A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

@joeinwynnewood @yappari @Lee_in_Iowa

I think we're pretty close on what we're saying here. I just think you're a bit more optimistic than I am that anything positive will happen.

Where I'll push back a little is that the under 30 set gets it. At least in the south I'd bump that down closer to 20. My wife's been a high school teacher for ~15 years now and 15 years ago all of the 15-18 year olds pushed back against climate change being taught in schools and teachers would be told to tread lightly on the subject and not push it. As recently as 5 years ago it was still a sizable chunk that would argue it wasn't real in class. Now they all accept it.

My 9yo and 11yo boys have been dabbling with coding in python, swift, java and html for a couple of years now on and off. Yesterday they decided to participate in their first code jam. They started out, got it set up the way they wanted and left it until today.

This morning turned into nothing but arguing as it didn't come together the way they both wanted it to. The arguing turned into a huge fight(as an aside, as an only child I'm continually impressed by how much and how often brothers can fight, particularly over the smallest of things) and they both ran away crying and screaming at each other. I decided not to intervene and just let it play out.

Well, a couple of hours later I heard them cheering and went to check on them. They were jumping up and down, hugging, and cheering because they finally worked out the code they were stuck on and it was working the way they wanted. They've been glued to the computer working on the rest of their code for hours straight now.

It's not easy to convince kids these days to be resilient, at all, when everything seems to be geared towards instant gratification, but it's so worth it when it works out. However the rest of their project works out it was already a win in my book.

@White_Bite

I suspect that they have to have the next scapegoat prepared after enough people see through immunity debt.

@augieray

I hear you. I used to think I knew where the bottom was, but I was way off.

@fvehafric @EricReinhart@mastodon.online

While you're not wrong, part of moving forward is admitting that there's no vaccinating our way out of this without a sterilizing vaccine.

@augieray

Given that this mirrors what people are actually seeing in their families and friends I hope it becomes mainstream knowledge in 2023 so we can start to deal with it.

@joeinwynnewood @yappari @Lee_in_Iowa

Sure, I think what I'm saying is that the actual conversation has yet to begin for the vast majority of people in the US.

@azzageddi I wish your relative all the best.

My dad has brain fog, I recently found out a couple of his friends do as well, and they're all on their own. Their doctors just tell them they're fine and it'll probably pass.

@joeinwynnewood @yappari @Lee_in_Iowa

I get where Yappari's coming from. Every upper-middle class suburbanite that I know definitely believes that if they get an electric car and slap some solar panels on their roof that they can keep doing whatever else they like and will have done their part to save the planet. It must be the messaging that's getting through.

@catchingmybreath

Politics. If you're telling people how bad it is in China, and officially using the State Department to shame them for spurring new variants, then you have to follow through with ridiculous measures like this to keep convincing people in your own country that you're more safe than "they" are.

@TomWellborn@universeodon.com

Should or will? He should be removed from Congress and the NY AG should take it from there. He probably will serve out his term and get increasingly more power because of his willingness to lie.

@AthenaFatima777

I'm a fairly knowledgable(I thought) wood stove user and I'd never heard of chimfex. Already ordered one. Thanks for sharing!

@teledyn @cstross @pluralistic

Here's hospital data:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.16.21263684v1

But you're not going to find the type of "real world" study I believe you're looking for. It's just not ethical to infect a control group of kids.

@pluralistic @teledyn @cstross

I’m not going to lie, I’m trying to understand what you’re asking and I’m still not getting it. Not trying to be obtuse.

I think what you’re asking for is a case study in a school? That would be unethical to set up the way you want, if I’m understanding. You’d give some schools/classrooms HEPA filters, others none, send in sick people and see how many kids got sick in each case?

It’s not something that needs to be done. They suck in air and filter it. You can measure what goes in, how much airflow, and what goes out after filtration. Measure your room and decide how many air changes per amount of time you want in the room. It’s nothing new. Every air conditioner has filters and stand-alone HEPA filters have been around for 75 years.

I’m sorry if I’m still not getting you. Feel free to move on without further discussion if you’d like.

@cstross @pluralistic @teledyn

Ok, so clearly I’m misunderstanding you then. Of course it filters out viruses. That’s not, scientifically speaking, a question. It’s just physics.

“HEPA filters are no less than 99.97% efficient at capturing human-generated viral particles associated with SARS-CoV-2.” - The CDC

@gzuckier @DEWLine @graydon @acb @cstross

Sure, there's lots of variables. Time matters, too. My PMs are in the "dangerous" levels most of the time when I'm cooking dinner, but, they're only present for a short period of time. Ventilation works best with filtration.

@gzuckier @acb @cstross

Far UVC is a different wavelength than traditional germicidal UV. 222nm is safe for humans, but lethal to coronaviruses.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2

@pimoore@social.lol @cstross Completely agree about the damage. It's already done in millions of people(beyond deaths).

The reason I asked is exactly that. For there to be a political will to follow through on actual public health measures I've come to believe it will have to be orders of magnitude worse than what we're living through now. I just don't see it happening, but, that doesn't mean I don't believe that it should.

The scientific part, though, isn't rocket science, and even if it were it could be figured out. There has to be a will to do it, though, and seeing as how 90% of people can't even by bothered to cover their mouths for part of their day it's hard to see how we get there at this point.

@teledyn @cstross @pluralistic "A MERV 13 filter must remove at least 50% of particles between 0.3 and 1 μm, 85% from 1 – 3 μm and 90% from 3 – 10 μm."

By ANSI/ASHRAE standard

"The virus is 0.1 μm (micrometers), but it is NOT naked in the air. The typical respiratory aerosol that contains viruses and is generated when talking is ~3 μm.

And in any case all filters work well at 0.1 μm, because brownian motion helps a lot for filters to capture small aerosol."

Most anything you'd like to know about this can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fB5pysccOHvxphpTmCG_TGdytavMmc1cUumn8m0pwzo/edit

Written by a great group of professors.

@pimoore@social.lol @cstross

Are we speaking scientifically, or practically, as things stand today, here?

Scientifically it can most certainly be reduced to something that can be mostly ignored in the background like, say, measles. Practically? It would require political will that doesn't exist today.