From: "Stuart, Ralph" <Ralph.Stuart**At_Symbol_Here**KEENE.EDU>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Two articles on airborne transmission of COVID-19
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:21:40 +0000
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
Message-ID: 3C6F220E-022C-4D93-9F51-21E9BA3E9125**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu
In-Reply-To <0AA8B451-172D-4A11-90E4-F644FDED02A5**At_Symbol_Here**ilpi.com>


> >This article just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
> >‰?|It is theoretical and looks primarily at the extreme case that all air in the room is well-mixed, something we know is demonstrably false, particularly if you attended Monona‰??s talk.

My attention was called to this paper by the chair of our Music Department, who is very interested in this topic for obvious reasons given her singing and instrumental students.

I agree that the paper is extremely theoretical, but it still forms the basis for a consumer story from CNBC
"MIT researchers say time spent indoors increases risk of Covid at 6 feet or 60 feet in new study challenging social distancing policies‰??
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/mit-researchers-say-youre-no-safer-from-covid-indoors-at-6-feet-or-60-feet-in-new-study.html

In my mind, this story shows that the paper‰??s message is confusing at many levels. While I agree that in some very specific ventilation circumstances, 60 feet separation may carry similar Covid risk as 6 feet separation, as a general policy statement I think that this statement is misleading. I think that the point of the MIT paper is that time of exposure can be as useful to manage as distance between potentially infectious people.

> >the fact that two vaccinated family members of impacted students have also tested positive.

This is an important finding - as I hear it, people are treating vaccination as a release from other control measures. Personally, I expect that vaccination will be an effective public health method of slowing the spread, but for individuals in the random 10% of the population for whom the vaccination is ineffective, other protective measures (testing, distancing, masking) are still important.

Thanks for sharing these articles!

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
Environmental Safety Manager
Keene State College
603 358-2859

ralph.stuart**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu

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