Reverse Psychological Warfare

 

Become the wolf amongst the sheep!  This is hilarious!

Polluted Areas and Coronavirus Deaths

Disproportionate Rate Of Coronavirus Deaths In Polluted Areas

New Research Shows Disproportionate Rate of Coronavirus Deaths in Polluted Areas.  The analysis examined air pollution and coronavirus deaths in the roughly 3,100 U.S. counties and found a close correlation between levels of hazardous pollutants and the per-capita death rate from COVID-19.

Because the virus affects the respiratory system, researchers have rushed to study the potential association between mortality rates and air pollution. Early studies, including one looking at the particulate matter — distinct from HAPs, but often found with them — have suggested a link.

Cancer Alley is the industrial corridor that runs from Baton Rouge to New Orleans across the Mississippi River and is dubbed "Cancer Alley" because of potential health threats associated with local chemical pollution. The case rate is very significant in this area. 

Coronavirus patients are three times more likely to die from the disease in places with dirty air than those with clean air, according to a new study.  The authors conclude that air pollution, which disproportionately affects Americans of color, will drive COVID higher (19% of all deaths). Researchers suggest that people in areas with the worst air pollution will have higher COVID rates than people with clean air. African Americans and other low-income populations living in heavily polluted areas are exposed to higher levels of PM 2.5 particles compared to less polluted areas, followed by stays in homes. 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finding is particularly relevant because air pollution can exacerbate fundamental health problems that increase the likelihood of dying from COVID-19. This is in line with a recent Harvard study showing that there is a significant association between the number of people with Covid19 infection and the death rate from the infection. People living in areas of high air pollution are also at a higher risk of dying from COIDV-19 than those who do not, and that this is also the case for people living in low-income areas in the United States.    

Why Wearing A Face Mask Outdoors Isn't Necessary

Each orange dot represents a dose of respiratory particles capable

of infecting someone if inhaled by breathing, speaking, and shouting

In the worst-case scenario (lower right corner) – shouting or singing in a closed space for an hour – a person with Covid-19 releases. 

Risk of coronavirus infection changes depending on the number of contagious particles you breathe in. El Pais illustrated the differences when you take certain measures, namely wearing masks, ventilation, and decreased exposure time.  The suggestions are based on statistical models, so there is more uncertainty than I think the explanations provide, but the sequence of illustrations provides a clear picture of what we can do — if you must do things indoors.

In the spring, health authorities failed to focus on aerosol transmission, but recent scientific publications have forced the World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC to acknowledge it. An article in the prestigious Science magazine found that there is “overwhelming evidence” that airborne transmission is a “major transmission route” for the coronavirus, and the CDC now notes that, “under certain conditions, they seem to have infected others who were more than six feet [two meters] away. These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation. Sometimes the infected person was breathing heavily, for example, while singing or exercising.”

At present, health authorities recognize three vehicles of coronavirus transmission: the small droplets from speaking or coughing, which can end up in the eyes, mouth, or nose of people standing nearby; contaminated surfaces (fomites), although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that this is the least likely way to catch the virus, a conclusion backed by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (ECDC) observation that not a single case of fomite-caused Covid-19 has been observed; then finally, there is transmission by aerosols – the inhalation of invisible infectious particles exhaled by an infected person that, once leaving the mouth, behave in a similar way to smoke. Without ventilation, aerosols remain suspended in the air and become increasingly dense as time passes.

At the beginning of the pandemic, it was believed that the large droplets we expel when we cough or sneeze was the main vehicle of transmission. But we now know that shouting and singing in indoor, poorly ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time also increases the risk of contagion. This is because speaking in a loud voice releases 50 times more virus-laden particles than when we don’t speak at all. These aerosols, if not diffused through ventilation, become increasingly concentrated, which increases the risk of infection. Scientists have shown that these particles – which we also release into the atmosphere when simply breathing and which can escape from improperly worn face masks – can infect people who spend more than a few minutes within a five-meter radius of an infected person, depending on the length of time and the nature of the interaction. In the following example, we outlined what conditions increase the risk of contagion in this situation.

If the buildings are properly ventilated, with good air conditioning,  there is less risk.  University of Colorado Boulder atmospheric chemist Jose-Luis Jimenez has released an airborne transmission pilot tool that may help us answer some of these questions, or at least provide some informed guidance.