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Pastimes : SARS - what next? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (422)	5/9/2003 4:04:28 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1070

When we sent our World Champion infectious disease gladiator, Dr Urbani, out to fight Sars and he came back dead, everyone on Earth got a very serious warning. It took a while for people to get the message, especially in China, but they have it now. There's something about the threat of death which really perks up attention. It even exceeds attacks on one's wallet for attention-getting and that's a tough one to beat. I'm sure dew points must have a big effect on the propagation of respiratory infections. The fact that people spend more time indoors in winter would also exacerbate the infection rate, but since bugs live for some time in out-of-body experiences and they need a bit of moisture to have a nice time, low evaporation rates of droplets must give them a much improved chance of being sucked in by another person. I see the studies confirm the obvious, which is that gloves are irrelevant to catching Sars. Washing hands before touching food or face is what matters - bugs can't get through skin. They need to enter eyes, nose or mouth [maybe other ways in would work too, but they would be unusual cases]. The photos Jay Chen sent of Hong Kong airport showing the silly authorities wearing masks and gloves but no goggles showed that it takes quite a while for people to figure out what matters and what doesn't. As the air cools again going into winter in October, and air reaches the dew point for much of the time, we might find that the defeat of Sars was very much in the wishful thinking category. A person sneezing or coughing, or even just saying "potato" or "pumpkin", produces swarms of various-sized droplets which float around, evaporating and falling. Somebody in proximity inhales them, or gets them on the surface of their eyes and thence drained into their nasal cavities through tear drainage ducts. Bingo, Sars has found a new home. In summer, the air is usually well above the dew point, so the droplets don't last long before they evaporate, leaving the poor bugs dehydrated and dying. In winter, the drops float around for hours, waiting for somebody to inhale them. In a similar way, fungi and mold do well in winter. That shows the same principle. Mqurice PS: I just realized, powerful dehumidifiers should be installed everywhere. Especially in Sars isolation wards. By heating air and dehumidifying it, the Sars bugs would be dying by the trillion before they infect people. Imagine being a bug and being blown through a fan heater, where the air reaches 150 deg C over the heating element. Ouch!! They'd be dead before they traveled a metre. Others, floating around in their watery life-rafts, would be dessicated as their droplet havens evaporated. It would be nicer than wearing a mask and goggles. Offices with lots of people in them should be heated by red-hot fans and dried with dehumidifiers.