THE BANE OF BREATHING – Should Twenty Feet Be the New Six Feet?

As the reputed “wonder man,” I reflect here on the rewards of noticing and celebrating life’s many small wonders. It’s a pretty easy gig when I’m feeling safe and secure; not so easy when the world is in turmoil and many of us fear for our lives.
Nonetheless, I’ve always preached that wonder lives virtually anywhere—indoors as well as out, in arctic cold and Saharan heat, all around us…and even within us.
It also exists in the ominous black tunnel of the worst imaginable crisis. In something as simple and taken-for-granted as a breath. Except that in this tunnel that breath could be deadly.
                                                       ~  //  ~  //  ~

I’m getting pretty good at paranoia. Not so much when life is normal, but for sure now that we’re facing a pandemic.

So, during these days of social distancing, I’m keeping a keener eye than ever on how people are behaving. And for the most part, I’m impressed with how thoughtful my fellow Minneapolitans are being, not just hugging their edge of the sidewalk, but swinging wide onto the lawns and boulevards. A generous interpretation of the CDC’s and NIH’s six-foot guideline.

PHOTO: New York Times

So how did they come up with that number, six feet? The answer suggests a question: What is it that those epidemiologists do? I mean what is their job? My guess is that they walk a fine line between recommending what they know people should do and what they figure people actually will do. Set the number too low and it won’t help; too high and folks might not feel like complying…or even believe you.
             How could we have let all those poor suckers
             believe that six feet of distancing was enough?
             It should have been twenty.

The epidemiologists’ goal, after all, is not to save everyone from exposure to COVID 19; it is to save the greatest percentage of us as is reasonably possible, given all the variables, including human nature. Perhaps they’ve decided that six feet is a measure most of us can understand. It’s all about “droplets,” they say.

ONE PERSON’S DROPLET…
As I observe my fellow human beings exhibiting a range of compliance from 0% to about 300%, it’s got me thinking a lot about those realities. That thinking, informed certainly by history, tells me it’s quite likely that, sometime well after the corona virus has gone back into hiding, we’ll all learn the truth about social distancing.

Palm-to-forehead, we’ll lament God, how could they have let all those poor suckers believe that six feet of distancing was enough? It should have been twelve…
or twenty.

It might come down to the definition of what is meant by a “droplet.” Current wisdom says COVID 19 is spread primarily by droplets of saliva or mucus expelled by a cough or sneeze. Subject to gravity, they supposedly fall to the ground before traveling six feet from an infected person.

But consider this: droplets aren’t the only liquid specks coming out of a person’s mouth. Normal exhaled breath is basically vapor, which is, after all, nothing more than still-smaller droplets. And this vapor, like other aerosols, disperses into the air, which can carry it considerably farther.

        To me you’re not average and very few of you are Joes. 

In a study of how flu viruses are propelled, environmental health researchers at the University of Maryland found that droplet dispersal does indeed happen not just through coughs or sneezes, but also in the vapor produced in normal breathing. MARYLAND STUDY

And then there’s wind.

IT’S A BREEZE
Air moves. So I figured if I walk past a heavily-breathing runner or biker somewhere along East River Parkway at that officially-suggested six-foot distance, and there happens to be a breeze coming my way—even the air wake generated by that person’s movement—their breath could easily be on me, swirling around my head, in a matter of seconds.

And there’s the chink in my six-foot armor.

Further supporting my paranoia, an MIT researcher suggests the corona virus may be able to waft up to 27 feet from an infected person’s mouth—though this conclusion apparently has not yet been rigorously tested. MIT RESEARCH
 

          Consider double-arms length distancing as you might
          the filter used to remove lead from your drinking water.

So here’s what I’m asking of my loved ones: Please, please be careful out there. Use more caution than’s being asked of the average Joe. Because to me you’re not average and very few of you are Joes.

Keep in mind the illustrations above showing just how widely, and quickly, a human breath disperses. Think of that as you approach others—and be aware of which direction the wind is coming from.

Consider double-arms length distancing as you might the filter used to remove lead from your drinking water; if a filter fine enough to remove the 85 percent of it that's deemed safe by people who don’t even know you, wouldn’t 90 or 100 percent be much better?

CAST IN A NEW LIGHT – The Real Reason for the Blue-mination of City Streets

An opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune the the day caught my eye. It's by Paul Bogard, a fellow Minneapolitan, author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.

The piece is Bogard's reaction to a July 17 Strib news article headlined "LED streetlight change puts cities in new (harsher?) light." The essence of his commentary is that the growing embrace of high-color-temperature LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology for street lighting by cities across the U.S.—including his and my home base, Minneapolis/St. Paul—is an ill-considered, shortsighted decision with far-reaching effects on those cities' inhabitants, both human and otherwise.

Click on image to see Madrid street lighting 2011 vs. 2015 – IMAGE: Tech Insider

He cites research by the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization showing that light emitted by the types of LEDs being adopted— those with the bluish-white light of Kelvin color temperatures over 4,000 degrees—compromises human health, causing sleep disorders, confusing circadian rhythms and even increasing risks for some types of cancers.

He makes an equally compelling argument for the adverse effects on non-human nocturnal critters, including 30 percent of vertebrates, 60 percent of invertebrates and insects we depend on for pollination.

All this in the name of safety—one of several LED selling points Bogard refutes.

   Are there really folks who 
   enjoy seeing the view ahead impaled on those 
   slashing swords of ice?

A BUSLOAD OF ALIENS
What Bogard fails to mention is the effect the icy stare of high-Kelvin-color lighting on the human psyche. It would be bad enough if we were choosing it just for city streets. But the soulless glare also emanates from folks' back-yard security lights, lighting in public spaces and transit vehicles, and even from newer LED flashlights.

One evening this past spring, as I drove home from work well after dark, I passed a city bus. The lighting inside it was that cold, bluish color. I imagined myself riding that bus, and, barring an exceptionally friendly conversation with a fellow passenger, how utterly alien it would feel.

And don't get me going on car headlights. Are there really folks who enjoy seeing the view ahead impaled on those slashing swords of ice? I know it's judgmental, but the easiest answer is that, along with the renewed trend toward bigger, "badder" cars and trucks, this is an act of pure aggression. In your face, buddy!

PHOTO: PaulTech Network

Back in my college days I flew quite often back and forth between Minnesota and the East Coast. I witnessed, from the air, the first mass experiments in mercury vapor street lighting, another technology challenged by unfortunate coloring.

In the New York City megalopolis, one city or borough might have been awash in indifferent, blue light; another, separated by just a street, train tracks or river, in much warmer, supposedly color-corrected, but still unnatural-looking pink or yellow. And a few neighborhoods still basked in their good-old, cozy incandescent lights. I remember how those stood out, like islands of humanity in a dead sea. I thought that's where I'd live if I were down there.
 
   The fear has reared its Chicken-Little head 
   in advertising, music, politics, and a seemingly 
   endless series of zombie, dystopian-world novels 
   and films.

US VERSUS THEM
Perhaps it will shed some, well, light on this "blue-mination phenomenon to see it in its larger context.

We’re living in a world the media, along with some shameless, demagogic politicians, has convinced some of us is more dangerous than at any time in memory. Radical Muslims beating down our door; immigrants stealing our jobs and corrupting our culture; cops (or African Americans, if you're on that side of the "war") making a mockery of Amurican justice.

It seems anyone with an outsize ego or a buck to make is trying to capitalize on the amorphous, baseless fear. It's reared its Chicken-Little head in advertising, where folks are portrayed lying, intimidating and stealing—even from loved ones; in music, with aggressive, take-no-prisoners sound and lyrics, in neurotic, polarizing politics, and in a seemingly endless series of zombie, dystopian-world novels and films.

Yep, it’s us versus them or else…or else I guess it doesn't sell.

               Warm light makes us feel close, 
               welcoming and secure.

CANDLES AND CAMPFIRES
Be afraid, be very afraid, they say. Close the borders; keep your daughters home; lock every door…and kick some serious ass with those ruthless blue lights. Call me a wimp; call me old-fashioned. But in an insecure, paranoid world, keeping warm lights burning—like the proverbial home fires and candle in the window—might just go a long way toward salving the savage beast.

There's a reason human beings soften in candlelight, turn to song round the campfire, and take amazing, glowing photos is that precious light just before dusk. Warm light makes us feel close, welcoming and secure. Feelings I do not fear.