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   Benjamin Ross (benrosstransit@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Nov-2024 14:13:12 JST Benjamin Ross

   • Hannu Ikonen MD

   @hannu_ikonen There is more to this story.
   I looked into this in April and May 2020. (I have some background in indoor air pollution and more in multiphase flow in porous media.)
   I was able to find the original papers from the ~1930s. The experiments were all done at low humidity. The basic idea was that small aqueous droplets will evaporate before they go very far.
   As I said then in this blog comment, this ignores the non-aqueous components of the droplet.
   https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/05/15/is-the-united-states-giving-up-on-public-transportation/#comment-76785
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   • AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     Benjamin Ross (benrosstransit@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Nov-2024 14:13:12 JST Benjamin Ross

     in reply to

     • Hannu Ikonen MD

     @hannu_ikonen The story since then is an example of a very common pattern in public health guidance. Guidance (such as a safe level of a chemical) is issued on the basis of very limited information. As more information accumulates, authorities fail to update the guidance because there isn't definitive proof that the original guidance is wrong -- even though the new evidence is much stronger than the evidence behind the original guidance. 2/2