Author: Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Iron Lady, the late Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Famous comment:

And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, as well as families.

In this short and simple post, I will show that we can prove Thatcher was wrong, using our knowledge of airborne transmission in the current pandemic. First, I will show an experiment, and then I will show why it refutes Thatcher (and, if anyone is willing to take on this task, many liberals and liberals are adjacent to foofra about “Methodological individualism“The same is true, even though that is another day’s task).

The first is experiment. (I am using Asahi ShimbunCoverage This is the original research. ) This is a photo setting.

As you can see, there are two Crash test dummy Aerosol mannequins, face to face in a closed space, sharing air:

A special room was developed to simulate the actual airborne transmission of the new coronavirus, and to measure the number of infectious droplets produced by human breathing and coughing through the mask worn by the mannequin.

The experimenter fiddled with the mask, concealing one, concealing any one, and concealing both.

In the experiment, the researchers placed the heads of two mannequins opposite each other. One of them was labeled as a COVID-19 patient and was set to spray a mist through his mouth, mimicking the exhalation of a virus spreader.

The other is a “non-patient” and otherwise healthy human body model, which is connected to a respirator and equipment, allowing researchers to detect how much virus it will inhale.

Please note that in the real world, due to the asymptomatic transmission of Covid, any mannequin may be “patients” (infected senders) and “non-patients” (healthy recipients) without knowing it. more:

A gelatin film is placed along the respiratory tract and the amount of virus attached to it is measured.

Researchers placed three types of masks on the mannequin and tested a series of scenarios: N95 masks, surgical masks and cotton masks.

When the infected mannequin wears a surgical mask or cotton mask, and the healthy mannequin does not wear a mask, the amount of virus inhaled by the healthy mannequin is reduced to 20% to 40% of the amount of virus inhaled by the healthy mannequin without a mask .

When the infected mannequin wears an N95 mask (a mask that is not expected to be worn by COVID-19 patients), the amount of virus inhaled by the healthy mannequin is almost zero.

When the infected mannequin does not wear a mask and the healthy mannequin wears a surgical mask, it will reduce the amount of virus inhaled by the healthy mannequin to 50% of the amount of virus inhaled without a mask…

When both mannequins were wearing cotton masks, the amount of virus inhaled dropped to 30% of the amount inhaled without masks. When they all put on surgical masks, this number dropped further, to the 20% to 30% range.

Therefore, when a mannequin is masked, masking is beneficial, but when both are masked, it is the greatest benefit[1]Recall again that neither mannequin knows who will benefit the most.

Now let us take a detour and ask ourselves what we mean by society.Infinity is the argument Mage (The so-called “The Economist” does not even include “society” Economic glossary), let me look through my reliable Oxford English Dictionary:

OED Association

society

/ Voting /

noun. m16.

[ORIGIN: French société from Latin societas, -tat-, from socius: see sociable, -ity.]…

2. Customs and organizational systems adopted by a group of individuals (especially human beings) for harmonious and interactive coexistence or mutual benefit, defense, etc. m16.

3. ?a The sum of people living in a more or less orderly community. Also (with a finite adjective), this is part of it. m17.

Wikipedia (Sorry) defines “society as a group of individuals participating in continuous social interaction.” Although it is a bit circular, it seems to be the same thing:

Now, let us reconstruct the experiment as a model, the simple model constructed by the pseudo-Nobel Prize-winning economist. Let us model human “interactive coexistence” or “continuous social interaction” as two human models locked together in a box, sharing the air. In fact, this is not as far-fetched as the human model at first glance.we are one Indoor species:

Dr. Richard Corsi, who has studied indoor air quality for 30 years at Portland State University, said: “We spend more time at home than whales spend under the sea.” “The average American lives to be 79 years old and live in 70 of these 79 years were spent in the building.”

Unless we are Ted Kaczynski, confined in solitary confinement and left on the street, Or Simeon Stylites -All are definitely marginal situations-we spend time indoors with others and share the air. in other words, Breathing is a social relationship[2]. We have the most material social relationship-shared air-between two people, they do not have to be family members. So Maggie Thatcher was wrong.

Please note that this parameter does not depend on the quality of the mask, the fit of the mask or anything related to the properties of the mask. Breathing is a social relationship anyway. Perhaps if we can be clear on this point, we will be able to know more clearly that the mask/anti-mask dispute is actually discussing the kind of society we face.[3] think.

I don’t want to be totally dualistic here, so let me emphasize that I am presenting an ideological position held by passion:

Soon, my wife and I will be two years old, never wear masks, never accept the C19 test, never keep a distance from society (unless just away from frightened people), and never deny our sunshine and freedom of movement.

You don’t have to play their games.

— Ben Mitchell (@BenMitchellSong) December 28, 2021

This is a vision of social relations that share air. This is another one:

Related: ? on why vaccines alone are not enough and a multi-pronged approach is neededhttps://t.co/sVGVKQwiKn

-Rachel Thomas (@math_rachel) January 1, 2022

It’s interesting to rethink the argument of “freedom”-a word, although not a concept, I start to hate-in terms of seat belts or smoking. In the end, seat belts became mandatory, and smoking in shared air was prohibited. However, car accidents and cancer did not double in a few days…

notes

[1] “Joseph Allen, Associate Professor of the Harvard Chen Zengxi School of Public Health and Director of the Healthy Building Project, decomposes mathematics into Multiple mask wearers increase their efficiencyIf a person wears a cloth mask, it may be 50% effective in blocking COVID-19 particles. But when two people wear cloth masks, this number will jump to about 75%. “

[2] Even spreading a virus is a social relationship: the virus originates in the lungs of one person and then spreads to the lungs of another person through aerosols.

[3] By “us” I certainly don’t mean “them” [joke]Generally, conservatives take their politics more seriously than liberals. If their distrust of professional management is complete—and PMC has performed well in achieving this level of distrust—they will not just complain. Personally, I think politics is wrong and the behavior may be ugly, but they don’t think so.