CPCSupport:Is it Safe?

This is a living document.

The reason why those aware of the evolving COVID situation wear masks and respirators is because of the rapidly evolving virus combined with bad air. None of this is going to change anytime soon without the political willpower, and more importantly, funding. But, just as a thought experiment, what would be necessary, if, say, an industrial hygienist were stuck under a rock for years...

...to convince them that the pandemic was handled well enough that PPE mitigations could be dropped?

Hospital admins, go away

• First of all, none of this advice should apply to hospitals. So it's kinda terrifying to see hospitals going against guidelines, dropping masks and infecting cancer patients.

Furthermore, the mitigations described here should have already be applied to all hospitals since at least the 1990s, after the HIV/AIDS TB outbreak. [1][2]

Since these non-respirator mitigations clearly haven't stopped cancer patients from getting infected alone, respirators are necessary for all healthcare workers. No excuses.

So with that out of the way, let's list some ideas. If you run a business, these tips could be helpful in making sure you don't infect your customers, regardless of whether they wear a mask or not, and by doing these mitigations, you can help fill in the gap towards ending the spread of airborne disease. For such a noble goal like that, with even personal benefit built in, who wouldn't want to participate?

Prerequisite

None of this should excuse public health from the fact that:

• There should be fewer than 10,000 cases of COVID in a country of 333 million people. This was the original benchmark set by Anthony Fauci.

Currently, we're nowhere near that. In fact, some have argued that the situation we are now is worse than summer of 2020!

For the logically minded: If we judged the situation to be dangerous enough back then to take measures like universal masking, why aren't we taking measures now?

Here's my hot take: If we are above that 10,000 mark, then public health needs to do something. Mandate mitigations described down here for instance.

However, since public health isn't doing its job, respirators will be necessary to a degree, for DIY-public-health-negligence-compensation. Some (including in public health, unbelievably) seem to be stuck in the idea that 'masks' and 'lockdowns' are the only way to stop a pandemic, and sure, if everyone around the world, regardless of income, got fit tested, we might actually halt all airborne diseases, but in lieu of that, here's some ways to get to that magical 10,000 number:

Mitigations

• The space should have ceiling fans. Properly positioned, even adding a ceiling fan, minus any other mitigations, can supposedly reduce the amount of exposed aerosol by at least 95%. At least temporarily. [3]

Not great, but for the developing and pre-HEPA filter world, combining this, with open windows, could significantly reduce the spread of airbornee pathogens. For those not willing to open windows, we can use more high-tech mitigations:

• Far-UVC lighting. These provide an unbelievably large eACH compared to open windows alone.[4][5] If you have already installed a ceiling fan, you can run these lights at lower power, since all you need to do is disinfect the ceiling air before recirculating it back in the environment, instead of sterilizing the whole room.
• Proper ventilation. Ideally to below 800 ppm. Not only does it decrease the carbon dioxide in the room, hastening the pathogen's death,[6] it also gets rid of whatever residual ozone might have been generated by the UVC mitigations.[7]

And finally...

• Everyone's favorite word... social distancing. Because it takes distance for the ceiling fan to suck the aerosols, and we don't want the transfer of fomites, we should use social distancing policy to ensure our mitigations can work to their highest potential.
• As an added bonus, with all these extra mitigations, evolution of the virus will be significantly slowed, allowing things like monoclonal antibodies, antivirals, and vaccines to work for longer periods of time.

Well, that wasn't so bad!

Indeed it's not. Considering we can pour millions of dollars into vaccine development for a constantly mutating virus, surely we can pour millions into mitigations that suppress more than one pathogen, right? And everything seems to synergize with each other.

So why aren't we doing it?

Well... there's this nasty little phenomenon (CW: NSFW) mathematician Warren D. Smith noticed nearly two decades ago...