Interesting and informative--thank you for sharing this.

Nevermind COVID-19 - I'm never going to be close to anyone speaking again. I try to not think of these things as I know they freak me out and I have to fight some "OCD" impulses. This one sure didn't help that.

I should mention I was reading in a European newspaper about a February soccer game in the hardest hit region of Italy and how it is possible the cheering and hugging at that game could be the reason for that region being hit so much harder with so many people there and close together.

Thank you.

To update: Some good news or not, depending on what this will do to the way we look.

This video, by the same group, shows how a simple washcloth in front of the speaker's mouth basically contains pretty much all the droplets (> 99%) that are normally emitted when talking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSz5Gr7gG0&feature=youtu.be

Taking extra precautions doesn't hurt. My husband uses a cloth over his face when he goes into a store. No one seems to stay 6 feet apart from one another! Disconcerting to say the least.

We are taking a thermos of hot water with us and soap and a bucket and washing our hands before we go any anywhere and washing our hands when we get out of anywhere. We use hand sanitizer wherever they offer it as well. We have not found hand sanitizer to purchase anywhere.

I cover my face with my sweater if I speak to anyone even at a great distance away. Why not? If you say it and spray it which everyone does you're potentially spraying or being sprayed on by the virus. I don't want to get this or give this.

I will probably use a cloth as we have to go into the store today. Grocery shopping is something I don't like to do and it even makes me more nervous now.

"If this is so, then why aren’t regular people being encouraged to wear masks whenever they are in public? Up to this point, the health professionals on TV have said it wasn’t necessary."

Great question! Because nobody realizes that speech is a main transmission mode, especially by the 50% who are infected but asymptomatic?

In other countries, e.g. Hong Kong or Japan, people are encouraged to wear masks.

Also, wearing a mask at the source, ie the speaker, is much more effective than trying to prevent inhalation by wearing a mask once spit droplets are in the air and moved by wind, air flow or AC/heating. Think of a spray bottle. If you put a cloth right at the nuzzle, you'll catch everything. Try to catch the droplets at a 3 foot difference.

Also, I'd really like to see those studies that say wearing a mask is ineffective at preventing flu outbreaks. I think they re not based on testing in the lab but rather on epidemiological studies of people's behavior.

Plus, particles like measles are way smaller than the Coronavirus, so can become aerosolized, which supposedly this virus doesn't do.

Simply put, they are telling us we don't need masks because there aren't enough and the health care workers do not even have them. They were so afraid that everyone would go out and hoard them (like the TP!) that they didn't want to say that you need to have them. In other countries, they cannot even leave their homes without a mask. I mean think about it, if every single person had on a mask, then the virus couldn't spread like it is! I believe that it will come to that here too. No leaving your home and going into public without a mask on.

Actually, you don't need a proper surgical or N95 mask to stop the virus being emitted via talking, both in face to face interaction and by spraying spit droplets on surfaces. A washable cloth that's only covering your MOUTH suffices.

Now, at the literally receiving end, an N95, properly fitting mask that covers mouth and nose is required, and it's not as effective.

There was an employee at my grocery store the other day who decided to stand by the exit door and thank everyone for shopping and to have a nice day. I wanted to kill her. And other employees were loitering near the exit aisle. Sheez.

That video... gross. Dh knew why they weren’t recommending masks for everyone right from the beginning. We were supposed to fly to Florida in 2/23 and we drove instead because he refused to get on a plane with or without a mask. Lately when there’s a remote chance I will be in proximity to a person outside our household I have been holding one of those cheapie thin white facecloths in front of my face and throwing it away. Our Handy Guy uses the Home Depot white cleaning rags that come in a pack of 100.

KSWL,

here's the interesting info: If you sit next to someone on a 15 hr flight but don't talk to them (or rather, they don't talk to you), you should be just fine, even if seats are only 18" wide and you're sitting shoulder to shoulder. Now, if the flight attendant talks "down" to you, that's where it gets iffy because droplets fall down due to gravity.