It is Ok to Lick Your Counter Top . . . Again
A few notes catching you up on stuff.
I would not recommend licking the counter top as it does not taste very good. In any case, the transmission of COVID-19 does not come from touching surfaces. And I am reiterating what I had read approximately a year ago.
The Atlantic‘s Staff Writer Derek Thompson reiterates what is pretty much known since the advent of COVID and ignored by many.
“Deep Cleaning Isn’t a Victimless Crime” brings the point home in its content on surface contamination.
Based on “epidemiological data and studies of environmental transmission factors; the CDC determined surface transmission is not the main route by which SARS-CoV-2 spreads. The risk of transmission is low in this instance.”
Fomites are “objects or materials such as clothes, utensils, and furniture likely to carry infection. The surface transmission of COVID is low risk in the spread of SARS-CoV-2.” Originally the thought was it to be a major contributor of spreading COVID.
Instead, COVID-19 is an airborne threat and spreads through tiny aerosol droplets lingering in the air in unventilated spaces. Rhinovirus is a common virus and the predominant cause of a common cold. It spreads via aerosols.
The solution is ventilating areas which may not be so due to being closed in by walls, etc.
And outspoken researchers such as Jose-Luis Jimenez, an aerosol scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, were insisting on needing focus on ventilation rather than surfaces and windows rather than Windex. Instead, they were being loudly rebuffed or ignored.
“Watching people troll Aerosol Science reminds me of Creationists telling Evolutionary Biologists there is no evidence for Evolution. My students in 1st semester Physics easily follow the fluid dynamics of your presentation slides (drag F, Reynold’s #, etc).” Clark Vangilder, PhD
But, when we were in Varenna, Italia during March 06-12, 2020, it was the thing to do.
Who knew, then?
“Jose Jimenez”?
This José Jiménez—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana ?
From the start only social distancing and masks (and avoiding like hell proximity to the dolts not wearing masks) were the only adaptations that I made. Being landscaper, trash man, cook, and bottle washer in my home already had me washing my hands dozens of times each day. Since Covid-19 is an enveloped virus of only moderate durability then surface contact contamination does not follow.
The psychology of public policy requires that authorities give people something that they can do to protect themselves when faced with life threatening circumstances broadly experienced. So, surface sanitizers were a mental health treatment rather than pandemic threat management. Remember the silly stuff that we were taught to do when Russian nuked the US? Same thing. People that feel completely helpless against pending threat of death are more likely to panic than people that can take steps to protect themselves, regardless of whether those are false steps. Sure, we had real steps that we could take, primarily face coverings and social distancing, but those steps were against our nature as social beasts as well as vain assholes. OTOH, we think cleanliness is next to godliness. Everyone likes to keep it clean.
We’ve clearly passed some sort of horizon beyond which, people’s understanding of the difference between beliefs and knowledge has been deprecated.
In this sort of environment, even perfectly rational governors have been so successfully attacked politically by ‘believers’, at the instigation of opposition politicians that they feel the necessity to ‘open-up’ to keep the peace, not to mention save their careers.
Michigan and Minnesota, are two states led by Democratic governors who initially instituted strong lock-downs, and had seemed to be bending the curve. Their respective governors have been the focus of extreme pressure from ‘believers’ instigated by Republican legislators whose opposition seems to me based in equal parts on pushing the interests of the ‘business community’ and upon a cynical belief that ‘fighting’ the lock-downs will allow them to reap electoral advantage in the future.
Both those states are now, after bowing to that pressure, experiencing dramatic surges in new case.
I live in Minnesota, and am amazed at the level of resistance being leveled by those who have been encouraged to ‘believe’ the pandemic is a political hoax, and that their ‘constitutional rights’ are under attack.
And it seems that the Democratic leadership in each case sees no other option but to capitulate.
Watt4:
First, a hello, and it is good to see you here commenting which must mean you have avoided being inflicted by Covid. We had our 2nd shots of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine February 8th. For over a year we did not go far from our house which has land between us and neighbors on all 4 sides. I would sneak out early each morning to stock up on food. It has not been fun. Over a week ago, we went tpo Denver to visit with my younger son and daughter/husband. It was nice to be out in the open.
My younger son and I went up to visit sightsee in Montana at the Little Bighorn battlefield. Custer was a fool to have left the Gatling guns behind and a bigger fool to have split his forces.
Michigan reeks with people of lesser knowledge and intellect. They buy into the Repub lies even when so obviously false. I have gained a reputation for being knowledgeable and an ass. The politicians stay away from me also. I think they are weary of trying to get people to do what is safe. Their unsafe practices is weening out the Republican population here. The state is becoming more Dem than Repub.