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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
by 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 agoThat'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 agoYour 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 agoSeems 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 agoI was thinking of the winter, actually, when people are more often indoors and not likely to leave doors or windows open.
- SamBam 5y agoTypical "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?"
- toomim 5y agoDismissing a cheap and obvious solution that can work for a lot of cases because it's not perfect in every case is leaving a lot on the table! Did you realize that we're in a pandemic that's killing millions of people? We need to get R0 down in any way that we can. Masks aren't perfect. Vaccines aren't perfect. We need to use everything we've got.
- carols10cents 5y agoOpening a window, even with the fan blowing out, is not exactly an option in the winter. Nevermind all the rooms without windows...