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Life's a beach
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:15 am
by Long Run
The tsk tskers may need another place to hang out.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... ch/613849/
“You’d think from the moral outrage about these beach photos that fun, in itself, transmits the virus,” the Harvard epidemiologist Julia Marcus told me. “But when people find lower-risk ways to enjoy their lives, that’s actually a public-health win.”
The beach shaming is especially terrible because, so many months in, we now know that the virus spreads most readily indoors, especially in unventilated, crowded spaces, and even more so in such spaces where people are talking or singing without masks. Outdoor transmission isn't impossible, of course, but being outdoors is protective for scientifically well-understood reasons: Open air dilutes the concentration of virus in the air one breathes, sunlight can help kill viruses, and people have more room to stay apart in the great outdoors than within walled spaces.
In other words, one can hardly imagine a comparatively safer environment than a sunny, windy ocean beach. It’s not that there is any activity with absolutely zero risk, but the beach may well be as good as it gets—if people stay socially distant, which is much easier to do on a big beach.
Re: Life's a beach
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:42 pm
by ex-khobar Andy
It's not the beach per se, it's what you do when you get there. We've known for ages - long before Trump found out - that sunshine is the best disinfectant: i.e., it usually kills viruses.
CNN is reporting that 'several' people who gathered at this Michigan beach have tested positive, and Michigan DOH is urging that they get checked.
Re: Life's a beach
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:13 pm
by BoSoxGal
Exactly; sunlight can kill virus on surfaces in a short amount of time, but when people are congregating in close crowds and exhaling all over one another, there isn’t sufficient time for the sunlight to kill the aerosolized virus before it is inhaled by others in close proximity. Also there are plenty of hot days at the beach where there isn’t a strong breeze, and if folks are clustering on the beach or on boats unmasked with other folks from outside their virus bubble (family unit that cohabitate), then they’re going to raise exposure risks substantially, even at the beach.
Outside IS safer, but not if you act the idiot and sadly it seems we are surrounded by idiots.
Re: Life's a beach
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 5:50 pm
by Long Run
And thus was born the phrase, “You can lead a stupid person to water . . .”
Re: Life's a beach
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:21 pm
by RayThom
Long Run wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 5:50 pm
And thus was born the phrase, “You can lead a stupid person to water . . .”
... but you can't make them think."