Startup Chat

Sure would be nice if trucks loaded with COVID-19 vaccine started pulling into every town; in convoy with others that are loaded with anti-viral drugs to cure those currently ill.

However, that isn’t about to happen anytime soon.

And yet people are itching for the government to lift the restrictions so that we can all get right back to doing what we used to do.

One of the big things that people want are haircuts. That sounds pretty nuts to me. Another biggie is getting nails done, and dye jobs.

Eating in restaurants also seems to have tons of built-up demand.

Now don’t get me wrong; I love restaurants. I always have. It’s fun with friends and family, or just my wife and me, and I even like it when I’m all on my own. During lockdown, we’ve ordered and picked up take-out a couple of times.

However, I am not itching to sit in a typical restaurant situation with a bunch of strangers (dare I call them Typhoid Marys).

Let’s take an example. There is a lovely sushi place just up the street. Their food is good, and we have eaten there many times. If they open up, they will only be able to manage a few tables at the recommended spacing. Staff would be passing between and around them. The sushi chefs will also be, in effect, within the customer zone. Eating there would mean exposure to approximately ten individuals. That is more people than I am currently exposed to on a very busy day.

A current busy day would be a visit to recycling, and them a grocery store, and maybe the drug store. At all of these stops, I might be within breathing range of a similar number of people as in the sushi restaurant. The difference is the length of contact. At normal rates of breathing exposure to an infected individual, it takes approximately 50 minutes of contact for infection to occur. The contact I get now lasts seconds. The only exceptions are the store cashiers, which is more like a couple of minutes or so.

Let’s do the math. Recycling, there is really no contact. At most an infected individual might be at the outer edge of recommended distance for a few seconds. Amount of exposure, assuming there is one infected person present when I am there, less than one minute.

Casual contact while in the grocery is not more significant that that at recycling. We all generally avoid each other. Sometimes, it is necessary to wait for somebody to move, so let’s say we might be exposed to an infected person for two minutes during the entire session. The drugstore is pretty similar. Let’s say somebody there is an infected citizen there, too, and I am in range for 2 more minutes.

So, casual contact from all the experiences (assuming an infected person at each venue getting into my bubble somewhat) would work out to a total of 5 minutes worth. That is one tenth of the contact required for it to matter.

The drug store and grocery checkout are another type of contact. There is talking involved, although around screens and such. Speech releases about ten times as much viral matter as simple breathing does, so any time exposed at the checkout would count a lot more than did passing people in the bakery section.

So let’s assume two minutes at each checkout, and that one of the cashiers is infected (pretty bad luck if both were).

That would put my exposure up to 30% of that needed for contagion (and that assumed being near an infected person at recycling, while shopping in both stores, and having an infected cashier at one of the stores).

Let us now compare that with running into one infected person at the sushi place. Most likely they will be there with a companion, and engaging in conversation. Let’s say nobody else has COVID, and that the infected person leaves after half an hour. How is the math on that?

Recall that two minutes with a talking cashier in a store worked out to a 20% contagion exposure. 30 minutes near a talking customer in a sushi joint carries the same risk per time, so a half hour works out to 300% of exposure.

I don’t freak out about my chore runs, but the lovely dinner is too great of a risk. A three-stop chore run adds up to 30% of contagion if there are infected folk at EVERY stop, while the sushi meal scores a 300% with a single infected patron or employee.

This is also why I am not excited about Jiu-Jitsu schools opening up.

There is no risk at all if nobody present is ill, but let’s assume a Jiu-Jitsu class with one participant who is unknowingly infected. Let us also assume a class length of one hour.

I don’t have the figures for rate of transmission compared to either breathing or speaking situations, but the deeper and more vigorous the respiration the more viral particles that are expelled, and the farther they travel.

At a recent curling event attended by 72 persons saw COVID spread from a single infected individual to 24 of the other participants.

At a choir practice where social distancing was observed, and materials were not shared by participants, 45 of 60 became infected after 2.5 hours of exposure.

Before I read about all of that, I wrongly assumed that 6 foot distancing would be enough. When indoors it is not.

There are lots of other factors. You would want to be in a well-ventilated area, but certainly not down wind of anybody who is infected. Being down wind will bring you viral particles from much greater distances. It turns out being up wind is better, but due to back currents not as much better as you’d think. Being off to the side might be best, but is also not reliable.

You also don’t want to be around people who are engaged in vigorous breathing activity. As already noted, speaking is much worse than simple breathing, and singing worse again, and people working up a real sweat is worst of all.

It might seem that with all of this that I am reluctant to getting infected, and you’d be right.

I am what could accurately be called, “old.” This situation raises the risk of an individual so afflicted exponentially. The one huge blessing of being my age is that both my wife and I are retired.

There is no work to get back to, and we don’t have any kids or grandkids to be wanting to visit. All the family that we have reside pretty far away.

For us, staying hidden away carries no great cost. We could, should we choose to, continue as we are until a vaccine arrives.

We get things delivered, do the odd run to the store, watch TV, and putter about. We like to travel, but are quite willing to NOT think about doing so anytime soon. We are missing our activities (music for Helen and Jiu-Jitsu for me).

We have both been doing our thing online with assorted Zoom get-togethers and webinars.

Helen’s music will likely start soon as her cronies get themselves organized for back-yard, well-spaced jam sessions. The risk involved in that is minimal.

For my Jiu-Jitsu things are not so rosy for a rapid return. The chance of infection is much too high for the probable benefit. Even if I were willing to risk catching COVID in exchange for some rassling-around, I am not willing to put my wife at any risk whatsoever. If I pick up the virus, she would be exposed, which is unacceptable.

I have a pretend Jiu-Jitsu partner on the way from Amazon. He is a grappling dummy that we will stuff with threaded cloth, and then dress in one of my gis. I’d love him to have a face, but his face is blank. I don’t think he will carry any sort of COVID risk.