On Wed, 25 Jan 2023 01:47:44 -0800 (PST), "
funkma...@hotmail.com"
<
funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 1:57:22 AM UTC-5,
jeff.li...@gmail.com wrote:
>> [1] Remember the official recommendations that supermarket and store
>> aisles had to marked one way traffic only? That was both wrong and
>> stupid, but it took several months for it to be quietly eliminated.
>I found it much easier to shop when the one-way rules were in place.
>It had nothing to do with any pandemic recommendations, it was just
>vastly more organized.
I had quite the opposite experience. Safeway market is known for its
expertise in merchandising. Despite getting repeatedly busted by the
fire marshal for obstructing the aisles with piles of merchandise,
Safeway continued it's practice of turning the aisles into obstacle
courses so that shoppers would spend more time inspecting the
merchandise. With the one way aisles, they saw the opportunity to
interpret the new guidelines as one lane. The result was even more
merchandise piled into the aisles. That made passing another shopping
cart difficult or impossible. It also created bottlenecks if anyone
stopped to inspect the merchandise. Restocking the shelves was a bad
joke because employees had to block the aisles with pallets of
merchandise, and move the boxes piecemeal down the narrowed aisles.
The practice continues to this day, but to a lesser degree, with fewer
piles of merchandise strategically located where navigating the aisles
now requires a serpentine path. Fortunately, there are now passing
lanes available to allow two way shopping cart traffic.
With all the Covid research available online, one would think that
every possible aspect of Covid and virus transmission had been
thoroughly investigated and duly published. It's difficult finding
something that hasn't been beaten to death in the press. I found one
at about the same time that the one way aisles were contrived.
It seems that the rate of virus transmission is proportional to the
concentration of airborne virus particles. The human body is capable
of disposing of small quantities of just about anything, but is easily
overwhelmed by various viruses. Therefore, the obvious defensive
strategy is to reduce virus concentration and exposure times. Masks
reduce concentration somewhat. Increasing the rate of air exchange
works better. Therefore, small closed rooms with lousy air
circulation should be avoided. Now, imagine what would happen if the
CDC advised people to avoid small rooms without hurricane force HVAC
systems. Is the CDC recommending that we only shop in large and
spacious supermarkets and avoid the smaller stores? Outdoor markets
would be revived (as outdoor restaurant seating was revived). There
was a half-hearted attempt to reduce exposure by lowering occupancy
limits, but that just hid the underlying problem.
If you want to go a step further, it seems that the virus likes to
hitch a ride on water droplets and aerosols. Reduce the water in the
air, and the airborne virus density is also reduced. So,
dehumidifiers and electrostatic filters should have been effective.
However, without research into the relationship between virus density
and virus transmission, it couldn't be justified. So, nothing was
done.
I suppose that my 20-20 hindsight could be interpreted as "I told you
so". Or, it might make a good conspiracy theory where the CDC
suppressed potentially useful research. Plenty of other
possibilities. In mid and late 2020, nobody understood anything,
everyone was guessing, and insanity prevailed. That's the nature of
how such things work. In the future, when pandemics become endemic
and the internet has grown sufficiently so that the concentration of
misinformation far exceeds the ability of individuals to judge
prophylactic solutions, we can safely look back at mid and late 2020
and repeat the mistakes without a second thought.