The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday called the new coronavirus "an enemy of the humanity",
"This coronavirus presents an unprecedented threat. But it is also an unprecedented opportunity to rally against a common enemy, an enemy of humanity", said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a virtual press conference.
For the last 24 hours in Italy, 4207 new cases, 475 deaths, world record for a day.
I rally against a common enemy of humanity every time I refrain from telling the IRS I've made money somewhere.
Does this mean that the UV lights on my HVAC are not effective? I have both HEPA filtration and UV lights on my system?
There is conflicting information on the effectiveness of home filtration. The CDC does recommend HEPA filtration, in
healthcare settings, when directly exhausting air outside is not possible, but not all HEPA filters are equal and most home ones are not going to be anywhere near as effective as what hospitals or modern airliners have. UV can kill coronavirus on surfaces, but it seems to take several minutes of high intensity UV to reliably do so, and this won't happen if the virus isn't being trapped by the filter.
It may well be a better than nothing for removing coronavirus from the air. However, this should only even come into play if you are trying to isolate someone who is contagious from those who are not infected, under the same roof. Even if this unavoidable, I'd bet almost anything that the rest of the occupants would be less likely to get infected if you simply blocked off the air returns in the isolation area and opened a window.
I can't read the NYT article because of that silly paywall, but one doesn't need to go any further than the
official White House transcripts of the President's statements, or his own
Twitter account, to find highly misleading, and occasionally blatantly false, statements.
US preparation and response to has not been particularly good.
At least everyone seems to be taking it seriously now...