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Even at the height of the pandemic, it was quite frustrating to see so little public places taking easy measures like keeping the doors/windows open, but focusing so much energy on arrows on the floor or non-sense like that.

Increased ventilation even helps with concentrating in school, as high CO2 is not good for schooling. I used to fall asleep all the time while I was in school, elementary, secondary, university, even staring at a computer. Now that I work from home, I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired from high CO2.

You put the arrows down once and the signs up once. Opening windows and doors and managing airflow is a constant effort. Installing better ventilation can get costly. Cheaper to just do the theater.

In my experience, that sleepiness might also be due to forced sleep patterns, commuting, and heavy food - things that you likely experienced in school but not now.

> I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired from high CO2.

I thought that Mass was just boring in elementary school. Perhaps there was more to it than that!

You didn't see many scientists saying this. But early on in the pandemic many people were saying Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we locked down for a month, etc. I saw this a lot within my own network of very liberal, twenty-something peers. Some people still believe this, albeit probably a small minority now.

> But early on in the pandemic many people were saying Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we locked down for a month,

It's technically true if every single person on Earth did this at the same time.

Which is impossible, so no.

Is it, though? Feels unlikely that we could eliminate any corona virus that way.

But it was over in multiple nations that did take the precautions seriously ... only to come back when they somehow were convinced to relax the recommendations.

It is more of a local feel, honestly. Many on twitter and around the schools I do go to seem convinced that if the rest of the nation had just been as good at masking as we were, they would have not had it as bad. And that if we are diligent in the future, we wouldn't have as severe of outbreaks.

I can't even really say they are wrong. I don't know. My weight would be more on our 90%ish percent vaccination rate, but I could see both having impact.

Edit: I'm actually somewhat skeptical that ventilation will work as well as folks hope. Living in a place that largely does rely on outside air, we had just as large of outbreaks as anyone else. (That is, it is common to have open windows here. The kid's schools are even made to take advantage of that, if I understand it correctly.) Again, I am /not/ saying it is wrong. I just doubt it weighs as heavily as portrayed.

> if the rest of the nation had just been as good at masking as we were...

I'm sure the CCP is saying that about lockdowns right now.

Don't forget that fabric masks were found to be only marginally effective, and surgical masks are only somewhat effective. At this point, if you're in a mask, it should be at least N95 or don't bother. I'm still amused when I see people diligent about using masks, but not concerned enough to use an N95.

My realization during this has been that it couldn't be stopped, it could only be delayed. As soon as you roll back restrictions, it will resume spreading until ~everyone has immunity. There will always be jurisdictions that don't care as much, so no amount of hard lockdowns work unless you can seal your border. There was never a window where we could eradicate it with vaccines because delta was already circulating by the time vaccine distribution had ramped up in April, 2021.

There's a slight chance the omicron mRNA vaccines will have sterilizing immunity as good as the original vaccines and the original variant, but there's no reason to think a new variant won't evade the new vaccine.

> And that if we are diligent in the future, we wouldn't have as severe of outbreaks.

If you're willing to do continue restrictions indefinitely, sure.

The mRNA vaccines never provided durable sterilizing immunity even against the original wild type virus variant. That wasn't even a goal, or a primary end point for the clinical trials.

What is your definition of "work"?

Of course better ventilation won't outright stop diseases from spreading, the point is that it will reduce the spread with reasonable cost and little downside (like another commenter mentions, if the existing ventilation isn't keeping up with CO2 concentrations, there can be other benefits).

From what I saw with our schools.... it didn't really cut the spread. Estimates are that the school had just as high of spread as elsewhere. And that is with near 100% vaccination of the kids in said school.

I should note I'm not against trying. It seems a low hanging fruit to reach for. Just, evidence has shown that this particular disease goes for saturation fairly effectively.

Which evidence? You just quoted absolutely zero evidence beside your own personal anecdotes.

It's an airborne disease. Better aeration definitely helps with airborne diseases, multiple studies prove it.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17257148/

But of course, COVID spreads so easily that this can reach the limit (especially Omicron) and in an environment where kids will interact together in all kind of ways, but this would have definitely helped a lot more in the first few waves (pre-omicron) without needing to shut down schools entirely.

There was never any need to shut down schools at all. Some countries such as Sweden left primary schools open throughout the pandemic (without mask mandates) and they did fine.

That does bring in an interesting case to look at to try and counter my point. If I am right that schools were one of the largest vectors of all of the other sicknesses that have been heavily suppressed in the past couple of years, than I would expect that in Sweden this suppression was not as pronounced.

Any chance you know of where to look for that data?

The personal evidence of my kid's schools. Three kids, three schools. So, yeah, small N.

I'm confused on the particular study you picked. The main claim for positive evidence "supports the use of negatively pressurized isolation rooms for patients with these diseases in hospitals" but it goes on to basically acknowledge we still need more information in larger environments. Specifically, in the abstract, "However, the lack of sufficient data on the specification and quantification of the minimum ventilation requirements in hospitals, schools and offices in relation to the spread of airborne infectious diseases, suggest the existence of a knowledge gap."

I'm all for more studies. And, again, I expect and hope we learn more.

> I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience.

Some countries are actually putting significant resources into this. But if you're in a country that isn't, well, realistically, who is going to pay for it? Public health experts pretty much everywhere are saying that it should be done (mind you, they were saying that before covid, too; "proper ventilation would be beneficial" is hardly a new idea), but the only way it happens is through state funding.

> but the only way it happens is through state funding.

Is it really that expensive to open a window?

I remember even in the dead of winter our school would regularly open windows to let in some fresh air. And in the hot humid summers we would regularly keep open windows, no matter how hot it got outside, 25 kids inside would make it way hotter. And smellier.

So in general when people talk about improved ventilation, they're _mostly_ not talking about opening a window (impractical in many places at certain times of year, anyway); they're talking about some sort of mechanical ventilation, particularly for large buildings. Improving that sort of thing is expensive.

In (most?) building this would also mean replacing the HVAC system and ducts which would take months-years and close the building down for the maintenance period. I’m really not sure what the pitch is realistically.

How about systematically examining the current performance and likely retrofit cost of existing larger buildings?

Then the discussion can be about a more specific cost (and time) estimate and include better information about the changes the updates would bring about.

Or we could just assume it is too expensive and inconvenient to be worth looking into.

> I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience.

People still think SARS-CoV-2 spreads by droplets, so in their minds things like that wouldn't do anything.

There are also other, novel things we could do to fight infectious diseases that get pretty much no traction. Far-range UVC lights immediately come to mind. These kill viruses and single-celled organisms quickly while not harming humans. Just imagine this installed in all public, closed spaces! Schools, offices, restaurants, public transit all could be heavily reduced in how well any infectious diseases gets spread there. Yet, this is almost entirely absent from public discourse.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2

Beware of unintended consequences. Humans evolved with constant exposure to pathogens. Living in overly sterile environments seems to be a risk factor for autoimmune disorders.

I wonder if we could address this by not activating the lights everywhere all the time. Always on in hospitals and other places with vulnerable people. Only on in restaurants and public transit during time of increased thread like a pandemic or maybe flu season, since that in fact kills a lot of people.