Social Distancing Indoors May Provide 'A False Sense of Security,' MIT Covid Study Finds

[appalachiablue]

Washington Post, April 27, 2021. - Excerpts, Ed.

The common 6 -foot social distancing guidance on its own may not be enough to protect people from contracting the coronavirus while spending time indoors, according to a report that examined the virus’s airborne transmission risk. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that not all indoor settings are the same, varying by size, ventilation, air filtration, occupancy and the nature of the activity. While the core premise of the study isn’t new, the research offers more details (and a handy online risk-assessment calculator) to help people better understand what factors in a given indoor setting may increase their risk for catching the coronavirus.

“For airborne transmission, social distancing in indoor spaces is not enough, and may provide a false sense of security,” Martin Z. Bazant, an MIT chemical engineering professor and the paper’s lead author, told The Washington Post in an email. The research, published in the Tuesday issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, offers guidelines based on mathematical models and environmental assumptions drawn from documented superspreading events. Even without precise calculations of air circulation, filtration quality and crowd control, there are still basic mitigation measures to understand, said John W.M. Bush, an applied mathematics professor at MIT who co-wrote the report.

- CDC says fully vaccinated Americans can go without masks outdoors, except in crowded settings. “Efficient mask use is the most effective safety measure, followed by room ventilation, then filtration,” Bush told The Post in an email. “And risk increases with the number of occupants and the exposure time, so one should try to spend as little time as possible in crowded indoor spaces.” The researchers stressed their findings do not suggest that social distancing is ineffective — only that it does not provide sufficient protection in the particular indoor circumstances calculated in their models. “A common misinterpretation of our study is that it ‘finds’ no effect of social distancing, when in fact, our safety guideline for airborne transmission is derived from the standard assumption of well-mixed indoor air, where distance plays no role,” Bush said.

Throughout the pandemic, most superspreading events have been associated with airborne transmission.. Bazant said cigarette smoke offers a useful analogy for the different types of respiratory disease transmission. “Turbulent puffs of exhaled smoke help us visualize respiratory jets from coughing, speaking or breathing through the mouth or nose, whose concentration decays quickly with distance,” Bazant said. “While secondhand smoke in a well-mixed ‘smoke-filled room’ is analogous to long-range airborne transmission, which depends more on time and occupancy than on physical distance.”.. There’s a big disconnect; the WHO is still saying ‘wash your hands,’ but it’s not about cleaning surfaces,” Prather told The Post. She argued that too much attention and resources are diverted toward measures such as spraying down surfaces with disinfectant when addressing ventilation and filtration would have a more significant impact on transmission...

More, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/social-distancing-indoors-may-provide-false-sense-of-security-covid-transmission-study-finds/ar-BB1g7467
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- 'Staying 6 feet apart indoors does almost nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19, MIT study finds,' Business Insider, April 26, 2021,
https://www.businessinsider.com/6-ft-social-distancing-rule-exposure-indoors-2021-4

- The widely used 6-foot rule does little to prevent COVID-9 exposure indoors, MIT researchers found.
- The risk of exposure from an infected person is similar at 6 feet and 60 feet, one researcher said.
- The study said mask-wearing, ventilation, and what a space is used for were bigger variables...

For example, if an infected person walks into a classroom hosting 25 people, none wearing masks and all speaking, everyone would be at risk from the coronavirus within 36 minutes, the website says. It doesn't matter if they follow the 6-foot rule.

By contrast, if all 25 people in that room were wearing a mask, the air would be safe to breathe for 20 hours, it said.

If they were all singing without a mask, they be at risk from the virus within three minutes...
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'MIT Study: Social Distancing Indoors Does Not Offer Full Protection Against Covid,'
https://local12.com/news/local/mit-study-social-distancing-indoors-does-not-offer-full-protection-against-covid-19-cincinnati



- Roped off restaurant tables to help social distancing for customers.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. The crux of it...

if an infected person walks into a classroom hosting 25 people, none wearing masks and all speaking, everyone would be at risk from the coronavirus within 36 minutes, the website says. It doesn't matter if they follow the 6-foot rule.

By contrast, if all 25 people in that room were wearing a mask, the air would be safe to breathe for 20 hours, it said.

If they were all singing without a mask, they be at risk from the virus within three minutes...

Thanks for sharing this, appalachiablue.

❤

[appalachiablue]

2. Life & death business, thanks for breaking it down