Coronavirus Technology Solutions
June 2, 2020
Brazil, U.S. Britain and Russia Continue to be
the Leaders in New Cases Partly Because of Low
Mask Use
Research Studies Show Benefits of Social
Distancing and Masks
Star Lanes Polaris has Added Hospital Grade Air
Purifiers as They Prepare to Reopen.
Bar in Nashville Installs Five Air Purifiers
Increase Air Changes in Office Buildings to
Reduce Virus Build Up
Chinese Mask Production Line in Operation in
Tbilisi Georgia
Lydall to Invest in New Meltblown Line
Tustar Teams with Neatrition to Introduce High
Efficiency Masks to the U.S. Market
HEPA Filters and Anti-Microbial Coatings will
Make Autos Much Safer
______________________________________________________________________________
Brazil, U.S. Britain and Russia Continue to be
the Leaders in New Cases Partly Because of Low
Mask Use
The four large countries where coronavirus cases
have recently been increasing fastest are
Brazil, the United States, Russia and Britain.
And they have something in common.
They are all run by populist male leaders who
cast themselves as anti-elite and
anti-establishment.
The four leaders — Jair Bolsonaro, Donald J.
Trump, Vladimir V. Putin and Boris Johnson —
also have a lot of differences, of course, as do
their countries. Yet all four subscribe to
versions of what Daniel Ziblatt, a government
professor at Harvard and co-author of the book
“How Democracies Die,” calls “radical right
illiberal populism.”
“Very often they rail against intellectuals and
experts of nearly all types,” Steven Levitsky,
Mr. Ziblatt’s co-author, said. The leaders, he
said, “claim to have a kind of common-sense
wisdom that the experts lack. This doesn’t work
very well versus Covid-19.”
In Brazil, Mr. Bolsonaro fired
his health minister and
has repeatedly called for states to end
stay-at-home orders. In the United States, Mr.
Trump rejected
the views of experts for
almost two months, predicting the virus would
disappear “like a miracle.” In Britain, Mr.
Johnson’s government initially
encouraged people
to continue socializing, even as other countries
were locking down.
All four leaders also flouted
guidance on
personal protective measures early on, refusing
to wear a mask or continuing to shake hands.
The pattern is apparent beyond just those
countries, too. Iran — a country with a
theocratic supreme leader — is fifth in case
growth over the past two weeks among countries
with at least 50 million people. Health experts
say the government did not heed
warnings about reopening too
quickly. Mexico — where President Andrés Manuel
López Obrador is a left-wing populist whose
government published posters saying the virus “no
es grave” (is not serious) —
is sixth.
An academic
effort to
track countries’ responses to the virus has
shown that a delay in government reaction allows
the virus to spread much faster, said Thomas
Hale of the Blavatnik School of Government at
Oxford University, who is leading the effort.
Many of the countries seeing bad outbreaks now
share a “late recognition of the urgency of the
crisis,” Mr. Hale said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/briefing/coronavirus-populist-leaders.html
Research Studies Show Benefits of Social
Distancing and Masks
An international group of scientists, led by
senior author Dr. Holger Schunemann, professor
of clinical epidemiology and medicine at
McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, analyzed
172 studies conducted in 16 countries that
looked at the connection between social
distancing, wearing masks, and wearing eye
protection, and the risk of transmitting the
virus. The studies included people with COVID-19
infections in addition to those with two other
diseases caused by coronaviruses, SARS and MERS.
The studies were observational, meaning that
they tracked infection rates among people who
practiced any of the aforementioned behaviors.
Of the 172 studies, 44 (involving more than
25,000 participants) also included comparisons
between those who followed the behaviors and
those who did not.
When it comes to social distancing, the analysis
showed that, on average, the risk of getting
infected when remaining 1 meter (a little more
than 3 ft) from an infected person was about 3%,
while staying less than 1 meter apart upped the
risk to 13%. The further people stand away from
one another, the lower their risk. In fact, the
risk drops by half for every additional meter of
distancing up to 3 meters (about 10 ft).
“What we tried to do was bring everything
together and sort out what distance might be the
most effective, rather than an arbitrary
threshold,” says Schunemann. Based on how far
respiratory droplets from coughs or sneezes
generally travel, most public health policies
currently recommend standing at least 2 meters
(about 6.7 ft) apart in public areas, which the
study findings support. “The virus doesn’t know
what a meter is, or what six feet is,” says
Schunemann. “What this evidence suggests is that
two meters, or 6.7 feet, appears that it might
be more protective than one meter or three
feet.”
The data also supported the benefits of eye
shields for health care workers. The risk of
infection among people who wore glasses, goggles
or other face shields was 6% compared to 16%
among those not wearing such protection.
The studies included health care workers in
hospitals, as well as people living in
households with an infected person. The
researchers tracked whether those in close
contact to people who had a coronavirus
infection kept their distance, wore a mask or
eye protection, and whether they too got
infected.
I was surprised by the magnitude of the effect,”
says Schunemann. “In epidemiology we often see
small effects, and all the effects we saw here
are considered large or very large.”
He says the findings support current public
health advice to reduce the risk of spreading
COVID-19 but adds that more detailed studies are
needed. For instance, it’s not yet clear whether
1 meter of distance might be sufficient in some
settings (compared to the 2 meters that are
currently recommended). In addition, larger
distances might be needed when people are
gathered in denser settings or closer
quarters—and it’s still uncertain what the ideal
is in health
care settings like hospitals, similar studies
are needed to tease apart which types of face
masks are best for different situations.
The study found that medical-grade N95 masks and
surgical paper masks used in medical settings
offered the best protection, but that self-made
cloth masks are still effective for the general
public. These data, Shunemann says, support
wearing a mask both to reduce the risk of
spreading of the virus if you’re infected, and
to lower the possibility of becoming infected if
you’ve not yet caught the virus. “The type of
masks that should be worn, and who wears the
masks, should be investigated further in
randomized controlled trials,” says Schunemann.
“But having said that, my interpretation is that
wearing even a self-made mask is better than not
wearing anything.”
https://time.com/5846288/social-distancing-face-masks-covid/
Star Lanes Polaris
has Added Hospital Grade Air Purifiers as They
Prepare to Reopen.
Air purifiers have been installed throughout
this Columbus, Ohio bowling alley and
entertainment
facility. They will
purify
the air
every 30 minutes,
“As much as we miss our customers, we made a
commitment that we would only reopen Star Lanes
when we had every necessary precaution in place
to ensure our customers safety, said Doug
Mechling, who is an owner of Star Lanes with his
father, Mike and brother, Jeff. “As an indoor
entertainment facility and knowing that COVID-19
can be spread through air droplets, we began
researching ways to purify the air. Installing
36, hospital-grade, air filtration units
throughout the venue is an investment that gives
us the utmost confidence in our customers’
safety.”
Star Lanes has put in place in light of the
COVID-19 virus:
Bar in Nashville Installs Five Air Purifiers
Red Phone Booth in downtown Nashville wasted no
time during the COVID-19 shutdown.
Before reopening last week, owners invested
$20,000 into safety improvements to make
customers feel at ease when returning to the
speakeasy club.
“It was like doing a full reopen,” General
Manager Jon Ho said, “You start going through
this list and you realize what you really need
to do to keep people safe. It’s like ‘wow’ and
you keep adding another thing to it, and another
thing goes on the list, and another thing. And
before you know it, I’ve got a list in the
office on the dry erase board that is 80 plus
things long.”
The Red Phone Booth’s biggest addition is five
new air purifiers throughout the business,
including one in the HVAC system on the roof.
The purifier kills viruses and bacteria, which
Ho hopes will give people confidence coming
back.
“It transcends dollars and cents at this point,”
Ho said.
Other improvements include spraying a
medical-grade disinfectant to all surfaces,
installing a Plexiglass barrier to the bar, and
only allowing staff inside the cigar humidor.
“It’s at what point is enough, enough. And
enough is enough when no one gets sick. Enough
is enough when no one is scared. Enough is
enough when everyone feels safe being in the
building,” Ho said.
Increase Air Changes in
Office Buildings to Reduce Virus Build Up
Much of the information that we have about how
to make buildings less hospitable to viruses
comes from studies on the ever-present flu. All
efforts to create healthy buildings start with
the basics: the people who occupy buildings and
carry the virus. During active outbreaks,
minimizing the risk of disease spread in office
buildings starts with keeping people out of them
and having as many people as possible work from
home. Next is identifying the bare minimum
number of people who have to be physically
present in the building and bringing them back
in.
Once they’ve dealt with the people, designers
can start trying to make the interiors of
buildings as safe as possible. One of the most
important solutions is increasing the
ventilation and filtration of the inside air,
says Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, co-director of
the Biology and the Built Environment Center at
the University of Oregon. “The idea is diluting
the viral contaminant indoors,” he says.
Designers should increase the rate at which air
inside is replaced with air from the outside, by
windows or other systems, and should find ways
to filter the inside air to remove dangerous
particles. “It’s two major parts,” Van Den
Wymelenberg says.
Most buildings today don’t meet even bare
minimum standards for ventilation, Allen says,
even though research shows that there are major
benefits to meeting or exceeding those
standards. One study that modeled the
transmission of influenza in a school found that
if it met the most basic ventilation
recommendations, the rates of flu would drop as
much as they would if half the people using the
building were vaccinated, even if they weren’t.
Humidity levels in buildings can also be used to
fight disease transmission, Van Den Wymelenberg
says. Viruses don’t survive as well when
humidity inside a building hovers around 50 or
60 percent. When humidity is too low or too
high, the influenza virus can spread more
easily, for example. In schools and
offices, people report fewer respiratory
infections and take fewer sick days when
humidity is kept in a middle range. But few
buildings monitor humidity today,
People who work in open offices, where desks
are close together with no barriers between
them, take more days off from work because they
say they’re sick than people who have their own
office space. People who work in spaces with
four walls and a door don’t call in sick as
much; they don’t sit only a few feet away from
other people, and only breathe in their own air.
Chinese Mask Production Line in Operation in
Tbilisi Georgia
This photo taken on May 25, 2020 shows a face
mask production workshop in Tbilisi, Georgia. A
melt-blown non-woven cloth mask production line
from China was put into operation in Georgia in
May.
Lydall to Invest in New Meltblown Line
Today, June 2,
Lydall said it would invest in an
additional fine fiber meltblown asset in
response to the exponential increase in domestic
and global demand of specialty filtration media
for face masks. This new production line will
enable Lydall – one of the few American
manufacturers capable of producing high-quality
fine fiber meltblown filtration media for N95,
surgical and medical face masks – to
significantly increase its supply and help
alleviate the shortage of meltblown materials,
both in the U.S. and internationally.
“In the wake of COVID-19, the need for the
filtration media that makes face masks effective
has increased dramatically, so much so that it
is now being called the ‘golden fleece,’” Sara
A. Greenstein, President and CEO of Lydall,
said. “As one of the only companies in North
America and Europe with the technical expertise,
supplier relationships and access to the right
machines to produce this filtration media, we
feel great responsibility to do everything
within our power to increase our output, support
domestic supply chains and contribute to the
global fight against COVID-19. This investment
is one example of Lydall’s commitment to do just
that.”
The new asset will complement Lydall’s existing
global meltblown capacity and is estimated to
supply the filtration media for one billion face
masks per year, almost a third of the 3.5
billion that the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services has projected as necessary to
protect healthcare workers. Lydall expects
commercial production to begin in its Rochester,
New Hampshire facility in the fourth quarter of
2020 and plans to hire up to 15 additional
employees to support the increase in production.
A technical market leader in the creation of
specialty filtration solutions for nearly 100
years, Lydall has quickly pivoted to address the
worldwide surge in demand for PPE and other
products that support frontline workers and
their patients. In addition to manufacturing the
critical filtration efficiency layers for N95
respirator masks, ASTM 1, 2, 3 medical masks,
and general-purpose masks, Lydall also supplies
other support materials for face masks,
including comfort layers, protective layers and
ties straps.
“Being a trustworthy business partner is a top
priority at Lydall. It is always our goal to
provide our customers with a consistent supply
of high-quality, specialty products and superior
customer service,” Ashish Diwanji, incoming
President of Lydall Performance Materials,
added. “As the principal supplier of meltblown
filtration media to many of the U.S.’s largest
face mask producers, we are currently operating
at full capacity, with our extraordinarily
dedicated team running our existing production
lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We are
pleased that the new installation of this asset
will enable us to substantially increase our
output of this critically-needed product.”
The company has also ramped up production of
other much-needed filtration products like
needlepunch felt for hospital gowns, medical
wipes and absorbent bed pads. In preparation for
the U.S. economy’s reopening, Lydall’s
innovation team is advancing its filtration
science to develop new, high-efficiency,
HEPA-rated filtration media to improve the air
quality of public spaces, including office
buildings, shopping centers, hospitals and
airports
Tustar Teams with Neatrition to Introduce High
Efficiency Masks to the U.S. Market
With the help of Ann Arbor, Michigan-based TusStar,
Chinese nanotechnology company Neatrition is
introducing new KN95 safety masks to the U.S.
market. These easy-to-clean, multiple-use masks
will shield users from respiratory droplets and
other particulate matter during the current
COVID-19 crisis and beyond.
Neatrition collaborated with Tsinghua
University, a major research university in Beijing,
to develop and create these new nano medical
masks that offer several advantages over
traditional medical masks. Made in labs in China and
overseen by academic researchers to ensure clean
standards and a top-of-the-line product, the
Neatrition KN95/NMV95 masks have a unique micro-nano
sharkskin structure and bacteriostatic features
that not only block aerial droplets from getting
in, but also quickly kills viruses attached to
the surface of the mask. U.S. Lab testing is
currently underway for the anti-virus feature in
which a virus will become inactive, degenerate
and die within 1 minute on the surface of the
material.
These advanced protection devices feature a
strong droplet surface coating that allows the
masks to last up to 10 times longer. The masks'
soft sewn stretch knit ties and carefully
crafted inner mask design provides a comfortable
fit that is easy to wear for long stretches and
is exceptionally breathable.
Traditional protective masks use material that
can only be used once and only isolate droplets
from the air," said TusStar President Frank Ni.
"Unfortunately, many medical professionals and
mask wearers are then still infected by the
virus even after using these traditional masks
because the virus is still alive on the outside
surface."
A 5-mask package sells for $32, plus tax and
shipping. Quantities of 500 masks are available
at a discounted rate of $2,800.
Beijing Neatrition Technology Co., Ltd. was born
in Tsinghua University. It is a new material and
technology company integrating R & D, production
and sales (Neatrition has developed
superhydrophobic technology. The series products
mainly cover (super) hydrophobic nanomaterials,
which are waterproof, dustproof, snowproof,
oilproof, etc. Neatrition, as a frontier science
and technology enterprise in Zhongguancun, is
committed to solving the surface cleaning and
maintenance of all related objects for
industrial and other users, the efficiency of
its masks are compare to traditional N95-N100
masks.
Due to the anti-bacterial qualities the masks
can be stored and reused. One regimen is to
rotate masks every three days to insure
inactivation of the virus which was retained on
the mask surface.
HEPA Filters and Anti-Microbial Coatings will
Make Autos Much Safer
Chinese automaker Geely Motors is installing
“G-Clean Intelligent Air Purification System
(IAPS)” system in all its production vehicles
claiming filter efficiency similar to an N95
respiration system. There are also suppliers
offering UV light devices for sanitizing vehicle
interiors.
Although those initial developments are useful,
many materials companies are also developing
“antimicrobial” materials and coatings that may
more effectively limit the spread of infectious
diseases within a vehicle interior. These
antimicrobial materials damage the protein, cell
membrane, DNA, and internal systems of a
microbe, causing it to die. An “antimicrobial”
surface could have a detrimental effect against
a range of organisms ranging from beneficial to
harmful ones and could include mammalian cells
and cell types typically associated with
diseases such as bacteria, viruses, protozoans,
and fungi.
Most antimicrobial material technologies are
additives or coatings which contain metals known
to be biocidal. For example, copper and silver
are natural antimicrobial materials that have
intrinsic properties to destroy a wide range of
microorganisms. Some natural polymers, such as
chitosan, heparin, and e-polylysine can also
inhibit the growth of disease-causing
microorganisms.
Research shows that graphene also offers
opportunities as new antimicrobial material.
Another way of creating antimicrobial properties
is by embedding nano-structures in fabrics and
other surfaces that inhibit microbes from living
and breeding on the surface.
Most of the automotive interior parts use
plastics or fabrics. Antimicrobial fabrics and
textiles are fiber-based substrates to which
antimicrobial agents have been applied at the
surface, or incorporated into the fibers,
rendering a product that kills or inhibits the
growth of microorganisms. Specialty fabrics
infused with metal-based nanoparticles such as
silver, zinc oxide, copper, and titanium oxide
have been proven effective in destroying
microbes. Similarly, material producers can
integrate microbial plastic additives into a
wide range of thermoplastic and thermoset
polymers. Coatings and paints can also be
created from natural antimicrobial polymers or
with special additives.
CAR research identified various suppliers
working on antimicrobial technology and several
currently available commercial products for the
automotive market. However, vehicle
manufacturers have not yet deployed
antimicrobial material technologies in
mass-produced vehicles. Recently, Ford CEO Jim
Hackett said Ford’s future vehicles would have
surfaces that can’t hold viruses.
Geely says the air-filter system is a short-term
solution, but their long term plan is to develop
antimicrobial materials for parts such as
buttons and handles. The COVID health crisis
will likely force more automakers to accelerate
the research and deployment of antimicrobial
technologies. If successful, these technologies
can reduce consumer anxiety around cleanliness
and help enable shared mobility solutions.
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