This thread was created on 3/8/2020, or approximately one million years ago in virus time. It’s getting pretty bloated now, and a lot of things that were high value at the time have been eclipsed by events, making karma not a very useful sorting tool. So I’m declaring this thread finished, and asking everyone to move over to the April Coronavirus Open Thread.
Interested in what happened in this thread? Here’s the timeless or not-yet-eclipsed highlights:
- Scott Alexander comes up with Hammer and Dance 6 days before Tomas Pueyo
- Spiracular on why SARS-Cov-2 is unlikely to be lab-created.
- Two documents collating estimates of basic epidemiological parameters, in response to this thread
- Discussion on whether the tuberculosis vaccine provides protection against COVID-19.
- Suggestive evidence that COVID-19 removes sense of taste and smell.
- Could copper tape be net harmful?
It seems plausible to me that the copper tape approach many LWers have adopted is counter-productive in at least some cases. The logic for this is:
1. In the pictures I've seen, and with my own applications of copper tape, to the surfaces we seem to touch most often (e.g. doorknobs, light switches) applications of it have created a number of small creases, bumps, ridges, and/or folds.
2. Copper does not seem to have nearly as strong an effect on surfaces as does wiping them with disinfectant.
3. Wiping them with disinfectant seems likely to be a lot less effective on surfaces that aren't smooth (bumps, ridges, etc.) due to the difficulty in wiping all parts of the surface.
Thoughts?
A downside of using copper may be that exposing it to disinfectants could lead to a decrease in its efficacy. Ethanol is listed specifically.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067274/#r1
The claimed exception to this is "a 1% nonionic detergent solution".