McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Ale

Coronavirus Technology Solutions and the Coordination with Other Initiatives such as Climate Change

Here is the draft of an article which will appear in the next issue of International Filtration News. This is now a publication owned by INDA (Association of Nonwoven Manufacturers). We will be working with INDA and others to convey important facts and analysis to show how filters can help win the COVID war. As one of our subscribers we will be looking for your collaboration in this endeavor.

The filtration industry needs to take the lead in resolving the COVID problem. Transmission does not come from contaminated food, mosquitoes, or fleas. Very little transmission has been traced to surface contact. The new evidence is that small aerosols provide a major route for COVID transmission. These aerosols create viral clouds which are not deterred by distancing or partitions. They are not deterred by masks which capture a minority of small particles being exhaled or inhaled. The proactive and best solution is efficient masks and high efficiency air filters. We will cover the filters in the next article but focus here on the masks.

It will be highly desirable for every one of the 3 billion people in contact with others to wear an efficient mask. With highly efficient washable and breathable media this is not only feasible from a technology and production perspective but will be very cost effective.

The formulation of the best strategy has to take into account factors relating to the virus, wearer, mask design, and environmental conditions. Each of these areas is being analyzed in detail. In this article we will focus on the virus factors.

Size and proliferation of Aerosols: We breathe in millions of particles per minute but if just10 coronavirus particles are present an infection is possible. Small particles such as virus aerosols are invisible. This can provide a false sense of safety. In every cubic ft. of air we inhale we also inhale at least 500,000 particles greater than or equal to 0.5 microns in diameter. We inhale even more smaller particles in the 0.1 to 0.2 micron range which is the size of the virus.

There are some reports that the minimum infectious dose for COVID-19 can be as low as 10 viral particles. This means that if just a tiny fraction of the particles we inhale every minute are COVID we can become infected. For comparison purposes a pharmaceutical cleanroom typically is ISO 5 (100 particles/sq. ft. greater than 0.5 microns). The cleanest operating theaters in hospitals are ISO 4 (10 particles/sq. ft. greater than 0.5 microns). The semiconductor industry spends billions of dollars per year to reach ISO 3 (1 particle/sq. ft. greater than 0.5 microns). The task of keeping small particles such as viruses from occupying space is very difficult.

Many of the particles we inhale are long distance travelers. For example mercury emitted from gold mines in Brazil has been traced to the Artic. When a volcano erupted in Iceland the skies turned dark in Europe for weeks. Italian researchers have found COVID on air pollution particles in the Lombardy region. Recent studies in London link COVID transmission and higher levels of air pollution.

Another takeaway is that social distancing has limited effectiveness. Viruses travel on cigarette smoke sized particles. So one way to view the task is to think that everyone you encounter is puffing away and you have to avoid even inhaling a few of his smoke particles.

The percentage of virus in aerosols versus larger droplets: Viruses attach to droplets or particles. They are only 0.1 microns in diameter but may be in droplets 20 microns in diameter or larger. Droplets in the 5 micron range can also be generated or can be the result of evaporation of larger droplets. In medical changing rooms in China higher viral loads have been noted. Viruses are also being aerosolized by cleaning the floor or from other surfaces.

Viral Load: The viral load varies by individual and activity. A lusty super spreader singer was able to generate many thousands of aerosols and infect 45 people in just two hours.

Minimum Infectious Dose: There are reports that only 10 viral particles is enough to cause an infection. Other views are that it generally requires a large number of particles over a period of time. Since large cough or sneeze droplets don’t travel far, social distancing is therefore the best way to avoid infection. However, if small numbers of airborne viruses can cause an infection then a whole different approach is needed.

Life of Virus: The virus is known to remain viable for hours in the air and for days on various surfaces.

Virus Rejuvenation from Dormancy: It has now been documented that viruses are not necessarily dead but just dormant as they travel through the air. They can then penetrate the lungs where the moisture revives them.

Creation of Aerosols from Viruses Leaving Surfaces: There are numerous cases tracking aerosols which were originally on surfaces such as floors or clothing.

Wearer: Athletes, elderly, and those with respiratory problems need to be evaluated separately from the general population and there need to be masks designed for them.

Conditions: Areas where many people are in close proximity dictate different masks and mask protocols from those where few or any people congregate.

Mask Design: There are many innovations which need to be continually evaluated. Nanofibers and membranes provide alternatives to meltblowns and some new spun bond designs. Mask decontamination or washing is now available even for media which is subject to losing its electrostatic effect. This opens the door for more expensive designs. In fact a $30 design which can be used 50 times is very cost effective compared to disposables.

There are two new options which need to be considered. They are N80 masks and N95 masks with valves. Both are far superior to the N30 masks being recommended. If both the transmitter and the recipient are wearing N30 masks the recipient will inhale 49% of the small virus particles. If both wear N95 masks the recipient will inhale only 0.25% of the virus particles. But these are not the only choices. Europe is setting standards for N80 and N90 masks. There are regulations in many cities prohibiting the N95 valved mask but its results are equivalent to the N80 and only 10% of the inhalation with N30 masks.

Viral Particles Inhaled with Different Mask Combinations
Transmitter		Recipient
Mask	Emission	Mask	Inhale
N30	70	N30	51
N80	20	N80	4
N95V	100	N95V	5
N95	5	N95	0.25

There is an opportunity to reduce risk with masks. This requires public support. So options such as valved masks should not be quickly discarded. Valved masks with locks provide even more flexibility to adjust to changing environments.

The confused approach to masks is similar to the one on particulate emissions after regulations to add acid gas scrubbers were instituted. Because it was difficult to measure particles after a scrubber EPA would not change the regulation requiring a certain precipitator efficiency despite the additional removal in the scrubber. The scrubber industry waged a multiyear campaign to show that the scrubber removed substantial particulate and successfully persuaded EPA to change the rules.

The filtration industry should show this leadership in the use of masks and filters to win the COVID battle. This entails more research and development, expanded production, and an effective information campaign.

Coronavirus Technology Solutions and the Coordination with Other Initiatives such as Climate Change

As shown in the following news release and article in the McIlvaine Utility E-Alert the Coronavirus is having a major impact on the world economy. Countries such as India will suffer disproportionately due to lack of the infrastructure to cope with COVID. This is a crisis situation. India and other developing countries need to move forward with electrification in part to better cope with the virus. Delays such as coal fired plant cancellations will have dire results.

We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis in more than 80 years and unless countries stop ignoring mask and other COVID mitigation opportunities we could face a worse situation that we did in the 1919-35 period.

For those involved in the air treatment industry there are two initiatives which are now relevant. One involves masks and filters to combat COVID and the other has to do with climate change.

The magnitude of the problem was conveyed in the latest International Monetary fund forecasts that World GDP will fall by nearly 5% this year. This will be in part due to an 8% decline in the U.S.

Country	GDP Decline in 2010
World	4.9
U.S.	8
Mexico	10
Brazil	9
South Africa	8

The global economy will contract the most since World War II this year and emerging nations’ output will shrink for the first time in at least six decades due to the Covid-19 pandemic, reducing incomes and sending millions of people into poverty, the World Bank said.

The air treatment industry can be proactive with mask and filter programs which will allow return to near normal life without viral spread. Filtration experts have heretofore not been influential. The first government advice was that masks were not necessary. Now the advice is that the masks are necessary but without appreciation of the differences between masks. When both the transmitter and recipient wear masks there is a huge difference in virus particles inhaled. When both wear a 30% efficient mask 49% of the viruses are inhaled. When both wear a 95% efficient mask the percentage is only 0.25%. So with inefficient masks the viral inhalation is 396 times greater than with efficient masks.

We now know that small aerosols are the main transmission route for COVID. So wearing masks which virtually eliminate aerosol transmission will go a long way solve the problem. This situation is analyzed on a daily basis in Coronavirus Technology Solutions.

Relative to climate change there is pressure being exerted on developing countries e.g. Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, India and others to abandon coal fired power projects. Many lenders are refusing to fund them. These projects are a quick route to electrification which will in turn lead to better living conditions for citizens of these countries.

Masks to combat COVID will cost hundreds of dollars per year per person. Upgrading hospitals with more isolation units and ventilators is costly. Expanded hospital capability also means expanded electricity requirements. Reliability needs to increase. For a hospital with many patients in critical condition 12 hours without electricity can be a death sentence.

Delaying electricity supply for a few years until wind and solar can be implemented will result in deaths and disabilities. In a country such as India the resources to fight COVID need to be prioritized.

The basis for abandoning coal fired projects is the tipping point theory. This theory states that there is a tipping point for CO2 levels and once that level is reached all sorts of dire events will occur. This would not be the case if there were a way to actually remove CO2 from the air. Fortunately that is now the case Opportunistic Biomass - CCS Program is the Route chosen by the UK and Japan. Developing countries can build coal fired power plants with the potential to switch to biomass and sequestration in twenty years and remove as much CO2 in each of the following 20 years as they emitted in the first twenty years. Details on this program are provided in Utility Tracking System http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/databases/42ei-utility-tracking-system

The number of confirmed new coronavirus cases per day in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000 Friday — eclipsing the mark set during one of the deadliest stretches in late April. The resurgence has led some governors to backtrack or at least pause the reopening of their states.

While the increase is believed to reflect, in part, greatly expanded testing, experts say there is ample evidence the virus is making a comeback, including rising deaths and hospitalizations in parts of the country, especially in the South and West. Arizona, Texas and Florida are among the states that have been hit hard.

The number of confirmed infections soared past the previous high set on April 24 of 36,400, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. are down to around 600 per day, compared with about 2,200 in mid-April. Some experts have expressed doubt that deaths will return to that level, in part because of advances in treatment and prevention but also because a large share of the new infections are in younger adults, who are more likely than older ones to survive.

The virus is blamed for 124,000 deaths in the U.S. and 2.4 million confirmed infections nationwide, by Johns Hopkins' count. But U.S. health officials said the true number of Americans infected is about 20 million, or almost 10 times higher. Worldwide, the virus has claimed close to a half-million lives, according to Johns Hopkins.

Elsewhere around the world, China moved closer to containing a fresh outbreak in Beijing. Another record daily increase in India pushed the caseload in the world's second most populous nation toward half a million. And other countries with big populations like Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico grappled with large numbers of infections and strained health care systems.

South Africa, which accounts for about half of the infections on the African continent with over 118,000, reported a record of nearly 6,600 new cases after loosening what had been one of the world's strictest lockdowns earlier this month.

The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association on Friday said 16 players tested positive for the coronavirus in the first wave of mandatory tests done in preparation for the restart of the season.

Those 16 players were part of a pool of 302 tested on Tuesday -- a 5.3% rate of positive tests leaguewide.

Commissioner Adam Silver said the numbers were roughly as expected and that none of the 16 were seriously ill.

Any player who tested positive will remain in self-isolation until he satisfies public health protocols for discontinuing isolation and has been cleared by a physician.

The league did not announce results of testing on staffers and other members of team travel parties, all of whom are also part of the mandatory testing program.

On Tuesday, teams were required to begin testing players participating in voluntary workouts in their home markets every other day. Mandatory workouts begin July 1, and teams participating in the restart can begin to arrive in Florida on July 7. Training camps will run from July 9 to 29 with three scrimmages per team.

On Thursday, the NBA shared with its players the security plan to help enforce health and safety protocols and to secure its campus at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex for the resumption of the season, league sources told ESPN.

Joe Biden said if elected president, he would make wearing a face covering in public compulsory, further distancing himself on the issue from President Donald Trump who has stressed that masks are voluntary and has flouted public health recommendations.

"The one thing we do know is these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask. Anyone to reopen would have to make sure that they walked into a business that had masks," Biden told CNN's affiliate in Pittsburgh, KDKA, while wearing a black mask.

Pressed if he'd use federal power to mandate wearing a mask in public, Biden responded, "Yes, I would. From an executive standpoint, yes I would."

Asked again if that meant he would "in effect" mandate mask wearing, Biden said, "I would do everything possible to make it required that people had to wear masks in public."

At least 16 states and the District of Columbia have mandates on wearing cloth face masks in public, but masks have become a political flash point as some argue the requirement infringes upon their civil liberties.

Despite the advice from public health experts, Trump continues to defy health recommendations and has been reluctant to be seen wearing a mask in public. The White House maintains that everyone who comes in contact with the President is tested for coronavirus regularly.

Trump recently told The Wall Street Journal that masks are "a double-edged sword" and also suggested that masks are being worn as a political statement, rather than a health precaution, to show disapproval of him.

A partnership between University of Kentucky and Somerset Community College professors could soon deliver 3D-printed, customizable masks that hold a re-usable, washable filter that can inactivate COVID-19.

Isabel Escobar, a UK chemical and materials engineering professor, and Eric Woolridge, a Somerset professor of additive manufacturing, are using existing research, materials, equipment and processes.

Escobar and her team create the nontoxic membrane that is chemically bound to silver nanoparticles — both of which are key to catching and inactivating the virus. Woolridge, a 3D-printing expert, and his team print the masks and the small disks that will hold the membrane.

After printing the small disks, Woolridge said he sends them to Escobar at UK where they are coated with the silver-infused membrane and are tested for their filtering abilities. The membrane-coated disks are very thin, Woolridge said, and about the diameter of a fist. The disk can be inserted in 3D-printed masks and function as the filter. Escobar said the filters are as good as and hopefully more effective than the filter in disposable N95 masks, the gold standard of protection during the COVID-19 worldwide outbreak.

The membrane inside the filter is dense enough to catch the coronavirus, Escobar said. The virus is about 120 nanometers in size, and likely would hit the membrane entrapped in saliva or mucus. For comparison, the average human hair is about 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers wide.

The medical-grade, silver nanoparticles in the membrane slowly kill the virus, Escobar said.

“What the silver nanoparticles do, is they will bind with that protein, they will prevent that protein from being able to attach to any structures,” Escobar said. “Without being able to attach to anything, eventually the virus dies.”

“Silver has been used a lot in the past in wound dressings, in clothing, in surface coatings, all because of its antivirus and also antibacterial capabilities,” Escobar said. “It’s not specific for viruses. It can inactivate viruses and it can inactivate bacteria as well.”

The membranes could in theory be cleaned with water, said Escobar who is also the associate director of UK’s Center for Membrane Sciences. Her aim is a filter that is washable with water and a little mild soap.

Although New York state’s metrics continue on a downward trend and regions continue to reopen in phases, the state’s malls, movie theaters and gyms must remain shuttered.

“Are these air conditioning units recirculating the virus? That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Cuomo said during Friday’s press briefing.

Cuomo said the state Department of Health is trying to determine if and what filter can be added to air conditioning units that will filter out COVID-19 without reducing air quality.

It’s impractical, most gym operators say, to tell people they have to wear a mask while exercising on a treadmill. The deeper breaths, laughing, shouting, tends to put more of the virus in the air if you are positive. If you are running and you’re breathing and exhaling deeply that might put more virus in the air,” Cuomo said.

“If you’re a gym that has an air conditioning system that is recirculating the air ... that might be problematic,” he continued.

City Councilman Steven Matteo (R-Mid-Island) wrote to the governor, urging him to reconsider his decision.

“Business owners in my community had long been under the impression that our reopening is a four-Phase process with clear benchmarks and at least two weeks between Phases. That is how it has been communicated to all of us since NY Forward was released,” Matteo said.

His cited the Staten Island Mall, which is a key part of the borough’s economy, and said it has social distancing reopening plan ready to go. Unfairly, he said, is that Target is permitted to operate and be open to customers as it is also indoors but is smaller than the mall.

He continued, “I fear we are going to see numerous closures of stores in our malls statewide due to the complete and utter uncertainty.”

Matteo stated that not only is the mall important for borough businesses, it is also a place where people exercise indoors as they are able to walk indoors in an air conditioned environment.

New York Down to 1.3% Positive Results

Out of 61,000 COVID-19 tests performed in the last 24 hours, only 1.3% had a positive result, Cuomo said, the lowest in the United States. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, 50% of all test results came back positive.

The three-day average for coronavirus fatalities is 16, also the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic which, at its height, saw 800 deaths a day. There were also 950 hospitalizations yesterday, the governor announced.

“The good news is the tracing system is working,” he said, citing an apple plant in upstate New York which was able to trace an outbreak back to its processing plant.

The state is currently exploring the legality of tracing over borders and at airlines.

“We’re going through the law right now; we have no legal jurisdictional border control. That’s federal,” he said, when asked about the tri-state quarantine.

Governors from the tri-state area announced Wednesday that they will impose a two-week quarantine for travelers from states with high coronavirus (COVID-19) rates. Enforcement will be left to each state. In New York, Cuomo said the advisory will serve as a way to inform travelers that they “should quarantine for 14 days.”

He offered several mechanisms -- hotel clerks, business meetings and police officers stopping vehicles with license plate from affected states -- as ways New York could be notified of quarantine violations.

“If you are violating the quarantine, you can be subject to a judicial order and mandatory quarantine,” Cuomo said. “You could have to pay the costs of quarantine. There are also fines that could go along with violating the quarantine -- $2,000 for the first violation, $5,000 for the second, up to $10,000 if you cause harm.”

“The Port Authority oversees the airports from a management point-of-view. We’re talking to the airlines about our ability as a state to question people coming into our airports, gathering information [from them], temperature checks and what our legal authority is,” he went on to say.