A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences refuted there was no solid evidence to support the long list of various social distancing rules recommended by so-called “health experts” and imposed by politicians.
The authors of the study are from MIT: Martin Bazant, professor of chemical engineering, and John M. Bush, professor of mathematics. As CNBC made clear in the title of its article on this report: “MIT researchers say you’re no safer from COVID indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet in new study challenging social distancing policies.”
The peer-reviewed study pokes huge holes in long-standing social distance rules espoused by both the CDC and the WHO. According to Professor Bazant:
“We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the 6-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks. It really has no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room, so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.”
Other salient points revealed by Professor Bazant in this peer-reviewed study:
“Opening windows or installing new fans to keep the air moving could also be just as effective or more effective than spending large amounts of money on a new filtration system.
What our analysis continues to show is that many spaces that have been shut down in fact don’t need to be. Often times the space is large enough, the ventilation is good enough, the amount of time people spend together is such that those spaces can be safely operated even at full capacity and the scientific support for reduced capacity in those spaces is really not very good.
Six-feet social distancing rules that inadvertently result in closed businesses and schools are ‘just not reasonable.’
This emphasis on distancing has been really misplaced from the very beginning. The CDC or WHO have never really provided justification for it, they’ve just said this is what you must do and the only justification I’m aware of, is based on studies of coughs and sneezes, where they look at the largest particles that might sediment onto the floor and even then it’s very approximate, you can certainly have longer or shorter range, large droplets.
The distancing isn’t helping you that much and it’s also giving you a false sense of security because you’re as safe at 6 feet as you are at 60 feet if you’re indoors. Everyone in that space is at roughly the same risk, actually.”
One of the most important observations this new empirical data helps make clear is that wearing masks outdoors is almost always unnecessary. “If you look at the air flow outside, the infected air would be essentially swept away and very unlikely to cause transmission. There are very few recorded instances of outdoor transmission,” he said.
Professor Bazant added this fact could well be the reason Texas and Florida have successfully reopened without mask mandates and restrictions on capacity.
TRENDPOST: The MIT study confirmed what the Trends Journal has been advocating for over a year, as reported in our 14 April 2020 article, “THE NUMBERS DON’T ADD UP” and our 14 July 2020 article, “TRANSMISSION CONFUSION.”
Mr. Bazant also stated, “We need scientific information conveyed to the public in a way that is not just fearmongering but is actually based in analysis.”
Indeed, in our 5 December issue, we featured the article: “CALIFORNIA: MORE LOCKDOWNS. NO SCIENTIFIC DATA REQUIRED.”
