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woeiruayesterday at 10:46 PM2 repliesview on HN

Am I the only person here confused by the line the author draws between high CO2 levels and high transmissibility of viruses. I think they’re confusing correlation for causation here.


Replies

davorakyesterday at 10:52 PM

> In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic I learned that we can estimate our level of risk by checking the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air, because when infected people breathe out virus aerosols, they also breathe out CO2.

The above is from the author early on. So they go out of their way to point out that it is an estimate and also point out the mechanism that allows it work as an estimate in some conditions. "when infected people breathe out virus aerosols, they also breathe out CO2."

The article does not reenforce this through out the article though and leaves it to the reader to keep in mind.

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tehjokertoday at 12:17 AM

it’s a proxy but later work also showed high ppm increased the longevity of sars cov 2 in the air because the water droplets get more acidic due to carbonic acid