I’m proud to have our latest research published on how long #SARSCoV2 remains infectious while airborne! We studied the fundamental processes that drive the loss of viral infectivity in the aerosol phase. #COVIDisAirborne
Here’s a thread going over some of the findings.
@ParentMishmash Interesting question btw. Actually, all of your questions have been. Thanks!
@J__Doh Here are the specific values. So, about 10 to 20 times faster decay in sunlight (depending on the season).
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
This article is a byproduct of a previous thread I wrote about the dangers of asbestos. In it, I explain what to your body after you inhale it. In short, it doesn’t go anywhere, and causes harm for years.
In the article, I discuss the history of asbestos use, how long it took for people to understand how much harm it was causing. I also dicuss how industry spent decades covering those findings up. We are still, to this day, dealing with the consequences of their actions.
Since there is talk about bringing back ASBESTOS (this is somehow true), I thought it would be useful to describe just some what happens to you when you breath this stuff into your lungs.
In short, it’s terrible.
A 🧵
What is asbestos?
Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring fibrous minerals. There are 6 types: Chrysotile, Amosite, Crocidolite, Tremolite, Actinolite and Anthophyllite.
They have some useful properties (including heat resistance, strength, durability and well insulating)
Because of these physical properties, humans have been using asbestos for thousands of years for a variety of purposes. In the 20th century, it began to be used as a building material.
In the 1970s, the health risks associated with asbestos exposure began to be recognized.
We just had an article published in ACS Central Science on the how the pH of exhaled aerosol evolves over time
As we’ve previously reported, respiratory aerosol pH (high pH!) is a driver of SARS-CoV-2 decay. Meaning, understanding the pH dynamics is important for estimating risk
This paper is a step in the direction of improving our undertanding of exhaled aerosol pH.
Apologies up front, this thread is a bit of a long one. There’s a lot of background/context to get through to appreciate why this work has been published in such a high impact journal.
Disclaimer at the top: I am not a modeler, I am an experimentalist (that occasionally publishes simple models).
The data used to make these estimates are from experimental studies. The absolute values will not be exact, but the general trends and scales will be accurate.
Let’s go through these conditions one at a time.
First is the ACH. ACH describes the rate in which the air (and aerosol) in a room is removed over time. Shown below is the relationship between ACH and the time taken for 99% of the air in a room to be replaced with fresh air:
Background: Studying how long and why microbes lose viability while in the air is critical in estimating risk, and in designing effective mitigation strategies.
These measurements are extremely challenging. I discussed them in an explainer video: