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I suggested this as an alternative to mask enforcement months ago and was ridiculed on hacker news. I'm happy to see the idea come up again as it has a lot of s

I suggested this as an alternative to mask enforcement months ago and was ridiculed on hacker news. I'm happy to see the idea come up again as it has a lot of solid science behind it.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
It's still ridiculous because it's incredibly expensive compared to just wearing masks.
- jiofih 5y ago
  Curious to know how to wear a mask while eating.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    You take your food and go eat at home, like we actually did.
    - jiofih 5y ago
      Uh, this is about ventilation in internal spaces. Like restaurants. Where you eat inside. Your comment is completely out of context.
      - actually_a_dog 5y ago
        No, you were just trolling. The answer is you don't do that.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- bluGill 5y ago
  On the other hand, once a building is done right you don't have to worry about it again (other than replacing filters and the like on schedule), while masks are too easy to wear wrong, lose, or take off (particularly when eating)
- toomim 5y ago
  No it's not. Open a window and stick a fan in it. Total cost: $20. Consider that during the pandemic, the good N95 masks were not even available for any price, so people were wearing flimsy cotton things that only block 20% of particulates. Opening a window with a fan works far better if you do it right and uses materials we still had in supply.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    That's not practical in most parts of the country in the winter, when the virus was at its worst. What's the cost after including increased heating and A/C usage?
    - Natsu 5y ago
      Your comment just made me wonder if that's part of why the viruses are always worst in winter. Sure, there are likely other factors, like vitamin D, but...
      - bluGill 5y ago
        Seems unlikely. If you had made your comment in 1950 when the idea of air conditioning in summer was unheard of you would have a point. However these days any house or building has cooling in summer. People are outside a bit more in summer, but not enough to make a difference.
        Natsu 5y ago
        I was thinking of the winter, actually, when people are more often indoors and not likely to leave doors or windows open.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    Typical "this is the obvious solution" thinking without stopping to think about why it doesn't work like that in the majority of situations. Most office buildings are giant rectangular blobs. The vast majority of people are not near a window. Most skyscrapers don't even have windows that can be opened. Most manufacturing, processing, distribution jobs etc are in large warehouses. No windows near anybody. Same with a huge number of other blue-collar jobs like groceries and retail. Even in buildings where windows can be opened, you're throwing potentially thousands of dollars worth of heating out the window half the year, and thousands of dollars in cooling the other half. So don't just look around your own room, see the window, and say "hey, there's an obvious $20 solution to this, why didn't all these ventilation experts ask me?"
kardos 5y ago
Retrofitting the world's buildings for better ventilation all at the same time during a pandemic? Seems like a project measured in decades
- bootlooped 5y ago
  I have almost never even seen a business' window or door propped open where it was normally closed before. I have never seen an air purifier in a public area of a business. If HVAC systems were modified or upgraded, I wouldn't have any way of knowing that, but I bet not many were. A lot of businesses won't do things for their patrons' safety unless they're forced to. Could you imagine what fire safety would be like if there were no laws or regulations about it?
  - bluGill 5y ago
    I find it strange governors didn't tell bar/srestaurants that if they had mitigation in place they could remain open. Lockdowns hurt those the most, and good ventilation/filtration would be cheap and easy. It would probably make enough of a difference as to be worth it.
kevin_nisbet 5y ago
I certainly don't think you should be ridiculed for the notion, although I think my counter thought would be why should it be one or the other, and how confident are we in the engineering side of the solution at a wide scale. To my knowledge masks are a low cost / lost risk way to reduce the spread, and countries that had faster uptake and higher rates of compliance in mask usage did see lower overall case counts. The building ventilation side to me seems more like a long term solution, with lots of details to implement. How can we be confident that someone did the retrofit correctly, and tested the air pathways to make sure there isn't droplets being pushed from one table to another in a restaurant. Can we be confident that small changes to dampers, rearrangement of the dining room, other changes don't affect the conditions and are maintained over time. Building HVAC systems are hard enough to maintain as is. This seems like a great addition to building codes, or if some standard can be developed for inspection, maintenance, testing, etc. And how can we be sure that businesses don't just try and cheat, would they be liable, can this be inspected, would the liability be collectable, etc, etc. I think as a society we should be looking at this problem holistically, I think part of the solution is masks, and part is vaccines, and part should probably be building codes and HVAC systems in public indoor spaces to reduce a variety of airborne pathogens.
- bsder 5y ago
  > And how can we be sure that businesses don't just try and cheat As someone who knows an HVAC inspector, they WILL cheat. He has appalling stories. The most appalling was him having to hold up opening a memory care facility because the HVAC was all shared when it was all supposed to be isolated. This was completely on the HVAC contractor as the plans were quite explicit about what needed to be done--which means that contractor did this before and got away with it. People who come into these kinds of facilities are not well, and get sick with things all the time. Many of them are immune compromised. But, nope, everybody wanted the facility open and banking money--this included the local politicians, the local community, the "oversight" committee, etc.--nobody gave a damn about the fact that the HVAC would KILL PEOPLE. So, don't hold your breath.
  - dwaite 5y ago
toomim 5y ago
Same here-- not on HN, but in real life. It seemed so obvious from the start that this was airborne and we can stop it with ventilation and masks. I actually helped start a mask distribution non-profit. But it became an uphill battle to educate people against the political warfare that happened.
- sundvor 5y ago
  Ditto for me. But rather than say it was airborne, I took the approach that the so called experts hadn't proven yet that it wasn't - so one should take precautions as if it was, until we could get more of a handle on this new domain. I looked at it as a novel tech stack. Sure one could be an expert in twenty year old X, but if thrown into a brand new emergent tech Y, any engineer worth their salt would approach it with a certain degree of humility. I did not see that happen at least in terms of what medical professionals the politicians and media brought to the fore early on. We still haven't got functioning HVAC systems in all our hotel quarantine facilities in Australia... it seems insanely hard to grok, for some reason.
raverbashing 5y ago
It's not either/or. "Opening a window", some places don't even have a window to open.
R0b0t1 5y ago
This shouldn't be seen as a replacement for masks but as a realization that viruses easily form infectious particles. The initial response was insanity and driven largely by hospital's desire to avoid expensive PPE use.
bluGill 5y ago
February 2020 when I first heard this line it contradicted all the "experts" that I should be able to trust on a topic that as someone not trained in biology I need trust worthy experts. By now it has become clear that those experts were using their position of authority to say things that were not true instead of admitting they didn't know. Once a few experts broke and started saying the truth that others still haven't really embraced changing science is a reflection on those experts that is morally criminal (probably not legally)

I suggested this as an alternative to mask enforcement months ago and was ridiculed on hacker news. I'm happy to see the idea come up again as it has a lot of solid science behind it.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

It's still ridiculous because it's incredibly expensive compared to just wearing masks.

jiofih 5y ago
Curious to know how to wear a mask while eating.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  You take your food and go eat at home, like we actually did.
  - jiofih 5y ago
    Uh, this is about ventilation in internal spaces. Like restaurants. Where you eat inside. Your comment is completely out of context.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      No, you were just trolling. The answer is you don't do that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bluGill 5y ago
On the other hand, once a building is done right you don't have to worry about it again (other than replacing filters and the like on schedule), while masks are too easy to wear wrong, lose, or take off (particularly when eating)
toomim 5y ago
No it's not. Open a window and stick a fan in it. Total cost: $20. Consider that during the pandemic, the good N95 masks were not even available for any price, so people were wearing flimsy cotton things that only block 20% of particulates. Opening a window with a fan works far better if you do it right and uses materials we still had in supply.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  That's not practical in most parts of the country in the winter, when the virus was at its worst. What's the cost after including increased heating and A/C usage?
  - Natsu 5y ago
    Your comment just made me wonder if that's part of why the viruses are always worst in winter. Sure, there are likely other factors, like vitamin D, but...
    - bluGill 5y ago
      Seems unlikely. If you had made your comment in 1950 when the idea of air conditioning in summer was unheard of you would have a point. However these days any house or building has cooling in summer. People are outside a bit more in summer, but not enough to make a difference.
      - Natsu 5y ago
        I was thinking of the winter, actually, when people are more often indoors and not likely to leave doors or windows open.
- SamBam 5y ago
  Typical "this is the obvious solution" thinking without stopping to think about why it doesn't work like that in the majority of situations. Most office buildings are giant rectangular blobs. The vast majority of people are not near a window. Most skyscrapers don't even have windows that can be opened. Most manufacturing, processing, distribution jobs etc are in large warehouses. No windows near anybody. Same with a huge number of other blue-collar jobs like groceries and retail. Even in buildings where windows can be opened, you're throwing potentially thousands of dollars worth of heating out the window half the year, and thousands of dollars in cooling the other half. So don't just look around your own room, see the window, and say "hey, there's an obvious $20 solution to this, why didn't all these ventilation experts ask me?"

kardos 5y ago

Retrofitting the world's buildings for better ventilation all at the same time during a pandemic? Seems like a project measured in decades

bootlooped 5y ago
I have almost never even seen a business' window or door propped open where it was normally closed before. I have never seen an air purifier in a public area of a business. If HVAC systems were modified or upgraded, I wouldn't have any way of knowing that, but I bet not many were. A lot of businesses won't do things for their patrons' safety unless they're forced to. Could you imagine what fire safety would be like if there were no laws or regulations about it?
- bluGill 5y ago
  I find it strange governors didn't tell bar/srestaurants that if they had mitigation in place they could remain open. Lockdowns hurt those the most, and good ventilation/filtration would be cheap and easy. It would probably make enough of a difference as to be worth it.

kevin_nisbet 5y ago

I certainly don't think you should be ridiculed for the notion, although I think my counter thought would be why should it be one or the other, and how confident are we in the engineering side of the solution at a wide scale. To my knowledge masks are a low cost / lost risk way to reduce the spread, and countries that had faster uptake and higher rates of compliance in mask usage did see lower overall case counts. The building ventilation side to me seems more like a long term solution, with lots of details to implement. How can we be confident that someone did the retrofit correctly, and tested the air pathways to make sure there isn't droplets being pushed from one table to another in a restaurant. Can we be confident that small changes to dampers, rearrangement of the dining room, other changes don't affect the conditions and are maintained over time. Building HVAC systems are hard enough to maintain as is. This seems like a great addition to building codes, or if some standard can be developed for inspection, maintenance, testing, etc. And how can we be sure that businesses don't just try and cheat, would they be liable, can this be inspected, would the liability be collectable, etc, etc. I think as a society we should be looking at this problem holistically, I think part of the solution is masks, and part is vaccines, and part should probably be building codes and HVAC systems in public indoor spaces to reduce a variety of airborne pathogens.

bsder 5y ago
> And how can we be sure that businesses don't just try and cheat As someone who knows an HVAC inspector, they WILL cheat. He has appalling stories. The most appalling was him having to hold up opening a memory care facility because the HVAC was all shared when it was all supposed to be isolated. This was completely on the HVAC contractor as the plans were quite explicit about what needed to be done--which means that contractor did this before and got away with it. People who come into these kinds of facilities are not well, and get sick with things all the time. Many of them are immune compromised. But, nope, everybody wanted the facility open and banking money--this included the local politicians, the local community, the "oversight" committee, etc.--nobody gave a damn about the fact that the HVAC would KILL PEOPLE. So, don't hold your breath.
- dwaite 5y ago

toomim 5y ago

Same here-- not on HN, but in real life. It seemed so obvious from the start that this was airborne and we can stop it with ventilation and masks. I actually helped start a mask distribution non-profit. But it became an uphill battle to educate people against the political warfare that happened.

sundvor 5y ago
Ditto for me. But rather than say it was airborne, I took the approach that the so called experts hadn't proven yet that it wasn't - so one should take precautions as if it was, until we could get more of a handle on this new domain. I looked at it as a novel tech stack. Sure one could be an expert in twenty year old X, but if thrown into a brand new emergent tech Y, any engineer worth their salt would approach it with a certain degree of humility. I did not see that happen at least in terms of what medical professionals the politicians and media brought to the fore early on. We still haven't got functioning HVAC systems in all our hotel quarantine facilities in Australia... it seems insanely hard to grok, for some reason.

raverbashing 5y ago

It's not either/or. "Opening a window", some places don't even have a window to open.

R0b0t1 5y ago

This shouldn't be seen as a replacement for masks but as a realization that viruses easily form infectious particles. The initial response was insanity and driven largely by hospital's desire to avoid expensive PPE use.

bluGill 5y ago

February 2020 when I first heard this line it contradicted all the "experts" that I should be able to trust on a topic that as someone not trained in biology I need trust worthy experts. By now it has become clear that those experts were using their position of authority to say things that were not true instead of admitting they didn't know. Once a few experts broke and started saying the truth that others still haven't really embraced changing science is a reflection on those experts that is morally criminal (probably not legally)