Better examples discussing masks are the posts about elastomeric respirators here and here. Unfortunately, almost no policy maker seemed to have listened.
Florin
Karma: −3
Rather than focusing on ventilation, I suggest thinking about recommending the voluntary use of respirators (preferably the elastomeric kind) instead. The problem with ventilation (even if it was theoretically 100% effective) is that it’s only as good as how it was setup and maintained, and during a dangerous pandemic, I wouldn’t trust any of these external systems to function properly.
Unless you have a reason to think otherwise, those methods of transmission (except for aerosol transmission) don’t seem capable of spreading a contagion rapidly enough to end civilization. This has been discussed in other comments.
Why do you think fomite transmission is still worth considering?
Yeah, there were two groups that studied how rhinovirus is transmitted. One group was from the University of Virginia and found evidence of only fomite transmission. The study you cited is theirs. The other group was from the University of Wisconsin and found evidence for only airborne transmission. The Wisconsin group ”...argued that the high rate of transmission via the hands in the Virginia experiments might be attributable to intensive contact with fresh wet secretions produced by volunteers who essentially blew their nose into their hand.”
I don’t think you’re being reasonable here. So, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
cause maybe thousands of deaths.
Don’t you mean millions of deaths?I’m confused about the distinction between fomite and droplet transmission.
From what I’ve read, fomite transmission must involve surface touching, whereas droplet transmission must involve droplets, which are expelled by coughing or sneezing, directly landing (like a bullet) in your mouth, nose, or eyes without any extra contact or touching.
These methods of transmission seem so implausible (how many people actually sneeze or cough directly in someone’s face?) to be major causes of spread that it’s hard to believe that no one seemed to have performed definitive experiments to test these ideas for many decades. On the other hand, even seemingly definitive experiments (like the rhinovirus study) don’t seem able to shift expert opinion. In the case of rhinovirus, maybe one experient isn’t enough, but then the question is why no one seems to have been interested in replicating it.
it’s certainly not impossible for non-respiratory pathogens to achieve rapid global spread.
I can’t think of a plausible, non-science fictional way in which this would not be impossible.
If you can but prefer not the mention it publically due to infohazard concerns, please send me a PM.
In the context of this discussion (the post is about GCBRs), it should have been clear what I meant by that term.
Also, it can be claimed that a lot of things are “pandemics” like TB and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but what is usually meant by the term is rapid, global spread (within weeks to a few months at most) of a deadly pathogen.
rhinovirus is probably spread primarily via formites
Until the COVID19 pandemic, nearly everyone thought that most infectious respiratory diseases were transmitted via fomites and droplets, but unfortunately, this was based on shockingly poor evidence and assumptions. The material you’ve seen is based on this outdated consensus.
As I pointed out before, there are mechanistic reasons to doubt that pandemics can arise from fomite transmission.
However, if I squint hard enough, I can kinda, sorta see how young children in daycare might be infected by sharing toys and sticking their fingers up their noses. But stuff like that isn’t going to cause a pandemic.
In fact, the dominant (and most likely only) mode of transmission of rhinovirus is aerosols (at least in adults), not fomites. The same paper claims that fomites were unable to infect adults.I also don’t think we should necessarily overindex on viral respiratory diseases/pandemics, even though I agree they’re the scariest.
Anything that’s capable of causing a civilization-ending pandemic must be able to rapidly replicate in humans and spread via airborne transmission, and the only thing that can do that is viruses (and perhaps virus-like particles in the future).
The bottom line for me about fomites and surface contamination is that it’s probably a non-issue, and even if there’s something to it (which doesn’t seem too likely), it’s pretty easy to deal with without fancy tech: just wash your hands, disinfect surfaces, and wear a face covering to prevent face-touching.
This discussion is about preventing and mitigating pandemics that could potentially end civilization, and stuff similar to AIDS (regardless of how you want to categorize it) is off topic because transmission would not be rapid enough to end civilization.
AIDS is considered to be an epidemic, not a pandemic, but can a sexually-transmitted disease similar to AIDS lead to a pandemic? I doubt it, because pandemics are dangerous (in part) due to rapid spread, a feature which a sexually-transmitted disease will never possess. I’d be a slightly more worried only if everyone was a lot more promiscuous.
Why would you be surprised if airborne transmission was the only way that any respiratory pathogen could cause a pandemic?
I haven’t seen any strong empirical evidence that fomite transmission is even a thing and mechanistic reasons to doubt that it could cause a pandemic even if it were a thing. My mechanistic reasoning is this: fomite transmission would be too convoluted (e.g., nose → hand → variable period of time → door knob → variable period of time → hand → variable period of time→ nose) to be compatible with the sustained and rapid spread necessary to cause a pandemic.
Gastric/diarrhoeal diseases don’t and can’t cause pandemics for mechanistic reasons: it’s hard to infect people with bodily fluids.
Why are suits and substances used to sterilize surfaces (e.g., hydrogen peroxide, bleach) mentioned in relation stopping pandemics? Another post by one of the authors (ASB) of the current post mentioned a self-sterilizing suit regarding the same subject.
Suits and surface sterilization seems unnecessary, because that stuff does nothing to stop airborne transmission of viruses, which seems to be the only way that pandemics can ever arise.
Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd9149
The hypothesis is that if we were to succumb to a biological risk to the point of causing an existential catastrophe, it was because we entirely lacked some capability, rather than because we had some partial capability that wasn’t widespread enough.
Yes and no.
To avoid a worst-case pandemic scenario, only two defenses are needed: effective PPE and a global pathogen surveillance system. Effective PPE (elastomeric respirators) has been readily available for decades (although better PPE like cheap PAPRs would be nice to have!). Surveillance systems aren’t up to snuff yet, but efforts (like consumer-oriented nanopore devices) are underway to improve them.
The biggest problem with this defense strategy is that it’s unclear whether enough governments and individuals can be convinced to stock up on respirators and practice using them before a civilization-ending pandemic hit. Apparently, this pandemic and the threat of future pandemics just isn’t enough to motivate people to solve this problem. This fact alone dramatically raises the risk of civilizational collapse in the not-too-distant future.
...hazmat suits....
Those things aren’t needed, because respirators would be enough to block aerosols, which seem to be the only method of transmission that can cause a pandemic.
Medical countermeasures....
Geographic quarantine....It should be assumed that that stuff will fail in a worst-case scenario.
There’s no compelling evidence that these kinds of mutations cause bad stuff to happen in a normal lifespan.
Mutant mitochondria.
The point is that if the amount of tau/other junk could be kept low enough (by periodically removing it), then the accumulation of too much cytoskeleton damage should be avoided.
Cytoskeleton damage can be upstream/causal
Too much tau junk → too much cytoskeleton damage
Lipofuscin
Too much lipofuscin/A2E → AMD
what SENS does right now is not sufficient
That’s LEV’s job (SENS 2, 3, etc.).
If you still think that there’s any potential primary damage targets that SENS doesn’t specifically mention, please let me know.
It should be emphasized that experts should start recommending that every single person in the world obtain their own effective (preferably elastomeric) respirator as soon as possible. This would eliminate any supply chain issues and most (and all with a good monitoring system) GCBR-type pandemics. As better respirators are developed, people with the older kind would be encouraged to upgrade.