Never ceases to stump me that we have the technology to kill 99.95% of airborne viruses, proven to work, non-invasive, cheap to deploy and install, and is produced at scale already and we just like - collectively - kind of just don't really use it.

HEPA-grade air filtration is proven, cheap, and makes everyone's lives strictly better. It, like, makes zero fiscal sense for governments not to mandate its use in all covered public spaces ASAP.

Decided today that next month I'll be buying a Blast Mini Mk II purifier: https://smartairfilters.com/en/product/blast-mini-ffu/

My partner has an art space they share with a couple of other folks; and like, the right thing to do is to make sure the indoor air quality there is as good as it can be.

The unit is fairly pricey, but that's without any sort of tax rebates or incentives to install. Bought privately so we have to pay full tax on it + import costs. At scale this would be a rounding error for a lot of places.

@yosh if it helps any, I bought a Rabbit Air Minus A2 and I really like it. I just bought it based on a recommendation from a friend who had done some efficiency testing and said it was the best, but I it quotes some good numbers and it's very quiet on the low settings. Mine's measuring 42dbA at arm's length on medium (not sure what the airflow is, though, as I don't have tools for that).

@yosh So one would think.

I know no good sentence starts with this, but: I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but maybe someone took a long hard and psychopathic look at the demographic projections ...?

Thanks for the pointer to this! The Blast is quieter than my current filter and more effective.

@yosh Do you work for Big Air?

@yosh HEPA and UV are too slow to work for Covid infection control. One needs to wear a respirator for that whenever around people even if they are present in the space. Once people leave a space and those tools are given sufficient time to sanitize the air, then the respirator can come off. But in public buildings one is not often by oneself by the public nature of the space.

@yosh HEPA and UV would bring all sorts of benefits. To alter covid transmission, it won’t work for schools, restaurants, bars, anywhere a person is talking to you from normal conversational distance. That person’s exhalations cover you in fractions of a second and the time to infection can be as low as seconds. Both HEPA and UV take many minutes in any public building setup. E.g. UV is 16 minutes at regulatory max exposure to reach 95%.

@yosh your assertion that it's cheap is wrong.

We don't mandate HEPA filters because it's a massive cost and doesn't actually stop virus spread in itself.

Nano particle level filtration is insanely expensive and you'd need to change the air completely every few minutes to even have a chance to make a dent at all.

@yosh @cadey We have a policy at work, that you need approval for purchases above a certain sum. We also found HEPA filters with air ionizing, and UVC for less than that sum -> we bought the devices individually over several months, to get around the “Is this a required investment?” discussion. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

@yosh
The covid policy at my local hospital is apparently "ehh, whatever". Masks are recommended if you feel symptomatic.
We will never get out of this.

@dibben @yosh

It's over a 100 for this type. And energy use was a key reason why society moved to CFL bulbs in the 1990s ;-)

The average Dutch household uses about 3000 kWh a year. Running this one continuously (which apparently is what a lot of people do) is about a 1000 kWh.

I'd say that's a lot. And it'll often be more as these tend to be installed in closed buildings with active air conditioning: the increases heath load will have to be removed.

@yosh

I think we're very much in different realities. So sorry for having bothered you, and sorry for leaving you feeling attacked.

@dibben

@larsmb

I'm not sure if "disabling the entire population over the next years" is going to achieve that goal…

@yosh

@graviton Ah, but if it further marginalizes the aging population while gaslighting them about being merely "unwilling" to be able to work, and ideally lowers the life expectancy, the retirement funds suddenly look much better!