News from the World Health Organization

This blog was written by Dr. Karsten Theis, Physical Science and Chemistry Department, Westfield State University (contact information below) - - -

Today, the World Health Organization has updated their guidance to acknowledge that airborne transmission of COVID-19 may occur. This is in response to a letter from scientists, and to growing evidence in the literature [as mentioned in previous blogs].

Airborne transmission means that if there is insufficient ventilation, someone could enter an empty room containing viral particles in the air, and breathe them in. The WHO stance previously was that viral particles were exhaled by carriers in droplets that sink to the ground relatively quickly (and before these droplets cover 6 feet of distance across the room).


Ventilation dilutes the airborne particles when it supplies fresh air. Air conditioners recirculate air, so they do not lower the viral load unless they have special filters in them (like those in N95 masks). An ideal mode of ventilation would be to supply fresh air in the ceiling (that is typical), and take out used air through vents in the floor (usually, air intake is also in the ceiling in different spots, leading to air currents across the room from inlet to outlet).


If you want to know about air currents in a room, take a spritz-bottle filled with water and produce some mist. See where it goes, and how far it travels while you can see it. Or blow some bubbles, and see where they go (don't blow the bubbles at others, though. They contain concentrated breath that might be release near someone else when the bubble pops).


If you want to dig into the engineering aspects, here is a good start. The TL;DR is available via this pic:



Community colleges and rich universities are teaching online. Colleges like us [ Westfield State University] are dependent on dorms being occupied are on the fence internally, and are saying they will be open on their web sites. I will close with a tweet that I found hilarious; what is not hilarious is the situation in the southern states and in our communities of color (across Massachusetts last week, Black people tested positive at roughly twice the state average, and Hispanic people tested positive at roughly four times the state average).


"Every reopening plan right now is a zombie. It's already dead but it's trudging along anyway because nobody is stopping it."


_______________________________


Yes, Rob, you can use a link to my WSU page, http://www.westfield.ma.edu/academics/chemistry-degrees/faculty-staff/karsten-theis. It has my email on there in case people want to reach me.




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