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]]>The post Buying an Indoor Cycling Bike Was Expensive appeared first on Virus Reports.
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When I finally started listening to my body during workouts, I realized it was shouting at me — in the form of regular aches and pains in my knees — to reassess my cardio routine.
After gyms and fitness centers closed in March, I had no access to the low-impact resources I regularly turned to, like a pool or indoor cycling class, for a solid sweat. And because my downstairs neighbors do not appreciate high knees and jumping jacks at 6 a.m. (Can you blame them?), running became my go-to and only option for high-intensity cardio.
Going overboard with running — especially without switching things up or following a proper recovery routine — always seems to irritate my knees, and unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what happened. Missing my joint-friendly cardio methods something fierce, I decided to budget for an indoor cycling bike — justifying the cost with the fact that I didn’t have any intention to return to my gym.
A few weeks of basically little to no cardio later, it showed up at my doorstep — and I clipped in just a few hours later. The pedaling was a welcome relief from pounding the pavement, and I was thrilled later that night when I didn’t have to break out my ice pack. I’ve had my bike now for about two weeks, and I’ve never sweat so much without pain.
I always knew that cycling was a great low-impact workout, but I wasn’t as familiar with the mechanisms of this activity, so I checked in with Dr. Jasmine Marcus, PT, DPT, CSCS, for the specifics.
“Spinning is a great low-impact workout because your full body weight isn’t going through your legs the way it does when you’re walking or running,” Dr. Marcus says. “You’re sitting on the seat, but you can still get a great cardiovascular workout. This means less pressure is put on the joints in your legs, which can be great if you’re in pain.”
While many with knee pain will find cycling particularly helpful, Dr. Marcus also mentions that cycling isn’t always great for those with knee pain — others can actually experience pain during the activity. “Some people with knee pain, such as those with IT Band Syndrome, may find that the repetitive motion in biking further irritates the condition,” Dr. Marcus explains. “Obviously if you’re in enough pain that you have to alter your activity, you should seek treatment.”
While I’m so thrilled that I have a new cardio outlet, I’m being cautious not to overdo it — Dr. Marcus mentions that if you do too much too soon of any activity, you can injure yourself.
Click here for more health and wellness stories, tips, and news.
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]]>The post NJ indoor dining to reopen at limited capacity on Sept. 4 appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday that restaurants will be allowed to resume dine-in service at a limited capacity on Sept. 4.
While the state continues to battle the virus, all restaurants across the state will be able to serve guests inside at 25% capacity with social distancing between tables, according to Murphy.
“Reopening responsibly will help us restore one of our state’s key industries while continuing to make progress against #COVID19,” Murphy tweeted.
NEW JERSEY CITY TO ALLOW INDOOR DINING, AGAINST GOVERNOR’S ORDERS
Earlier this summer, Murphy postponed the resumption of indoor dining due to the lack of compliance over the use of face masks and social distancing as the coronavirus outbreak continues to rage in many parts of the country.
NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR SAYS INDOOR DINING WILL NO LONGER RESUME THIS WEEK AMID CORONAVIRUS SPIKES
However, according to reports, the governor first hinted Friday that the state was close to reopening dine-in service, roughly six months after restaurants shifted to take-out models in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
The governor’s update comes just after the state reported 306 new positive cases, pushing its cumulative total to 191,611.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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]]>The post How To Make Indoor Air Safer appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>If you’re waiting for a break from bad news about COVID, don’t hold your breath — or, actually, do hold your breath.
Experts have understood for months that the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, can be spread by hitching a ride inside large respiratory droplets that are expelled when someone coughs, sneezes or talks. But there’s growing evidence that smaller airborne particles called aerosols can carry and spread the virus, too.
The methods for preventing spread from respiratory droplets are familiar: social distancing, frequent hand-washing and wearing a mask. But the methods for stopping aerosols, which are lightweight and may be able to hang in the air for hours, are less obvious and often rely on technology. But can something like an air filter really stop a seemingly unstoppable pandemic?
Let’s start with the basics. The larger respiratory droplets that are known to spread the coronavirus are larger bits of spit and mucus that a person propels outward when they forcefully exhale. If the person is infectious, these droplets can be spiked with virus particles which, if they can find their way to your nose, mouth or eyes, can enter your body and cause infection. The droplets are between 5 and 10 microns across (a human hair is, on average, roughly 70 microns in diameter), and they’re heavy, as far as bodily secretions go, so they quickly fall to the floor — or nearby surface, or nearby facial orifice. But when we talk or laugh or sing or even just breathe, we also produce smaller, lighter droplets (less than 5 microns) that evaporate before gravity can do its thing, causing the dried remnants to stay aloft like a microscopic feather.
At the start of the pandemic, experts weren’t sure if these aerosols could contain enough virus or hang around long enough to actually infect anybody. A person can’t be infected by inhaling one or two viruses — they need to be exposed to a certain concentration of the virus before it can gain a foothold, though experts still aren’t sure what this threshold, called the infectious dose, is. But now there’s growing evidence that, yes, the aerosols carry the virus and, in a high enough concentration, can cause infection.
“It’s sort of a process of elimination. You get to the point where you say, ‘It sort of looks like aerosol transmission,’” said Lisa M. Brosseau, a research consultant at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “In the midst of a pandemic, that’s what you have. You take what evidence you have, what you can observe, and you draw conclusions from that.”
When people are outside, aerosol transmission is less of a concern because in wide-open spaces, these particles are quickly dispersed and diluted, making it difficult for an infectious concentration to accumulate, Brosseau said. It’s like dropping some food coloring into a river. But indoors, especially if the ventilation is poor, it’s much easier for aerosols to accumulate — more like dropping food coloring into a birdbath.
Sometimes, though, you can’t avoid taking a dip in those murky waters. The good news is there are ways to dilute and clear out aerosols from indoor spaces. But it requires more effort.
Opening a window can help because it forces fresh air in, and some of the contaminated air will make its way outside. “There is no doubt that, over time, on average, the concentration of aerosols is going to go down if you open up the windows,” said Rajat Mittal, a mechanical engineering professor who studies aerodynamics at Johns Hopkins University.
But if you’re, say, sitting in a classroom in Minnesota in January, or Arizona in September, opening up the windows might not be the most practical solution.
Instead, school boards and offices should look to their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. But you can’t just shuffle air around the building — that could spread the virus to even more places. Instead, you have to replace the air itself.
“You can achieve an air change by one of two ways,” said David Krause, a certified industrial hygienist and the owner of HealthCare Consulting and Contracting. The first is “through the gross changeout of air, bringing in outside air and exhausting air from the room. Or you can achieve it by using high-efficiency filters that effectively remove virus-containing particles from the air.”
Filters can capture virus-laden particles through a number of methods, including physically trapping them with a fine enough filter and using electrostatic attraction to charge particles and force them to settle out of the air.
To catch the tiny aerosols that might be carrying the coronavirus, filters need a high enough MERV — yes, MERV. Surely you’ve heard of the minimum efficiency reporting value before, no? A filter with a MERV rating of 1, for example, will capture less than 20 percent of particles that are 3 to 10 microns across. As the MERV rating increases, so does the number of particles it captures, along with the amount of force an HVAC system needs to push the air through the fine filter.
To effectively neutralize indoor transmission of the novel coronavirus, you’d need a MERV of at least 13, according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).
“We’re not recommending major modifications to most air conditioning systems. Many of them can simply change out one efficiency of filter for another,” said William Bahnfleth, a professor of architectural engineering at Pennsylvania State University and the chair of ASHRAE’s epidemic task force. “I have MERV-13 filters in my home air conditioner.”
But changing out the filter alone might not be enough. Krause pointed to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which were published before the COVID-19 pandemic, that outline exactly what standards buildings need to have to achieve “airborne infection isolation,” which means stopping the spread of aerosols smaller than 5 microns. At a minimum, buildings need to be reaching six air changes per hour, according to these CDC guidelines. Krause said the average commercial building now only performs one or two air changes per hour, and could squeeze in another with an air filtration system.
“The other four and a half or five air changes per hour, you’re really going to have to rely on in-room, standalone, HEPA filter air cleaners,” Krause said, referring to high efficiency particulate air filters. “We should be looking at these if we have any illusions of sending kids back to school.”
All that filtration can be expensive, though. A commercial-sized MERV-13 filter can cost three to four times more than a lower-standard filter, and portable air cleaners can be up to $1,000 each, according to Krause, so the cost for offices and schools is not small. And using a filtration system creates a new risk for whoever has to change out the virus-soaked filters.
Still, HVAC systems can’t guarantee 100 percent safety. The idea behind all these air changes and filters is to dilute and clean the air so that aerosols can’t build up into high concentrations. But it’s impossible to guarantee that an aerosol will get sucked up by a filter or a ventilation system before it gets sucked up by a person, especially if a lot of people are close together for long periods of time.
Ultraviolet light filters could also help: UV light can kill microorganisms, including viruses, but the experts I spoke to raised concerns about this method. For one, killing the virus this way requires continually exposing it to UV light for several minutes — if it simply floats by a light, such as one in a vent, that might not be enough. For another, UV has other potential risks, including skin and eye damage.
Regardless of what building managers choose to do, their efforts will be moot if people aren’t also taking measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 through respiratory droplets by wearing masks, washing their hands frequently and practicing social distancing. All the open windows in the world can’t help if you’re swallowing globs of virus-laden spit.
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]]>The post California to close indoor restaurants, movie theaters and bars statewide as coronavirus cases rise appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all dine-in restaurants, bars, movie theaters, museums and other indoor businesses across the state to close Monday as Covid-19 cases continue to climb.
The order comes after Newsom previously ordered these businesses to close in counties on the state’s “monitoring list.” The new order, which will now apply across the state, will be issued effective immediately, Newsom said. The businesses will be allowed to operate outdoors, if possible, he said.
In addition to the statewide order, Newsom said he would also close indoor operations for fitness centers, worship services, personal care services, malls, offices, hair salons and barbershops for all counties on California’s monitoring list, which represent 80% of the state’s population.
Those businesses will only be required to close for three days, according to a tweet from the governor’s office.
There are now 30 counties on the list, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties, he said.
Newsom said the state recorded 8,358 new cases on Sunday. The state’s positivity rate, or the percent of all tests returning positive, has ticked up to 7.4%.
“The data suggests not everyone is acting with common sense,” Newsom said at a press conference Monday.
Earlier on Monday, two of California’s largest school districts, Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, issued a joint statement announcing that they will begin the fall school year online.
In the statement, the school districts said much of the research surrounding the coronavirus and children is still unknown and many of the guidelines for reopening are “vague and contradictory.”
“One fact is clear: those countries that have managed to safely reopen schools have done so with declining infection rates and on-demand testing available. California has neither,” according to the statement.
This is breaking news. Please check back later for updates.
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]]>The post California to close indoor businesses in some counties as coronavirus cases hit record highs appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>California has ordered indoor businesses, including restaurants and movie theaters, to close across 19 counties as the state grapples with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.
Effective immediately, businesses with indoor operations in counties that have been on the state’s “County Monitoring List” for three consecutive days will be required to close. The order applies to some of the state’s biggest counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Santa Barbara.
Indoor businesses required to close include restaurants, wineries and tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums and cardrooms, Newsom said at a press briefing. The updated guidance will remain in place for at least three weeks.
He said the order doesn’t require businesses to close entirely but requires them to move operations outdoors if possible.
California reported a record 9,740 additional cases on Tuesday, a 4.4% increase from a day earlier, according to the state’s Covid-19 website. California’s positivity rate, or the percentage of total tests returning positive, has increased gradually in June to roughly 6%, Newsom said.
The state will also ramp up its enforcement of recommended social distancing guidelines and face-covering requirements, Newsom said. Seven agencies will come together to form a “strike team” that will target noncompliant workplaces, he said.
“It’s more education. I’m not coming out with a fist,” Newsom said. “We want to come out with an open heart, recognizing the magnitude of some of these modifications.”
Ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, Newsom asked localities with mandatory closures to consider canceling fireworks shows to discourage crowds. The state will close parking facilities at state beaches in southern California and the Bay Area, he said.
On Sunday, Newsom required bars in a handful of counties with rising cases to close their doors, following similar decisions made in Texas and Florida. Apple announced earlier on Wednesday that it would be closing 15 stores in the state due to an increasing number of cases.
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]]>The post Indoor spread of COVID-19 can be lessened, experts say appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The spread of aerosolized SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, inside public buildings could be suppressed using engineering controls such as effective ventilation, possibly with air filtration and disinfection and avoidance of air recirculation and overcrowding, according to a research letter published yesterday in Environment International.
The international group of researchers said the evidence is sufficiently strong for aerosols as an important mode of coronavirus transmission, most of which occurs indoors, and that indoor measures to slow the spread are often easily implemented at relatively low cost.
The authors noted that, of two published hospital-based papers and five in press, four identified airborne SARS-CoV-2 RNA, two found very few positive samples, and only one found no evidence.
Three of the studies also reported some quantitative viral RNA data, with one from Singapore identifying positive air samples in two of three patient isolation rooms and one from the United States reporting that 63% of air samples from patient rooms and hallways were positive. One study found that viral load decreased with increasing distance from infected patients.
Viral loads were highest when air samplers were worn by the sampling team near a patient receiving supplementary oxygen via nasal cannula. A study in China detected airborne SARS-CoV-2 DNA in a bathroom and an area used to remove personal protective equipment (PPE).
More than 50% of viral RNA in these samples was linked to aerosols, and viral RNA was found on passive samplers about 2 and 3 meters (6.6 and 9.8 feet) from infected patients.
Scarce evidence of other modes of transmission
While SARS-CoV-2 transmission has been proposed to occur via touching the face after contact with large respiratory droplets and contaminated surfaces, the authors noted the lack of direct evidence of this mode of spread. Also, the virus has been shown to remain stable in airborne particles for longer than 2 hours.
“It is scientifically incongruous that the level of evidence required to demonstrate airborne transmission is so much higher than for these other transmission modes,” the authors said.
In addition, they point out that the infectious agents of tuberculosis, measles, and chickenpox spread via face-to-face exposure or longer-range aerosols. The measles and chickenpox viruses can spread through direct contact with an infected person.
And while multiple studies have generated strong evidence for indoor airborne viral transmission, especially in crowded settings with inadequate ventilation, the authors said it is difficult to determine which transmission route is most significant in a particular setting.
Maximizing ventilation, avoiding recirculation
Engineering controls should ensure adequate air supply and exhaust vents and, in the case of partitions or curtains, secondary measures to maximize ventilation effectiveness, such as opening windows and doors. This is particularly important in congregate care settings such as converted exhibition centers, which may not have adequate ventilation for infection control, the authors said.
And while most hospitals likely have good ventilation, this may not be the case in other public buildings, such as retail shops, offices, schools, restaurants, cruise ships, and public transport.
Although air recirculation may be energy-efficient, the authors warn that air should not be recirculated, if possible, and that air conditioning units should operate on 100% outdoor air. If disabling recirculation by closing recirculation dampers and opening outdoor air dampers isn’t possible, maximizing the outdoor air level and using filtering or ultraviolet in-duct irradiation of recirculated air can help.
In areas of known air stagnation, other air circulation systems can also be used, but only if they also bring in outdoor air. Smaller rooms may benefit from portable consumer air-cleaning devices, as long as they have clean air-delivery rates of 26 to 980 m3/hr and their filters are changed as recommended.
In addition to air filtration, minimizing crowding can help control viral spread. “In a school or a supermarket, for example, if the number of infected students or shoppers is low, and the ventilation rate is high, the risk of airborne transmission can be low,” the authors said.
But in homes, quarantining infected people, opening doors and windows, and using portable air-cleaning devices should be sufficient.
“Together with other guidance on minimising the risk of contact and droplet transmission (through hand-washing, cleaning of hand-touch sites, and the appropriate use of PPE), these ventilation-related interventions will reduce the airborne infection rates not just for SARS-CoV-2 in the current COVID-19 pandemic, but also for other airborne infectious agents,” the researchers said.
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