that the virus is carried in an aerosol, staying airborne perhaps for hours.
Don't you wish we could actually see the airborne virus, or perhaps smell it? Well, we don’t have to wish, but we do have to use a little imagination. Just do a simple thought experiment based upon tobacco smoke, which also is an aerosol:
1. While thinking about another person nearby, imagine if they were smoking. Would you strongly smell their smoke?
2. If the answer is yes, then if instead they were shedding virus, then you’d be inhaling it.
That’s it. This is an easy yet powerful way to evaluate potential Covid-19 exposure. Yes, wear a mask. Yes, stay six feet apart. But the virus doesn’t magically self-destruct once it has traveled seven feet. The risk tapers off gradually, just as the smell of tobacco smoke tapers off with distance, while being stronger downwind than upwind.
Here’s a concrete example for those of us working in a chemical plant or oil refinery. If you need to use a portable toilet, and the person who last used it before you had been smoking inside, would you be able to smell their lingering tobacco smoke the moment you entered? Of course, the answer is yes. So instead of having smoked, if they were pre-symptomatically shedding virus, then you’d be inhaling that virus. That’s why in my personal opinion, portable toilets aren't safe unless they have motorized ventilation or unless the door is propped open between uses.
This same thought experiment can be applied to every environment, at work inside an office building, outside on the sidewalk, grocery shopping (which I haven't done since early March), dining at a restaurant (which I only do outdoors), attending church (which I now do only virtually). Anywhere. For me, the epiphany was a few weeks ago while walking before dawn, I caught a whiff of tobacco smoke from someone upwind 50 yards away. That's 25 times the recommended six foot guideline, but I smelled it because he was upwind during a gentle (laminar flow) breeze. If he had been shedding virus as well as smoke, then I would have inhaled Covid-19. I immediately altered my walking path that morning, and ever since, I've been thoughtfully applying this imagined tobacco smoke analogy wherever I go.
Admittedly, this thought experiment might be overly conservative. If you could barely smell tobacco smoke, then you wouldn’t be much at risk of cancer from secondhand smoke. Likewise, just barely inhaling a little virus probably doesn’t cause infection, or by now we’d all be infected. So with the above thought experiment, the key question is this: Would the imagined secondhand tobacco smoke be strong enough to be offensive to you? If yes, then if instead it were virus, then you’d potentially be inhaling a risky amount.
Here's a challenge to the struggling airline industry, which claims that today's planes with downward air flow, HEPA filters and 3-minute residence time of cabin air, all make traveling safe. Okay, prove it by allowing airline passengers to smoke, or at least use that as a litmus test to demonstrate the technology. Use secondhand smoke to prove that we can fly without fear of secondhand virus. Not smelling is believing.
Who could have imagined that imagining secondhand smoke might just save one's life? Now put that thought in your pipe and smoke it.