Ventilation Is Key
We now know that disinfecting every surface won’t help. As offices and schools begin to reopen, what should we be focusing on? Joe Allen, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote a piece for the New York Times last March about ventilation, filtration, and humidity, and he hasn’t budged from his position:
(…) bringing in more outdoor air in buildings with heating and ventilation systems (or opening windows in buildings that don’t) helps dilute airborne contaminants, making infection less likely. For years, we have been doing the opposite: sealing our windows shut and recirculating air. The result are schools and office buildings that are chronically underventilated. This not only gives a boost to disease transmission, including common scourges like the norovirus or the common flu, but also significantly impairs cognitive function.
He adds that short of air from the outside, HEPA filters can help as they catch 99.97% of particles. Lastly, viruses don’t do well in high humidity.
How to use this: you heard the man. If you must return to the office or your kids must return to school, insist on better ventilation. Short of that, ask them to invest in good air purifiers (note that the best-rated ones are not the most expensive, far from it) and good humidifiers (same).
Don’t Mess This Up
1. France
Today France shut 22 schools and more than 100 classrooms, three days after the academic year. Twelve of the schools are in La Réunion, the island off the coast of Madagascar, and the rest in “metropolitan” France (the hexagon). To be sure, there are more than 60,000 schools in France, but for the past two consecutive days, the country has reported more than 7,000 new cases, for a two-day total of 14,174. For comparison, Germany, which has a larger population, registered 16,900 new cases over 14 days.
Whilst the population at large, the government, and the media keep trying to minimise concerns, epidemiologists are increasingly worried by the speed at which the virus is circulating. Growth is “exponential,” led mainly by infections amongst young adults, but the increase also concerns kids between 0 and 14 years old (+44% week-on-week) and those older than 75 years old (+36% week-on-week).
2. Spain
As bad as things are in France, they’re even worse in Spain. The virus is spreading even faster there than in the U.S., and the country registers now between 8,000 and 10,000 new cases per day, a third of which are in Madrid, where 16% of hospital beds are now occupied. “We’re on the verge of collapse,” said José Molero, the spokesman of medical union CSIT. Spain recorded 29,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, and they instituted some of the harshest safety measures in the spring. Now the second wave is in full swing.
3. A bit of history
For “fun,” here’s a curve of the 1918 pandemic in New York, London, Paris and Berlin, during which the second wave was considerably more murderous than the first one. Like us, our ancestors sucked at evaluating risk.
How to use this: both countries reopened after the spring, allowing friends and family to gather, including inside bars and restaurants (Spain did so more quickly than France). Both countries resumed activities related to tourism. People got excited for summer and let their guard down. These two examples should act as reminders that this is not over. As we move inside with the arrival of autumn and winter, we should act with even more caution. Keep your eyes on the ball, everyone. It’s worth holding out for better days before throwing parties. Meet outside whilst the weather is good. Stay far apart from one another. Avoid gatherings of more than a couple of people. Keep moving.
Treatment that works
We’ve been talking about inflammation for the past few weeks. Doctors have been zeroing in on it to help Covid-19 patients. Now the World Health Organisation are recommending steroids — lovely, simple, cheap, anti-inflammatory steroids — as a treatment that is saving lives:
Steroids like dexamethasone, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone are often used by doctors to tamp down the body’s immune system, alleviating inflammation, swelling and pain. Many Covid-19 patients die not of the virus, but of the body’s overreaction to the infection.
How to use this: rejoice. What would this newsletter be without a spark of hope at the end?