Saturday, October 29, 2022

Portable UV Sanitation: a Pricey Solution

If you could avoid Covid with greater certainty for less than $500, would you?? 

I've been looking into portable UV light. From the beginning of Covid, people have talked about Upper Room UVGI (UltraViolet Germicidal Irradiation) that can be installed near the ceiling of a room, necessarily, to ensure nobody looks directly at it. It kills viruses, but, with a wavelength of 254 nanometres, it also harms people's (and pets') skin and eyes. More information from a Harvard slideshow, the CDC, the Center for Global Health Delivery, and a fun Naomi Wu video. 

BUT last Wednesday, research published in Nature found that UV light with a wavelength of 222 nm, 

doesn't reach beyond the layer of dead cells on the surface of the skin or the film of tears on the surface of the eye. Because bacteria and viruses are much smaller than those layers, Brenner and his colleagues reasoned that far-UV radiation could destroy the pathogens without damaging the skin and the eyes. . . . 

In a 2018 study, the investigators showed that more than 95% of influenza viruses in the air were inactivated when they floated past a low-power far-UV lamp. Brenner's group had already shown that cells in a 3D human skin model and in mice were basically unaffected by such low doses, and other researchers found no evidence of eye damage from 22 nm radiation in rats.

And now you can buy a personal portable device that will eradicate viruses within 1 meter. Check out the ERGO 222 X One. Be aware that it's a Hong Kong site, so don't let that price tag scare you away. It works out to about $450, Canadian, including shipping. It's still pricey for most people though. The same reason most don't have an Aranet4 CO2 monitor! I'm willing to be a guinea pig on this, so I'll let you know if it helped in a classroom full of coughing and sneezing students who pull their mask down to talk (if they're wearing a mask at all)!

And here's a great The Mehdi Hasan Show video trying to get to the bottom of how to convince people to get vaccinated: "Americans are over Covid -- But Covid's not over you!"

ETA: And check out journalist and Professor of Health Policy, Bruce Y. Lee's article in Forbes. He also criticizes Biden's mixed messaging and CDC's Director Walensky's focus on droplet dogma at this late stage of the game, leaving out the two key precautions against Covid: N95s and clean air (ventilation and filtration). Neither vaccines nor clean hands will keep the virus from entering your nose! He says,

It is quite puzzling why the Biden Administration hasn't been mentioning face mask wearing and air filtration/purification more, especially since these would help against Covid-19, RSV, and influenza.

Yes it is. Unfortunately, he doesn't address why that might be, and we're left to follow the money/power to try to figure it out ourselves. 

#BringBackMasks  #CovidIsAirborne

ETA: Hold the phone on the 222 X One! A thread just now (Oct. 30) by Naomi Wu suggests that they're not that effective, and that we need to get on board with 254nm, which is more safe than we've been led to believe. 

ETA: Oct. 31 --> Naomi Wu responded directly to my questions! They're not that effective for the price -- the big issue for her is that 254nm has been used for 80 years and is completely safe AND can be distributed cheaply. So it's not that 222 doesn't work, but that the same gizmo could be made for a fraction of the cost if they use 254. And she did caution me to continue wearing an N95 in public places. 

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