I'm not "anti-mask". I'm just wondering whether we will see studies in 10-20 years about a bunch of children with lung problems from restricted airflow or weird fibers or chemicals, or other pathogens that grew on the masks, or something we haven't thought of yet.
Or who knows? Maybe kids will all have super strong lungs. Or maybe lucky ones will have stronger lungs and others will suffer. I just don't know.
Anyone studying this (potential) issue?
* Adult vs child
* Material (e.g. cotton)
* Quality
* Wash / replacement schedule
* Activities performed
And while you're at it, consider that kids aren't dropping like flies from covid, either. So if you're performing a cost / benefit analysis, the cost to kids wearing masks doesn't need to be very high before it gets higher than whatever benefit the masks offer.
Outright death is rare, but there's quite a few pediatric hospitalizations. They likely come with long term consequences, too.
For that matter, influenza has been greatly reduced, and there's a lot of chronic sequelae to influenza infection in youth.
And don't forget to add secondary consequences. I'm still willing to teach them in part because of reduced risk to me and my father thanks to masking. And a slightly reduced chance of killing a parent or grandparent by bringing home COVID is notable, too.
As far as I know, it was more of a fear than anything else. But it raises an important question: who controls the quality of the masks we wear? What's to stop a store from ordering substandard products and ordering all its employees to wear them?
Even just a single door open makes a big difference, IMO.
My ancient high school had 45-degree windows (for theft and suicide prevention I imagine). Why lock it all down? Cost?
If you can rely upon windows entirely for ventilation and thermal control, that's great.
Otherwise, windows that open leak more air when you don't want them to. They also let in more humid air, which in turn has a higher specific heat capacity and requires more energy to dry the air later. Their usage tends to be uneven, so you often have open windows while AC is also running elsewhere or in the same room, and this can upset air handling.
So, windows that open can paradoxically increase energy consumption in larger buildings.
As for the energy to dry the air, I’m inexpert in this area¹ but under the impression dehumidification is essentially just a byproduct of how compressors work (the evaporator’s low temperature causes water vapour to condense) rather than something that takes deliberate effort—that, if anything, air conditioners are commonly now deliberately revapourising water to avoid dehumidification beyond the desired level.
—⁂—
¹ But I am trying to learn for part of a project of my own, a velomobile and trailer to be able to live out of indefinitely, where in the ideal case that I haven’t determined is feasible I’d really like it if I could have one compressor to drive food refrigeration, cabin cooling, heating a low-temperature slow-cooker-style oven, and providing my water supply.
OK, so I should add a little more nuance:
* With more water vapor in the air, the air has a little more heat capacity
* With more water vapor in the air, the temperature band for comfort is a little narrower
* With more water vapor in the air, air conditioners need to work extra hard to provide the same cooling.
That is, the more water there is in the air to begin with, the more will condense and return its heat of vaporization to the room.
On phase change energies: I don’t know enough to quantify things definitely there, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_heat#Specific_latent_he... looks like the right thing, and suggests around 2.4kJ/g, which with water being as much as 5% of the air (100% humidity at 40°C) would be as much as cooling the air down by about another 0.12°C for removing all of it.
Except … a pandemic! We are optimizing for the wrong thing IMO at the expense of simple practical, human driven comfort. Same reason we don’t have windows on the local trains anymore.
Practically for people in classrooms at random times, being able to open a window should be an option. Only central control of when the ventilation / heat is on just fails in so many situations.
I like having windows that will open in my classroom. But in the larger buildings with central, indoor hallways, the benefit of windows is smaller (much less outer surface area vs. volume of space) and the potential costs are higher.
Aside from pandemic-proofing, the main benefit I get is from having more ventilation when I do things that don't need to be under a hood, but still produce fumes/smoke. E.g. soldering.
Good modern buildings are being built with more ventilation and heat recovery built in. Taking this over windows that open can be a reasonable trade. Yes, on the pandemic axis, many of these buildings may be a little worse than a classroom with a whole long wall of opening windows.
The chief challenge is that of retrofits vs. new construction. Much of California's school infrastructure is 50--100 years old.
In general, newer buildings with sealed windows have pretty good air exchange (with heat recovery) and filtration.
> For much of the state, through much of the year, open windows are a reasonably minor consideration.
Yah, tell that to me languishing masked a 95 degree classroom between building heat gain and a temperature in the 90s, and now ending up with a 60 degree room. It's workable, but it sucks, and we're wasting a lot of energy just to maintain a few degree delta T from outside with open windows. We've had a few weeks where the open windows have been great, but a lot more crummy weeks.
I'm a little jealous of those upstairs in the high school building that don't need to open windows.... and have nice temperatures in their classrooms... and have also had 0 secondary COVID cases. It's also really hard to conduct class when there's music, PE, etc, activities outside.
> The chief challenge is that of retrofits vs. new construction.
I thought we were talking in the context of a new school building being built without windows that open.
That said, windows are nice. If you have a class full of kids that are restless, sometimes opening windows and getting some outside noise or a breeze through the room changes the entire mood. It would be sad to lose that.
(Keep in mind that mixing air also mixes infectious particles.)
A slight improvement is to have a single exit point (vented with a fan) and rely on structure permiability to introduce fresh air. That's effectively a negative-pressure system.
From there, exhaust and intake with heat recovery is the next obvious step.
I mention older construction as replacing building stock is a long-term and expensive process. New construction will account for an exceedingly small percentage of all utilised buildings. New construction currently planned or in process should if at all possible incorporate lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, but that's a drop in the bucket. Retrofits are highly likely.
If you want to read further, I'm finding numerous results for a search on school ventilation in new construction and retrofits:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=+school+retrofit+construction+vent...
Among the first of those, from the CDC:
Reoccupying a building during the COVID-19 pandemic should not, in most cases, require new building ventilation systems. However, ventilation system upgrades or improvements can increase the delivery of clean air and dilute potential contaminants. Consult experienced heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) professionals when considering changes to HVAC systems and equipment. Buildings that provided healthy, code-compliant indoor air quality prior to the pandemic can be improved for pandemic occupancy using less costly interventions. Below is a list of ventilation interventions that can help reduce the concentration of virus particles in the air. They represent a list of “tools in the mitigation toolbox,” each of which can contribute towards a reduction in risk. Implementing multiple tools at the same time is consistent with CDC’s layered approach and will increase overall effectiveness of ventilation interventions. These ventilation interventions can reduce the risk of exposure to the virus and reduce the spread of disease, but they will not eliminate risk completely.
...
Open windows and doors, when weather conditions allow, to increase outdoor air flow. Do not open windows and doors if doing so poses a safety or health risk (e.g., risk of falling, triggering asthma symptoms) to occupants in the building. Even a slightly open window can introduce beneficial outdoor air.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/ventilat...
That cites an industry study by ASHRAE (professional association):
https://www.ashrae.org/file%20library/technical%20resources/...
It also recommends on exhaust fans rather than interior circulation fans to minimise strong internal air currents, with intake provide as I've indicated above.
During a pandemic, it makes a lot of sense-- at least for the "extremes" of weather faced here.
> A window cracked open for ventilation, and either at the top of the classroom (warm weather w/ cooling active) or bottom (with heating), and a fan within the room for vertical mixing ... might help.
Might, but who knows how much? How does one weight the ordinary risk of sickness and infection (outside of a pandemic) with energy costs? (Especially when there are less energy-intensive ways to get the ventilation).
> A slight improvement is to have a single exit point (vented with a fan) and rely on structure permiability to introduce fresh air. That's effectively a negative-pressure system.
> From there, exhaust and intake with heat recovery is the next obvious step.
Yes, and pretty quickly from here you're ending up designing a structure without windows that open, so you can ensure that your fancy ventilation system does the right thing, filters don't get fouled, and you're not wasting heat.
> I mention older construction as replacing building stock is a long-term and expensive process.
Well, sure. But we were talking about it in the context of someone complaining a new building doesn't have windows. Older, smaller, poorly sealed buildings are a lot less likely to be retrofitted with no windows than new construction.
> It also recommends on exhaust fans rather than interior circulation fans to minimise strong internal air currents, with intake provide as I've indicated above.
Well, duh.
An otherwise well-sealed building, with a porous wall structure held at a small negative prssure, is effectively a very simple heat recovery ventilation system, too.
This is mostly for tall buildings though. For a school, it could be that they want to be able to control the airflow and AC. Having a window open could be letting out the heat causing the heating to work harder for no reason.
But we’re talking about young kids here. Pre-school (age 2 - 4) is an especially critical time and early elementary is important too. This time is a short window in brain development when the brain is super elastic and learns many things. Much of language development isn’t just hearing and speaking, it’s also seeing the mouth movements. And this is the age when the brain learns how to recognize and display facial emotions. Is it possible by masking so much these young kids, we’re doing major damage to this learning process?
Maybe the answer is yes, or maybe it’s no. But no one is even considering this question. It’s just endless stupid debates about masking that doesn’t at all consider the special circumstances of this critical time in life, this short window when so much happens.
Maybe. But, on the flipside:
* We spend a lot of time outside and unmasked
* Many teachers use clear masks during phonics instruction and other critical times
* Wearing masks makes parents more comfortable with sending their kids to school, and so is enabling more social contact.
There are also some ancillary / random benefits, too. A big fraction of kids spend a big fraction of time up to age 7 fairly hearing impaired from low grade ear infections and congestion, and we're finally getting classroom audio amplification out at scale, adding a few decibels to teacher voices that will be helpful in the long term.
Also one more random note: emphasizing looking at the mouth so much for emotional reading is a mostly Western thing and not universal in human cultures. I'm guessing we end up with a generation of kids that read the eyes much more.
I.e. we fear the effects of total isolation of a four year old more than the risk of their stunted facial recognition practice etc etc
Elementary kids do not care one bit about wearing masks indoors. They picked up the habit quickly, don't complain, and now put the rest of us to shame. Indeed, they often don't bother (not out of fear, but just forgetting or not bothering) to remove when going outside.
And, the risk is much more significant than you imply, and the risk to us who work with them is substantial.
I'm looking forward to masks going away eventually for a lot of reasons (though I kinda hope they become normal for e.g. the worst month of flu season, like in many other parts of the world), but calling it abuse is just ridiculous.
Well I believe the opposite, and from having a teacher in the family I can tell you masks are INCREDIBLY detrimental to the educational experience. We're harming our children's education immensity by clinging to them.
> , the risk is much more significant than you imply
No it is not. It's not even a large enough risks in adults for the removals of freedom to have been justified, and there's MUCH, MUCH less in kids. The risk is virtually non-existent, not a worry whatsoever.
If you're still sitting here in 2021 and pushing for the continual suspension of freedom "for the children" over a near nonexistent worry, you are part of the problem.
OK. I'm teaching and doing fine. So are my colleagues.
It seems to me like the ability to design a school like this would be the exception, not the rule.
It's difficult to estimate. Of course, even with all this care, not everywhere is equally well ventilated. My room is wide open to the outside, but there are other rooms depending on central air and the room filter which may not be as well off. Trying to form policy on a room by room basis would be nutty.
> And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates?
We do go outside quite a bit, and most students choose to not mask outside and thus see their classmates then. There's also the very real benefit of making many students-- and me, their teacher-- feel safer.
IMO the biggest cost is it's slightly harder to understand each other and we have a few more misunderstandings per day.
Further bounding the risk of me getting exposed by a student (ventilation + masking) lets me both see my elderly father and continue to teach. I don't financially need to teach, and as much as I find it rewarding, I'm not willing to take a large risk of killing family members to do it.
I would figure the first thing needed to answer that question is defining the "difficult-to-quantify" cost, right?
The hospitalizations tell the story, ie. we are doing better than under the big flu seasons from the past.
It's more that the majority thinks that masks work, so it won't change anytime soon.
- We eat outside.
- We have filters upgraded to MERV-13 and the fans run the entire school day.
- We have windows and doors open on all classrooms, except for A) a few that don't open outside, or B) when it's rainy/windy to the point it's not possible. We have small, secondary HEPA filters that we run in those circumstances. (Often, we're blaring AC or heat into a room with all doors and windows open just to get a few degrees closer to comfort).
- We mask indoors, too.
So far, no secondary cases attributable to spread at school. We've had frequent testing for much of the time, too, so they'd likely get detected. Now a lot of the student body is vaccinated, too, but this dates to before that.