Ventilation can help make public transit safer but masks are better, experts say

posted by mike kraft on Fri, 2022-04-22 09:48

Ventilation helps make public transit safer from spread of Covid-19, but masks are better Although a federal judge struck down the Biden administration's mask mandate for public transportation Monday, some experts say you don't want to throw out your mask just yet. No matter the form of public transportation -- planes, trains, trams, subways, buses or even rideshares -- good ventilation can help reduce the spread of Covid-19, but masks work best. Jen Christensen, CNN CNN

...."You can't engineer your way out of a problem like this," said Krystal Pollitt, an assistant professor of epidemiology and assistant professor in chemical and environmental engineering at the Yale Institute for Global Health.

Someone infected with Covid-19 releases aerosols that contain the coronavirus when they talk, laugh or simply exhale. If the person isn't wearing a mask to block those aerosols, they can hang in the air and be inhaled by other people nearby.

Outdoors, viral particles may disperse with even a light wind. But indoors, where there is no wind, particles tend to concentrate and hang around. Good ventilation can help break up the concentration of viral particles, but it can't do everything.

"Ventilation is great, but we know if we are outside, the risks are lower. Being able to re-create the same amount of airflow that you would have with just your natural wind patterns in a confined indoor space that's heavily occupied is incredibly hard to do," Pollitt said. "Outside of putting yourself into, say, a wind tunnel, which obviously wouldn't be comfortable for many reasons or energy-wise, we have to think about what's realistic." ...

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