Tolerating the Pandemic #4: The Ventilation Edition
This is #4 in the series of how we can tolerate the pandemic in a lot of slow, steady progress and hard work. As a quick recap, the first post laid out a bit of a roadmap (March 23, 2020); the second (April 17, 2020) and third (June 26, 2020) noted updates on the categories described in the first. In the two months since my previous post, one of the most exciting advances has been in improved understanding of the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2, particularly with respect to aerosol-like transmission. An Aug 11 New York Times article has a good summary of some of the research in this area. Tl;dr: Ballistic (large droplet) transmission is probably still a big factor, and is helped quite a bit by masks. Aerosol transmission is a big contributor particularly to superspreader events (and particularly indoors). Cloth or surgical masks help but are not a silver bullet, particularly in crowded, confined spaces. Why is this excitin...