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CDC Says Ebola Droplets Can Only Travel 3 Feet … But MIT Research Shows Sneezes Can Travel Up to 20 Feet
This week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted that Ebola can travel through the air in aerosols, but claims that it can never go more than 3 feet.
Let's check their math ...
CDC (like the World Health Organization) admits that Ebola can be spread through sneezing or coughing.
But the CDC itself admits that flu droplets can travel 6 feet.
Mythbusters demonstrated that sneezes can nail people some 17 feet away:
But engineers at MIT show that sneezes can actually travel up to 200 times farther than previously thought ... up to 20 feet.
How?
“[The study] changes our current ideas of how far germs can spread in aerosols such as coughs or sneezes,” Mary B. Farone, Ph.D., associate professor of biology at Middle Tennessee State University, told weather.com. “We used to think if we could see the spray, that was the limit of the dissemination, but this study shows that tiny particles, such as bacteria and viruses, can be spread much further on gas clouds.”
MIT explains:
A novel study by MIT researchers shows that coughs and sneezes have associated gas clouds that keep their potentially infectious droplets aloft over much greater distances than previously realized.“When you cough or sneeze, you see the droplets, or feel them if someone sneezes on you,” says John Bush, a professor of applied mathematics at MIT, and co-author of a new paper on the subject. “But you don’t see the cloud, the invisible gas phase. The influence of this gas cloud is to extend the range of the individual droplets, particularly the small ones.”
Indeed, the study finds, the smaller droplets that emerge in a cough or sneeze may travel five to 200 times further than they would if those droplets simply moved as groups of unconnected particles — which is what previous estimates had assumed. The tendency of these droplets to stay airborne, resuspended by gas clouds, means that ventilation systems may be more prone to transmitting potentially infectious particles than had been suspected.
***
The researchers used high-speed imaging of coughs and sneezes, as well as laboratory simulations and mathematical modeling, to produce a new analysis of coughs and sneezes from a fluid-mechanics perspective. Their conclusions upend some prior thinking on the subject.
***
The study finds that droplets 100 micrometers — or millionths of a meter — in diameter travel five times farther than previously estimated, while droplets 10 micrometers in diameter travel 200 times farther. Droplets less than 50 micrometers in size can frequently remain airborne long enough to reach ceiling ventilation units.
A cough or sneeze is a “multiphase turbulent buoyant cloud,” as the researchers term it in the paper, because the cloud mixes with surrounding air before its payload of liquid droplets falls out, evaporates into solid residues, or both.
The study notes:
Our key findings are as follows. The turbulent multiphase cloud plays a critical role in extending the range of the majority of pathogen-bearing drops that accompany human coughs and sneezes. Smaller droplets (less than 50 µm diameter) can remain suspended in the cloud long enough for the cough to reach heights where ventilation systems can be contaminated (4–6 m).
6 meters equals 19.685 feet.
While Slate may have gotten the numbers wrong, they made an entertaining video about the MIT study:
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I am a former physician/researcher who spent the last 25 years in clinical medical research - although the last 15 or so years in research design (methodology) and programming for od databases, etc. for these studies. I was NOT a pulmonary specialist by training, but I can assure folks that these figures by the CDC, MIT, MythBusters and other researchers are NONSENSE.
There are too many variables involved to make an accurate and reliable estimation of the distance. A few of the variables (off the top of my head) include (in a room or outside): temperature, humidity, the size of the droplets, the force of the air expelled from the lungs by sneezing or coughing, the volume of air expelled, the humidity of the air expelled, the concentration of Ebola Virus per volume of air expelled, air movement, air exchange rates and so on.
For example: If you are in a mid-size conference room with Bob (with definitively diagnosed active Ebola proven by tests to be expelled whenever he sneezes or coughs) his forceful sneezing or coughing, tiny water droplets with Ebola virus will definitely be expelled into the room air. However, if the room is extremely well ventilated with a high air-volume exchange rate (by open windows and/or high volume air conditioning/ventilation system; and the room humidity is very low, and the air temperature rather hiigh, then the water droplets that emerge from his lungs will be more quickly dispersed (less concentrated in a given space) and the droplets will evaporate very fast.
On the other hand, if the same room has closed windows, poor ventilation (very low rates of air exchange), is comfortably cool, and is very humid, then the identical coughing and sneezing by Bob will result in droplets remaining in the room air longer and thus traveling further across that room - perhaps even filling the room, but at a low water droplet to room air volume ratio (concentration).
HOWEVER, has it been be proven yet that Ebola is transmitted via air expelled from the lungs in ALL infected Ebola subjects? Or do only some infected subjects (perhaps at highly advanced stages of the disease) expell Ebola from their lungs? And is there a "minimum exposure" level necessary to be infected by Ebola-containing water droplets in the air? Does a short-term, high concentration exposure to Ebola water droplets? Or is a long-term, high concentration of Ebola water droplets necessary? Or repeated short-term, high concentration exposures? Further, for the non-infected subject exposed to these conditions, there are also many variables, such as his inhalation (inspiratory) volume, exhalation (expiratory volume), respiratory rate, etc.(The air is the lungs and bronchi are NOT completely inhaled and exhaled with each breath. There is so-called "residual volume" of air in the lungs and bronchi; and this residual volume changes (someone sitting quietly as opposed to someone running at "high speed" on a treadmill in a gym.)
In addition, by what mechanism (route) does the Ebola virus infect a person? If all other factors above are held constant, is exposure to the mucosa (tissue lining) of the nose and or mouth sufficient? Or do the lung's bronchial tubes (bronchi) the route of entry by the Ebola water droplet? Or do he Ebola water droplets need to be alveoli within the lungs, where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged between bool and inhaled air? Added to that is the fact that the nose is an especially effective "filter" for larger particles and water droplets; the mouth is also a "filter", but less effective. The upper bronchi also "filter" out larger particles, which are later expelled from the mouth as sputum or simply swallowed. In short, most inhaled larger particles and water droplets do NOT even make into deep into the lung tissue issue, as they are "filtered" out beforehand. It is only the tiniest inhaled particles and water droplets that travel deep into the lung tissue proper - and as noted above a big factor here is inspiratory and expiratory volumes, respiratory rate, etc.
Finally, if a pesron is infected only by exposure to deepest tissues in the lungs (alveoli), then the same issues discussed above come into play regarding: duration of each exposure, number and frequency of exposures, concentration of Ebola vrus per droplet, size of the droplets, and so on. For example, maybe repeated, short-term exposures to high Ebola concentration droplets, small-size droplets are necessary for a person breathing slowly are required? And we will not even attempt to discuss a person's immune system status. Or perhaps just a few, short-term exposures to high Ebola concentration droplets, small-size droplets are necessary for a person breathing rapidly with very high inspiratory and expiratory volumes (such as someone doing exercises) are necessary? And we will not even attempt to discuss a person's immune system status.
This is all I can think of off the "top of my head" right now. (It has been over 30 years since medical school and residency and now about almost 16 years since I was actively, clinically involved with patients/subjects on a routine basis, so my knowledge of pulmonary physiology and pulmonary pathology is a little "rusty".)
In short, from my research on inhaled gases and other projects involving the respiratory system, I can assure that the figures put out by the organizations mentioned in the article above are pure bullshit.
John-Henry Hill, M.D.
retired physician/researcher/programmer
Web: http://JohnHenryHill.Wordpress.com
I'm pretty sure the drops can travel 21 or 22 feet and with updrafts who knows how far? (What is that in metric?)
CDC --one can one say obviously CDC has their head up their ass and are pissing in their own mouths. (or something)
Captain Solyndra
won't let Obola get out of control until, after they suck another couple of trillion out of the tax payers wallet
It could happen GW, their in the testing stage
There are nastier things to worry about that come out of other orifices.
The other study that had headlines yesterday and today - about how ebola can stay live on hard surfaces for 50 days - ALSO included an aerosol test that got no press that I can see. In the aerosol test, ebola stayed alive for 90 minutes. So 17 feet away and it's got 90 minutes to nail you.
Wahoo,
Thank you for pointing that out!!! Awesome catch!!!
All bets off come fall/winter weather.
Big issue to watch for, IMO, is for Ebola transmission numbers jumping up in cooler weather, like flu seasonally does, even though Ebola not airborne like flu.
Most reasons that flu numbers go up in fall & winter are favorable to other viruses then, too, including Ebola, IMO. All history to date on Ebola transmission is in hot & humid environments, it will be a first seeing what it does in our cooler & drier winter environment, especially as we already know it's both viable longer & travels further in aerosol form then when cooler.Obolo to import Eboleans:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/28/lawmaker-claims-plans-may-be-...
Obama says, 'Ebola is thicker than water. Fool me - you can't get ebola again.'
Its like government inflation figures. Much lower than private research numbers.
So whats the deal here. If this were extremely contagious, wouldn't we have new cases popping up by now? Or are they, and we just aren't hearing about them, or what?
In response to a comment below:
“µm” means micrometers … i.e. one millionth of a meter. Ebola viruses are only 80 nanometers in diameter, and up to 14,000 nanometers long. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. As such, Ebola virus filaments can easily fit within a 50 micrometer size droplet.
To put that into perspective, the average coffee filter is 20-24 microns.
Pretty damn small. A 50 micron filter still looks like a thin but solid sheet.
One sneeze on a subway car landing on your clothes...
Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine: People Without Symptoms Or Fever May Still Spread Ebola
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2014/10/26/60-minutes-just-broke-new-details-on-the-dallas-ebola-case-heres-what-they-revealed/
1. Whether intentionally or not, Duncan misled authorities about his exposure to Ebola.
2. The hospital was unprepared, partly because the nation wasn’t ready.
3. The Ebola patient presented unprecedented challenges.
Duncan’s vomit and diarrhea also presented logistical challenges; it was all hazardous waste, because anything with Duncan’s bodily fluids could infect someone else. And he was producing an unbelievable amount of it.
“I’ve been in health care for nearly 20 years,” ICU nurse John Mulligan told 60 Minutes, “and I’ve never emptied as much trash as just from the waste of his constant diarrhea.”
tmi...too much information. but thanks for the info.
sorry. i put that on the important need to know category. the detail supports the fact that an ordinary hospital setting doesn't have the resources to handle ebola cases. nurses and hospital staff are over worked as it is. if ebola patients produce high volumes of the stuff which is then carried through the rest of the hospital then thats a problem.
is 3 different than 20?
different "from", not different "than"... otherwise, however, you are correct: there is no difference.
Airport worker threatened with termination for wearing protective gear
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/047424_Ebola_transmission_protective_gear_air...
Is there a dress code at work? Is there a uniform or are employees allowed to wear their own clothes? Can the protective gear be reasonably considered a safety hazard? Will it lead to accidents or other unsafe work conditions?
Depending on the answers, I say hire a fucking attorney. Tie the system up in knots. And demand fees, lost wages, etc.
I don't default to "let's sue!" but I see the courts as a particularly fruitful avenue of engagement given the generally high levels of douche-baggery at play.
US governors, Army go own way on Ebola quarantines http://news.yahoo.com/governors-back-home-quarantine-ebola-workers-063858837.html
I'm glad to know governors and the military are smarter and even if erring are on the side of common sense.
Civil rights lawsuits from Justice Dept. in 3...2...1...
CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., claims the Obama administration is exploring plans to bring non-US citizens infected with Ebola to the United States for treatment.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/28/lawmaker-claims-plans-may-be-...
un-be-fucking-leivable
3 feet is pretty far actually. If you're on a bus or train, plenty of people are within 3 feet. Same with elevators. This is why the common cold spreads so easily. All it takes is some fuckhead coughing into their hand then touching a door knob to spread it.
I don't expect ebola to become a disaster like the black death, but we need to be realistic. Yes it does spread through coughing and sneezing. The government needs to stop pretending that it doesn't.
Just so you know, when I catch Ebola from these “Trick or Treaters” in a couple of days, I'm hanging out in an Apple Store…. At the Mall of America.
Can you please spend your remaining days in DC, wandering around expensive restaurants touching doorknobs?
Let's not forget Ebola can travel thousands of miles...on a plane.
Dats raciss
Why do people setup strawman arguments against themselves? Public education??
Dat's raciss too
Heh. Maybe our Dear Leader will ge a new nickname: "The Black Death"
The New Black Death
See
https://www.academia.edu/8993526/The_New_Black_Death
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-new-black-death.html
Good luck !
You'll need it .
This public discussion becomes more unbearable with every passing day:
Here we are... how many weeks from having seen widespread evidence from Africa that ebola infections were being caught in hospitals despite protective masks and clothing (to block direct contact with bodily fluids but not infectious aerosols)? 6 weeks? 8 weeks? How many Nimrods in our Dear Leader's administration knew this?
Here we are... now, seeing actual public conjecturing over how far ebola containing aerosols can travel. AS IF THIS NEEDS TO BE RESEARCHED!!!!!
Today, just as well as 2 months ago, you could have asked anyone with a background in aerodynamics about settling time of aerosols of a given size and composition in a given ventilation environment. You could have gotten an answer. A rather specific one! This is everyday engineering, everyday physics. If you were a engineering student, sober and non-sleep deprived on the right day, even YOU could have answered that question. If you were a professor, you could have filled in a lot of other details (eg: the effects of electric charge and cohesion).
If you were a virologist, and you knew that said aerosols would be composed mainly of water, salts, mucous and potentially ebola virus particles YOU could have contributed some information about how quickly the water would evaporate from such tiny droplets (yes, water is known to evaporate!) leaving behind a really, really small particle capable of remaining suspended in air for quite some time. YOU could have contributed information about the viability of dehydrated virus particles under direct exposure to oxygen in the air and about the likelyhood that a particle could re-coalese with the fluids of the eyes or mouth of a potential target.
Why is this stuff being debated in the media as if it were some social problem!!!????
I'd just like to know exactly how many of these people did Dear Leader Obama have to ignore and pass up before he found Tom Freiden? That guy is so stupid, he makes our Dear Telepromter reader look smart. Hell, he makes George Bush look smart.,, you, know, the guy who couldn't even put a complete English sentence together?
I don't know how many of us there are out here, but many of us wake up every morning and think we're living the movie IDIOCRACY! From Obama down to the CDC down to the main stream media circus.
I don't expect much from Obama, but he swore to uphold his duty as Commander In Chief to protect Americans from harm and he been treating the ebola matter like some kind trifling community organizer deal. Also, in a way, the Presidency is a "trip", a kind of ride; and, somewhere in the poitical process, there ought to a sign that says: "You need to be this tall, mentally, to go on this ride".
Mr. President: if you got on this ride and you weren't tall enough, it's time to step off!
Otherwise, start banning flights from the affected countries and block anyone with a passport indicating travel from them. It's a little late now buddy; but hey, better late than never.
So you just found out that you are the minority....
and are surrounded by brainwashed idiots that are "stuck" inside the predictive programming world of the overlords?
Sorry Dude
"brainwashed idiots"?
I don't think brainwashing is a factor.
No. This is about idiocy. It's about dullards. Dolts, Dunces, you know, people with impaired mental abilities, people incapable of learning. People unable to apply simple logic.
We have known there is risk of passing on the disease in proximity while WEARING FACE MASKS AND PROTECTIVE SUITS for about 2 months now, I believe. Yet, Obama is still welcoming travelers from areas of contagion. We have known that there is an incubation period of at least 21 days for a long time. Incubation means you have it (ebola), but no symptoms. Yet Obama reports that passengers will be screened for the disease by CHECKING FOR A FEVER. Of course, if you're in the incubation period, you will NOT HAVE A FEVER... fever is a symptom. Hello? HELLO?? HELLO!!!. Anybody home? You do not need a STEM degree to reason this out. It is simple logic.
Ah, but you're saying, don't worry be happy? Not with a fatal disease, and NOT IF YOUR JOB IS COMMADER IN CHIEF. This man is a dangerous and pathetic joke. Either he understands all this, but doesn't give a rat's ass or he is mentally defective.
None of this is terribly complicated, yet I read some belated realization of some technical detail that isn' and wasn't needed to conclude, logically that effective quarantine to the countries of contagion was required.
I say that we've reached the point were the "first black president teflon effect" has worn away, and now we see widespread mental impairment, not brainwashing. Is it drugs, public schooling, social media, trash TV? don't know, but this is the world portrayed in IDIOCRACY.
I see you are just on the fringe of breaking thru the denial phase....
Within the next year....you will probably have the clarity of vision you are seeking.
Good luck
Denial of what? Explain yourself or I call bullshit on ya.
You should already know that presidents are selected, by a small group of families.
You should already know that the CDC and the gubmint are lying to you and that they are operating from a playbook drawn up years ago
http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/uploads/files/bba493f7-cc97-4da3-add6-3deb007cc719.pdf
You have a binary option:
You can be part of the mass culling or you can search for a way to "opt out"
The fact that present day society closely resembles the movies I am Legend and Contagion are not coincidences, but rather the predictive programming that has been part of the construct for decades in order to manage the soylents that will never catch on to the scam being run on them.
The document you cite seems legitimate. A philanthopic org really does need a framework to score the "ROI" for potential recipients. What that plan has to do w/the real activities of GBN and the Rockefeller Foundation... who knows? I don't see anything to be read btwn the lines.
It is impossible to know for certain whether a given thing is happening by design, accidental conspiracy or opportunistic exploitation of inbred and widespread weakness in people. There's not much I can do about the first two, but the destruction of the average person's capacity to think and especiallly to self-direct and self-determine is the REAL conspiracy. That facillitates the other two. Ya fight that however you can, whenever you can.
And surviving? Anyway you look at it, the only thing gonna save your ass is preparation and a surfeit of knowledge. The right kind.
Like I said before, you, along with a lot of Zerohedgers are not far from breaking thru your programming.
You should already know that the CDC is a public relations firm working for the Big Pharmaceutical Complex
Just like you should already know that the FDA is the same type of PR function for the Big Agra-biz conglomerates
This is the essence of the Coporatocracy that is US Corp.
Wherever there is control of humans combined with profiteering....there is a design function
The truth will be always waiting for those that have the will to seek it and the anger to shuck off their programming
Your putative relationships btwn CDC+Big Pharma or btwn FDA+Big Agra are simply the way the world works today. I don't think there's a singular "truth" to be found in it. It exists on many levels.
But, programming? It's moral decay. It's deliberate deceit. It's everywhere. Like ebola, it's in the air. It''s not inside of you, it's out there.
Maybe you are using term "programming" in a special way... but the truth as a discrete thing? I think it permeates everthing. You find detail here and there. For example, a good portrayal of moral decay and corruption in Washington, DC can be found in a recent book by Peter Schweizer titled EXTORTION. It's a piece of something diffuse. It's a very good book... lots of granularity. But it's all over the place. It's not a matter of programming, it's about getting over on their victims without having everyone know about it or getting prosecuted..
That's not a very 'Affimitive Action Friendly' point of view there.
Well, excuuuuuuuuse me!
:-)
And what if it is real windy outside and you are down wind.. when you spray Weed killer you can get some real eye opening damage, down wind when you are using even small amounts of fine mist...
If this nurse, Hickcox, now NOT quarantined because she got a civil rights attorney, gets sick and infects half of NJ and ME, will her civil rights attorney defend her against all the lawsuits? Do her civil rights triumph over community health? This is worse than screaming "fire" in a crowded theater. She does not have the right to put all of us in danger and, in spite of what the CDC says, that IS what she is doing. The problem seems to be that her quarantine did not offer decent food, drink and running water. One article said she had to use a bucket to poop. With those conditions, I'd get a civil rights attorney, as well. Quarantine has to have some level of common sense and, it seems, that is, frequently, not the case. Our leaders continue to drop the ball and, I think, it's intentional, by some.
The Govt has screwed up all aspects of "disease control" and now even a sensible quarantine was stripped of decency by putting a nurse in a spartan tent environment in late fall. If we can bomb camels in Iraq and Syria at 20,000/hr and 20-50K per bomb, why should be respectful of those placed in quarantine. Otherwise, the Federal bozos get to throw their rocks at sensible policy.
Obama has been given the go-ahead to destroy U.S. assets. Obama should have waxed the good nurse over international waters.
'Waxed' her? What, is ebola linked with excessive body hair?