Hate lockdowns and mask mandates? Cleaner indoor air by better filtration and ventilation will make lockdowns and mask mandates less necessary in the inevitable next pandemic.
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Generally good idea and I'd say int he grand scheme of things this is good advice.
But one counter point to consider, in highly sterile environments we have shown much high incidence of autoimmune disease. When you have too good indoor filtration, especially when it is not during a pandemic, you may cause a situation where you make society more vulnerable and at risk for the next pandemic.
Then you should look, ill find the studies when i get home. But there is considerable evidence/studies showing that there is significantly higher incidence of autoimmune disorders in societies that strive for more sterile environments.
@freemo Cleaner indoor air is not the same as a sterile environment
@rchusid i said more sterole, not completely sterile. The evidence shows when you have much less exposure to disease, particularly at a young age, this leada to h8gher risk of autoimmune disorders. In other words, there is a certain degree of exposure that is good, too little or too much is obviosly bad. Ao making oir wnvironments too clean can potentially cause more harm than good. Finding the right balance may be a challenge
> There is a significant amount of evidence supporting the idea that lack of exposure to these microbes is linked to allergies or other conditions
@freemo This does not contradict the benefits of cleaner air
What it suggests is there a line where not enough exposure to pathogens can be unhealthy just as too much exposure can also be healthy. Therefore there is a point where making things too clean can be harmful as well, such as clean air.
What is debatable and admitidly an unknown is where that line is and if cleaner air would cross that line, and im not saying it would. In fact i suggest cleaner air in crowded spaces is probably a good thing. But it is an open question all the same.
@freemo Sure, theoretically there might be a point where this is a problem but improving ventilation and current air filtration is hardly at the point where there is any conceivable risk
@rchusid that may be true, and i suspect may even be correct if we are talking high risk areas. But ubfortunately we dont have good enough data to quantify where the line is, so at best we are making educated guesses as to where the line is.
My guess would be in a well vaccinated population outside of major pandemic surges it would be harmful, however when applied outside of a pandemic, particularly in low risk environments like the home it probably causes more harm than good.
@freemo It would clearly be beneficial, even outside of a pandemic. For example, studies show that children learn better in schools with cleaner air. Of course we also need to prepare ahead of time to have cleaner air if we are going to be prepared for future pandemics.
@rchusid Studies showing cleaner air correlates to better learning fails to show a causitive relationship with very good arguments for the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy at play. Namely schools that are better funded or more well run are likely to have students that learn better and also are more likely to put more effort i to the cleanliness of the school.
That said, no one is arguing that clean air cant have benefits, the part that is an open question is at what poi t does the harm of increased autoimmune disease outweigh whatever real benefits there are. Citing the benefits doesnt really address that.
@freemo The data however says the opposite--it is exposure to dirty air which increases risk of autoimmune disease. Cleaner air would also reduce this risk:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8969049/
And why did you pick thst study rsther than the overwhelming number of studies that support what i said? Wikipedia clearly states this and lists a mountain of studies supporting what i said. So did you pick an outlyibg studying because you wanted somethi g to confirm your bias or as an objective addition to the conversation?
@freemo No, I picked what represents the consensus of thought, not an outlier.
Wikipedia is hardly a reliable medical reference.
Not claiming wikipedia is.. but it does provide peer reviewed medical research that clearly **is** a reliable source for medical research. It isnt wikipedia you have to disprove its their sources (anf the many sources they didnt list).
No reasonable objective expert would ever look at the overwhelming consensus on this and claim the hygein hypothesis isnt supported by evidence. A claim to that extent shows extreme bias and a lack of credibility.
Now to be clear i am not claiming cleaner air will be harmful, as i said the exact line where its harmful is certainly an open question. But to deny that the hygein hypothesis isnt well supported by evidence at all is just too far down the science denial rabbit hole for me sorry. Thats my que to exit the conversation. Thanks for the chat have a good rest of your day.
Right, glad we agree, exactly as Ii said, high risk high-traffic areas make sense, intuitively, to clean the air while lower risk areas not so much.
But as I said the problem is we are mostly speculating here as we dont have good studies to tell us where the line shoul be in reality, so we have to make these sort of guesses.
@freemo There is considerable evidence of the benefits of cleaner air. I haven't seen any evidence contrary to this.