Protective Measures

(Photo by Roberto Moreno in Scopio)

The weather in most of the UK has turned now. It’s often this quick a transition. We have some hot (by our standards) weather and then suddenly it begins to cool, maybe just a little like this year, maybe more noticeably.

During the day it’s still a lovely temperature for visiting in each other’s gardens or having a cup of tea at an outdoor café. But we can feel autumn coming, and beyond it the grim winter.

What am I seeing and hearing about protective measures for those months when people are indoors much of the time with each other? Not at an individual level, but at a level that affects organizations or facilities?

For the schools, hardly anything. The government’s inaction indicates they believe it’s okay for children and their teachers to repeatedly get sick. Mask mandates are long gone. Few children are vaccinated. Very few schools have improved ventilation or added air filtration. In a few instances, parents have raised the money to add air filtration. Sometimes they’ve gotten it added and sometimes, even with professionally done specifications, they’ve been blocked. I’ll rant if I say any more about that.

What about shops? What about groups?

For most… similar pretending that there’s no problem with behaving like it’s 2019 again. But a few have put protective measures in place or are taking steps to do so.

In the warm months, for some shops ventilation has been an easy first step. Open all the doors and windows wide, and Mother Nature keeps fresh air moving through.

One shop mentioned recently that they think they’ll need to require face masks again soon.

I was also asked for advice about what air filtration units to buy for a couple of small shops. They rent their space and cannot put in permanent equipment, so they need portable standalone equipment. They found it bewildering to sift through the features available and calculate the right unit capacity to achieve enough air turnover.

They’ve got a shortlist to choose from now. They will have HEPA filters with UV-C capable of turning over the air five times or so per hour. The units will be in place before they have to close the doors against autumn chill. An Italian study in schools found this type of filtration, without the UV-C feature, reduced COVID transmission by 82%. (UV-C radiation can kill most of the microscopic pathogens in the air. It’s carcinogenic. To use it safely, it needs to be shielded.)

One of the shop owners said adding this to their shops isn’t just about the pandemic. Before the pandemic, running a retail shop meant getting exposed to and coming down with every respiratory bug in the community. She’s had almost three years of not catching colds or flu due to pandemic precautions. She likes not getting sick.

We meet with a group of friends one evening every week. A couple of weeks ago, that was on our patio with social distancing. It was so warm that even at 22:30 the two of us who feel cold most easily were still comfortable in short sleeves. We won’t have weather like that again until next summer at best.

When we meet indoors, the home that hosts most often runs a big HEPA air filter.

I’ve seen a few small American businesses, especially restaurants, advertising on social media about their HEPA filters and how often they turn over the air in their space every hour.

I’ve seen people on social media exchanging information about which dentists not only use high quality PPE, but require patients to wear masks except when actually getting treated and have a good-sized HEPA filter running in every space in the building. It’s devilishly hard for Britons to change which dentist they attend. Most dentists here aren’t accepting new NHS patients. But it isn’t so hard in the USA, and some people there are changing dentists specifically to get better protective measures. As business pundits would say, the market is speaking about which methods are preferred.

Social media also shows a steady stream of people, especially in the States, switching to a different doctor’s practice if their doctor isn’t having at least the staff wear high quality face masks. Even more people (in both countries) mention postponing medical care if there aren’t at least face masks on staff at the facility.

Some big businesses have already recognized what direction they need to go about this, often without making announcements about it. In family discussion over the weekend, we laughed about a grocery store in a huge chain that has put in such hefty air filtration, it’s blowing bags of potato chips off the shelf. Laughed, and loved the fact that they’re doing it. I’m not sure what their rate of staff absences is, but it will be interesting to see what effect the filters have on staff sick leave.

Nobody really likes getting sick with anything. All our lives we assumed that such things as flu and the common cold were unavoidable. Maybe we don’t have to put up with so much of that after all.

That sound of footsteps seems to be a quiet segment of the population voting with their feet about protective measures.