Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!
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@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Dragoon said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Mason_Wheeler said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Kinda unrelated, but it reminds me of one time in middle school
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How old are you?
15.Does "middle school" mean something different in Poland? Because in the USA that would typically be your second year of high school.
Middle school is different across the US even. In my school district growing up middle school was 7-8 grade only.
Indeed. When my kids were in school, middle school in their district was 7–8, high school was 9–12, but I think some nearby districts had 3 years of middle school, including either 6 or 9. When I was that age, middle school was called junior high school and included 7–9, with high school being 10–12, except I went to a private school and for us, junior high was only 7–8, and 9 was part of high school, but all other organizations followed the public school system. Which quite annoyed me; when I was in 9th grade, I was in high school but still had to attend junior high church group, and such.
Yeah, when I was in school we didn't have middle school.
Elementary K - 6
JR High 7 - 8
SR High 9 - 12My bigger kids went to a Catholic school that was K - 8 (this was generally just referred to as Elementary) and then went to high school for 9 - 12.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It seems super variable across the US though.
Although the general plan of K–12 education is fairly consistent, AFAIK, it's up to each district to draw the lines between elementary, middle, and high school, and there are over 14000 school districts in the US. And that's not including private schools, which don't necessarily use the same lines the surrounding public schools do (as mine didn't).
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@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It seems super variable across the US though.
Although the general plan of K–12 education is fairly consistent, AFAIK, it's up to each district to draw the lines between elementary, middle, and high school, and there are over 14000 school districts in the US. And that's not including private schools, which don't necessarily use the same lines the surrounding public schools do (as mine didn't).
Yeah. When people talk about the "US Educational System" as if the federal government sets one unified system, I have to laugh. As with so many other things, there isn't a single system. There are bunches and bunches of overlapping, contradictory (and sometimes complementary!) systems, each with its own parts.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It seems super variable across the US though.
Although the general plan of K–12 education is fairly consistent, AFAIK, it's up to each district to draw the lines between elementary, middle, and high school, and there are over 14000 school districts in the US. And that's not including private schools, which don't necessarily use the same lines the surrounding public schools do (as mine didn't).
Yeah. When people talk about the "US Educational System" as if the federal government sets one unified system, I have to laugh. As with so many other things, there isn't a single system. There are bunches and bunches of overlapping, contradictory (and sometimes complementary!) systems, each with its own parts.
Even within the same local systems. NYC likely being the most complex.
When I heard you had to apply and take a test to get into one of the decent High Schools, I was like I already had too much of this shit when applying for collect.
And then for Kindergarten for my now 7 year old, I applied to ~10 schools (all of the better ones are by lottery). I only applied to 4 colleges.
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@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
it's up to each district to draw the lines between elementary, middle, and high school,
I would think it basically comes down to size of buildings vs number of students. Adjust as needed. (middle was 4-8 for me)
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@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Yeah, when I was in school we didn't have middle school.
I've always used Jr High School and Middle School interchangeably.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Yeah, when I was in school we didn't have middle school.
I've always used Jr High School and Middle School interchangeably.
Yeah. Although some people (administrators usually ) get bent out of shape if you use the wrong one for their of a school. People are weird.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Yeah, when I was in school we didn't have middle school.
I've always used Jr High School and Middle School interchangeably.
Yeah. Although some people (administrators usually ) get bent out of shape if you use the wrong one for their of a school. People are weird.
I suppose you can imagine which term that would motivate me to use.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Yeah, when I was in school we didn't have middle school.
I've always used Jr High School and Middle School interchangeably.
In my mind Jr was only 7 - 8. Middle would usually have at least 3 grades.
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@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Yeah, when I was in school we didn't have middle school.
I've always used Jr High School and Middle School interchangeably.
In my mind Jr was only 7 - 8. Middle would usually have at least 3 grades.
They call it "Middle School" here and it's just 7 - 8. I'm familiar with districts where it's 7 - 9 and called Jr High.
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@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@dcon said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@dcon said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@dcon said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
With our group of 12-ish, do you think that they will buy that we are from the same household?
Wear matching T-shirts!
LOL - that's not a bad idea. Not sure everyone would join in but it could help.
Make sure they have the right funny/inflammatory message too!
Trust me, that was exactly my idea.
We'll need pictures... We don't mind smudged-out faces!
I'm still trying to find the appropriate message. I see some on Amazon, but none that do it for me.
Ideas from my husband:
Pandemic, protests, and politicians. Oh my!
we all got covid and all we got were these lousy shirts
Virus lives matter
Pandemics? Protest Riots? Rabid politicians? Fuhgeddaboutit! I'm from [our neighborhood]. We call that Tuesday...
I think if we do a custom one, fewer words will look better (and more readable).
I'm not getting any support from my family about the shirts.
Regardless, this might come in handy:
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This is in really poor taste.
I mean, Comic Sans? Really?!
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@Zerosquare I see no Comic Sans.
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@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Zerosquare I see no Comic Sans.
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@Zerosquare Ah. Since your post wasn't a reply to anything, it was unclear what this referred to.
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@Zerosquare Since they used all capitals, it’s not that obviously Comic Sans, so not that great an offence against typographic sensibilities. And at least they didn’t use Arial.
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@Zerosquare I absolutely expected the smaller text to say "take it easy".
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Virus lives matter
Waiting for a biology nerd to do some ing.
I don’t self-identify as a biology nerd, but that classification probably isn’t up to me, is it? Okay. Here goes.
The whole “viruses¹ aren’t alive” thing irks me. Obviously, yes, it depends on solely on your chosen definition of “living”, but that doesn’t imply a definition that excludes viruses¹ is a good one.
They have genetic material. They self-replicate.
“But they need a host, they can’t reproduce on their own,” comes the usual claim. So what? Take the host out of any unambiguously-living parasite’s life cycle and see how well it fares. Plenty of parasitising animals depend upon a host for reproduction too. What makes them (or rather, viruses¹) special?
Self-replication is easily the biggest sticking point for “is it alive,” but using the exact same genetic code as all other life settles it, as far as I’m concerned. Viruses¹ are “simply” parasites on a tiny, microscopic scale.
It’s all just humans continuing to try to categorise everything into an endless tree of boxes (all alike) anyway. Reality doesn’t care whether you call something “alive.”
¹: CC @hungrier – “virii”
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@kazitor said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
“virii”
FWIW, “viruses” is actually correct. That's because the term “virus” has no separate plural form in Latin, as it is an uncountable mass noun (I think it means something like “slime” there). This was all very well at the time, but now that we have a deeper understanding and can actually count them, we need a plural form. That is, however, a modern need so we use a modern plural form.
</>
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@kazitor said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Obviously, yes, it depends on solely on your chosen definition of “living”, but that doesn’t imply a definition that excludes viruses¹ is a good one.
There are no good definitions of what is “living” anyway.
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@kazitor said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Virus lives matter
Waiting for a biology nerd to do some ing.
I don’t self-identify as a biology nerd, but that classification probably isn’t up to me, is it? Okay. Here goes.
The whole “viruses¹ aren’t alive” thing irks me. Obviously, yes, it depends on solely on your chosen definition of “living”, but that doesn’t imply a definition that excludes viruses¹ is a good one.
They have genetic material. They self-replicate.
“But they need a host, they can’t reproduce on their own,” comes the usual claim. So what? Take the host out of any unambiguously-living parasite’s life cycle and see how well it fares. Plenty of parasitising animals depend upon a host for reproduction too. What makes them (or rather, viruses¹) special?
Self-replication is easily the biggest sticking point for “is it alive,” but using the exact same genetic code as all other life settles it, as far as I’m concerned. Viruses¹ are “simply” parasites on a tiny, microscopic scale.
It’s all just humans continuing to try to categorise everything into an endless tree of boxes (all alike) anyway. Reality doesn’t care whether you call something “alive.”
¹: CC @hungrier – “virii”
My not alive comes from HS Biology (maybe earlier) in the 80s. While I majored in bio, I do not recall ever going over classification.
And I recently looked up virii versus viruses and discovered viruses is correct.
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@kazitor said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
¹: CC @hungrier – “virii”
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@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
My not alive comes from HS Biology (maybe earlier) in the 80s. While I majored in bio, I do not recall ever going over classification.
Everything about biology tends towards being messy with complicated special cases.
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@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@kazitor said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
“virii”
FWIW, “viruses” is actually correct. That's because the term “virus” has no separate plural form in Latin, as it is an uncountable mass noun (I think it means something like “slime” there). This was all very well at the time, but now that we have a deeper understanding and can actually count them, we need a plural form. That is, however, a modern need so we use a modern plural form.
</>
It’s my understanding that if a Latin plural were desired, it should be viri (or virī) rather than virii anyway.
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@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Maintain 6 feet of distance of others while swimming
Maintain 6 miles of distance of alligators, crocodiles, and sharks while swimming!
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Just was at the supermarket and while I was standing in the checkout line - the one place where people actually do the distance thing because the floor is clearly marked with lines - a group of young guys approached. All of them wearing their masks under their nose. One guy stood directly behind me. Look, if there's lines on the floor and I'm standing between two of them, you better not stand between the same lines.
Usually I ignore people, but this time I looked at him and said:
annoyed I guess that thing with the nose or the distance you didn't quite understand, huh?
snarkily No, unfortunately not.I mean, we can discuss how much sense the different rules make and how effective they are - I hate wearing that mask too - but as long as that's the rule you fucking follow it. You absolutely don't gain anything from wearing that mask below your nose.
I hate people, and adolescents clearly are the worst.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Just was at the supermarket and while I was standing in the checkout line - the one place where people actually do the distance thing because the floor is clearly marked with lines
Ugh...they over do it here. Drives me nuts because you quickly run out of sensible places to line up. Like, someone is up there standing at the register. Instead of standing at the end of the belt, which is over the nominal 6 feet away, they'll back up and stand at the opening of the aisle directly behind the register. I mean, OK, you don't want to block people walking by, but now you're 20 fucking feet away from the people up there and making it difficult for everyone else you fucking retards!
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
adolescents clearly are the worst.
Locally (as in the village I live in) adolescents and young adults have been the source of constant grief throughout the lockdown due to not just breaking the rules but sometimes in particularly idiotic ways.
Now to be fair this could just be that they're more obvious about it than proper adults and/or because it happens out in public, rather than because they're the worst offenders.
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@loopback0 said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
adolescents clearly are the worst.
Locally (as in the village I live in) adolescents and young adults have been the source of constant grief throughout the lockdown due to not just breaking the rules but sometimes in particularly idiotic ways.
Now to be fair this could just be that they're more obvious about it than proper adults and/or because it happens out in public, rather than because they're the worst offenders.
I mean, I don't mind if they're outside in their own group together (if that's breaking the rules, it probably no longer is here) or whatever, but if they're deliberately standing directly behind me with their mask not on I get that kindly piss off feeling.
EDIT:
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:Usually I ignore people, but this time I looked at him and said:
Representative picture
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Here in Buenos Aires, cases are starting to get out of control despite not even starting to reopen (only some restrictions were lifted but it was not a reopening, at least in paper). So we're back to square one starting on July 1st until at least July 17th.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Karla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Maintain 6 feet of distance of others while swimming
Maintain 6 miles of distance of alligators, crocodiles, and sharks while swimming!
That's the plan.
Only sharks could be that close and not usually.
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@loopback0 said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Fun fact: masks and chin guards are equally effective at stopping the virus.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Fun fact: masks and chin guards are equally effective at stopping the virus.
I got the impression that the masks aren't to protect you, they're to protect everyone else from your germs. You spread fewer particles with a mask than without. (Not "none", just "fewer." Statistically useful, but far from a perfect defense.)
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@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I got the impression that the masks aren't to protect you, they're to protect everyone else from your germs. You spread fewer particles with a mask than without. (Not "none", just "fewer." Statistically useful, but far from a perfect defense.)
Surgical masks (like the one shown on the picture above) work like that.
FFP2/N95 masks do protect both yourself and others.
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@Zerosquare said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I got the impression that the masks aren't to protect you, they're to protect everyone else from your germs. You spread fewer particles with a mask than without. (Not "none", just "fewer." Statistically useful, but far from a perfect defense.)
Surgical masks (like the one shown on the picture above) work like that.
To be exact - it's the most you can count on with regards to surgical masks working at all in this case. Which is not the same as surgical masks working in this case. After all, their main purpose is to protect against liquids falling down on the surgical table, not to stop or disinfect air. They aren't even all that effective at stopping sneezes.
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If surgical masks were useless at preventing infections like you seem to imply, why do surgeons wear them?
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@Zerosquare you probably missed my edit.
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
After all, their main purpose is to protect against liquids falling down on the surgical table, not to stop or disinfect air.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I hate people, and adolescents clearly are the worst.
You are a teacher, aren't you?
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@magnusmaster said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Here in Buenos Aires, cases are starting to get out of control despite not even starting to reopen
Well, isn't that now the time of the yearly flu season in Argentina?
So that's what I expect to happen there now.
And just wait for northern late autumn, and cases will go up here in Europe or North America again, too.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Fun fact: masks and chin guards are equally effective at stopping the virus.
Nope. Current recommendations are that masks do protect yourself (provided they're actually covering mouth and nose) from others, even if imperfectly. It's all about reducing the rate of problems to the point where the probability of having a problem from your activities is low enough. Getting the risk to zero is crazy hard, but getting the risk to “below the level of the other risks you take on a day-to-day basis” isn't too difficult at all. Better yet is if everyone else wears them as well when not staying distanced, but the first thing is always to take the steps yourself that you can.
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@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Fun fact: masks and chin guards are equally effective at stopping the virus.
ignoring anything contaminated with crooked politicians
Doesn't have to be corruption. It can be simply the politician's syllogism. What's simple, very visible, involves ordering people around, and has a plausible theory of how it's supposed to work that most of the voters who aren't educated in this particular subject will accept in a heartbeat as the perfect truth?
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Statistically useful
Source?
Well, here's the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html
It doesn't protect you, but it means that the filthy, germ-riddled particles you expel all over the landscape are partially blocked. The link explicitly mentions that both talking and shouting expel potentially-virus-laden respiratory droplets, which even a cruddy cloth mask can (presumably: partially) block. The CDC mostly talks about pre-symtomatic and asymptomatic Covid carriers, who (last I heard) have a lower viral load than someone who's symptomatic.
And on the flip side, here's a study from the Annals of Internal Medicine. (WARNING: I have no idea if these guys are legit, I found them linked from a blog called Foundation of Economic Education, which I am baselessly assuming is some conservative-leaning think tank/propagandist.)
The article showed that when you cough through a mask, fewer viruses get out than when you don't wear a mask. Surgical masks are apparently nearly-useless (~5% blocked), while cloth masks seem to cut germs by ~30%. (The article describes it as the masks "not protecting", which suggests to me that they've got an agenda to either disprove masks, or possibly please just get published somewhere.) And note that this is about coughing, which is a lot more energetic than the "talking" and "shouting" that the CDC says masks are for.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Statistically useful
Source?
Well, here's the CDC:
There's a reason I quoted the words "statistically useful" and not any other part of your post. It's okay to believe the masks work (as long as you give the same amount of respect to those who believe otherwise) - what's not okay is to claim the numbers are on your side when they aren't (because e.g. nobody has run valid studies yet).
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And on the flip side, here's a study from the Annals of Internal Medicine. (WARNING: I have no idea if these guys are legit, I found them linked from a blog called Foundation of Economic Education, which I am baselessly assuming is some conservative-leaning think tank/propagandist.)
Heh. You immediately assume the worst out of it, and yet you failed to mention the big bold warning at the very beginning that says "This article has been retracted." And it was retracted because the methods they used have the error margin larger than the values measured (meaning all numbers reported are effectively dice rolls. All of them.)
Regardless of results, there's another thing I've been thinking about. Is the inverse-square law in force when it comes to spreading the virus through face holes? If so, doesn't a mask <0.25 inch from your face make virtually zero difference compared to just standing one step farther away, even if it does block 50% of germs?
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Regardless of results, there's another thing I've been thinking about. Is the inverse-square law in force when it comes to spreading the virus through face holes? If so, doesn't a mask <0.25 inch from your face make virtually zero difference compared to just standing one step farther away, even if it does block 50% of germs?
I have no idea what this statement is supposed to mean.
Let's go with your assumptions:No mask, distance of 6 feet: virus load = A
No mask, distance of 7 feet: virus load = (6/7)^2 * A = 73.5% AMask, distance of 6 feet: virus load = 50% A
Mask, distance of 7 feet: virus load = (6/7)^2 * 50% * A = 36.7% ANotably, the distance of the mask to the face is irrelevant (in this simplified model) assuming it covers completely.
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@topspin I was thinking more like 2 vs 3 feet away, as this is the usual distances I see in queues in grocery shops.
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@topspin also. As I understand it, the rather pitiful protection by surgical masks is still important (at least that's how argument goes) because ultimately, the problem is binary - either you become a carrier or not. And to become a carrier, you need to get transmitted a certain amount of the virus. If the mask were to cut the spread by 50%, and the inverse-square law is in effect, it effectively means the mask reduces the unsafe distance by 40%. So there exists some distance where it's safe to be in with a mask but unsafe to be without.
What is this distance?