Skin Rafts: You have thousands of tiny pieces of your body leaving you every minute; 40,000 pieces to be exact. These tiny cornflake-like bits are called rafts. They are made up of skin cells, hygiene products, bacteria, fungus, parasites, sweat, hormones, and enzymes. They are unique to each individual human....Some skin rafts are lighter, and easily carried by air currents. Others are heavier than air, alighting on vegetation or falling to the ground. [iv]....Skin rafts are carried along currents of air like millions of fluffy dandelion seeds. Your skin rafts first leave your body travelling upwards at 2mph along an air current your 98.6 degree Fahrenheit body produces.
Wind direction influences raft travel. Skin rafts blown by the wind form into an ever-widening cone shape, or plume. The direction of airflow determines the shape and direction of the plume.
There is significant disagreement about whether COVID19 is best described as an "airborne virus." Roxanne Khamsi describes this debate in her article: "They Say Coronavirus Isn't Airborne but It's Definitely Borne By Air." She writes:
The authorities employ a rule of thumb for distinguishing what they call "droplets" from "aerosols." Droplets are often defined as being larger than 5 microns in diameter....Aerosols, in this scenario, are smaller gobs of potentially biohazardous material that may remain afloat for longer distances...
The 5-micron cutoff is arbitrary and ill-advised, according Lydia Bourouiba...."This creates confusion," she says.... Strictly speaking, the aerosols are droplets, too. When you breathe out or cough, you release bits of watery mucus from inside your body in a wide array of sizes, ranging from bigger, wetter ones to finer ones. All of these are droplets. The smallest droplets are commonly described as aerosols. Whatever you call them, though, any of these bits of mucus may be laced with viral pathogens...
Bourouiba's lab has found that coughs and sneezes, which they call "violent expiratory events," force out a cloud of air that carries droplets of various sizes much further than they would go otherwise....her work suggests these same droplets can travel up to 8 meters when taking into account the gaseous form of a cough...
Clearly, "bits of mucus laced with viral pathogens " could easily be transported on the skin rafts that K9's sense.
The Plume and Social Distancing
Viruses are very small, about a hundredth the size of our cells. So one skin cell could carry 100 virus particles (100 x 40,000 = 4 million). This is why a teaspoon of saltwater can contain a million viruses.
Don't be misled. Social distancing works because of the stay-at-home-rule. Staying-at-home vastly exceeds 27 feet: six feet does not. The Research shows that six feet is insufficient. So, when in public, whenever possible, wear a mask and maintain a distance over 27 feet. Please, acknowledge the Pigpen in each one of us.
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