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Comment by peterburkimsher | Hacker News Reader

Assumption 1: resonant frequency is correlated with physical size (where COVID is 0.1-0.5 = normal distribution around 0.3 µm)

https://visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-relative-size-of-pa...

Hypothesis 1: UV-C light at 300 nm can make the COVID dance itself to pieces.

Hypothesis 2: UV-A or UV-B light at different wavelengths can cause mutations.

Assumption 2: masks are COVID concentrators. They catch the droplets and virus particles so our lungs don't get it.

Hypothesis 3: putting masks in environment leads to increased risk of mutations. Flies lick masks, bats eat flies, bats give us COVID again.

Conclusion: pick up the COVID concentrators (masks) and put then in a biohazard bin. All people are responsible for all litter seen. We're only responsible for what we see, but we are personally responsible for everything we see.

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To pick just one (!) nit here... you're off by a factor of two or more on particle size, and certainly off by a factor of more than two on standard deviation of that particle size. SARS-CoV-2 has a typical diameter closer to 100 nm than 300 nm [1], and a standard deviation of 60% of diameter would be exceptionally high for a spherical viron.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82852-7

Thank you for the correction to Assumption 1, that's helpful!

"The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer."

https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws#cunninghams-law

If that is so, then is it possible to generate UV-C light with a wavelength of 100 nm?

Sure, but water's pretty much opaque to UV-A, so essentially you're just heating up the water the viron is suspended in -- which doesn't require any particular frequency specificity. And the virus viability period on a cloth mask once the water evaporates is so low that there's no reason to target it then.

What is the virus viability period?

I'm just asking for a standard deviation on "so low".

Depends on material, etc, but single digit hours is the best estimate I've seen for dry cloth.

I suppose we'll start giving everyone free biohazard bins when there's no place to store them, and handle them specially too.

No, that's not going to happen. Biohazard disposal is expensive even for hospitals, and applying that to everyone... ruinous.

Eliminating the middle step could be an option, then: isn't biowaste incinerated after collection? Just tell people to set fire to their discarded masks, many people are carrying hydroalcoholic gel which is quite a convenient accelerant.

Half kidding.

Not going to happen? It can easily happen at every bus stop.

Will it be perfect? Of course not perfect. But better than nothing. Reduce the entropy a little, and then it'll be easier to handle.

Handle them specially? I handled 122 masks in the car parks of Botany Town Centre, east Auckland, with bare hands yesterday, gathering them into a rubbish bag.

Today I saw 180 COVID concentrator masks, and was able to pick up 136 of them (for the other 44 masks, I was on a bus or in a car and couldn't stop to get down)

Putting masks into regular bins (e.g. landfill) will delay the feedback loop by 100 years. That's good enough for now, so that's my recommendation for those who don't have access to mask recycling.

However, I do have access to mask recycling.

My usual work is automated software testing and language translations for embedded systems, specifically the Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Airvo device. I've come to believe that we need to run an anti-virus algorithm on the world, and it's more efficient with a real-time distributed model, where we all love our neighbour by cleaning up what we see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software#Real-time_p...

Also, I'm triple-vaccinated (2x Pfizer + booster), am a young man with no family and a psychological martyrdom complex. I'll take the risk. And wash my hands thoroughly for 20 seconds afterwards. And shower when I get home.

Be a tidy Kiwi.

Clean as you go.

Always leave the code (and world) better than you found it. (Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob))

https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws#the-scout-rule

Thank you for your service.

I don't want to do it though. Cause I don't want to touch a used mask with bare hands (I got gloves with me, but these are against cold weather specifically). However, with a grapple device and bag (the bag being the easy part) it could be reasonably easy and clean to take care of them. I got one, but I'm not carrying it around to e.g. work or family (that's when I usually see a mask). When I go with my child to the playground, and I'd see one, I could go home to get the grapple. However, I don't remember that occurring. There's quite some firework plastic still lingering around, so I could clean that up before I go with my child to the playground (mainly, to clean the playground).

Btw, I want to comment on the amount you found. 122, 180. That's a lot. How much time did it take you? Cause I only see a mask occasionally (but it annoys me).

Thank you for your honesty! "I don't want to do it" is at least admitting personal responsibility. Your responsibility to protect your (presumably unvaccinated) child is also a rational decision. Young people are particularly good at seeing things on the ground and picking them up, but are also unlikely to wash hands before touching their faces. Therefore I'm specifically calling for young men who don't love their own lives (depressed computer nerds like me) to serve the greater good.

I haven't yet logged detailed times (only started counting yesterday, before that was just picking these up as regular litter on my commute). But here's a few from today's log.

32 total between Gossamer Dr and Pakuranga bus stop ~11:45 - 12:40, of which 9 on road (usually a 15 minute bike ride, was more like 25 minutes that time due to stopping regularly, then a walk through the car park)

16 masks Shore Care/Smales Farm has infectious substances bin from 18:45 to 19:30

4 masks Pakuranga plaza (1 countdown, 3 warehouse) 20:40-21:05

Thank you for your interest, I've now stayed up until 5:20 am making more detailed logs in a spreadsheet.

Heading rows:

Mask count, Centre GPS coordinates, Radius (km), Start date and time, End date and time, Comments

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ap2lpLXWzK1WcdsasP8c...

Apologies if there's less data tomorrow, I'm not sure what time I'll wake up. But I really wish I could get to Sylvia Park and some other malls and gather some more data points.

Please can an expert in data visualisation draw a heatmap?

COVID on masks is gonna break down with a half life on the order of hours.

Really, will a non-living entity (virus) break down?

I agree that in direct sunlight, some types of pathogens can be broken down. However, the 2 hypotheses are that there is a risk.

Also, I guess that flies are attracted to licking moisture before it evaporates. Therefore the flies are likely to be looking to lick masks if they think they can get an easy drink.

Hypothesis 1: UV-C light at 300 nm (resonant size of particle) can make the COVID dance itself to pieces.

> Issue: UV-C light causes sunburn and is blocked by the ozone layer.

>> Solution: in Shanghai, the public bus service uses UV-C light to disinfect each bus at the end of the day.

https://www.scmp.com/video/china/3075171/shanghai-introduces...

Hypothesis 2: UV-A or UV-B light at different wavelengths can cause mutations.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mutation_(genetic...

> {Bit string mutation, Flip Bit, Boundary, Non-Uniform, Uniform, Gaussian}

>> Translated to computer programming: off-by-one errors.

>> https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html

> Really, will a non-living entity (virus) break down?

Yes, this is fairly well studied, see: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/health-medical/diseases/cov... and https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/sars-calculator

> Also, I guess that flies are attracted to licking moisture before it evaporates. Therefore the flies are likely to be looking to lick masks if they think they can get an easy drink.

Various insects including flies can mechanically carry SARS-CoV-2 around, but they can't be infected. There are no documented cases of insect-borne COVID-19 (doesn't mean it's never happened but we can infer it's a "rare" event).

UV does induce mutations but not sure that masks make much difference here since that effect will be much the same on virus floating in the air (aka primary transmission mechanism) in any case.

Finally, the virus that causes COVID-19 can't actually infect bats, this would require a reverse zoonosis event.

Picking up masks is great though. Personally I would recommend PPE for this (gloves / grabber & mask) if you are going to do it a lot, because COVID is not the worst thing that could be on the masks. You could get really unlucky and handle a mask with TB or something else nasty. It's low likelihood but the risk is worth thinking about if you plan to handle thousands of masks.

> "no documented cases"

Has it been studied?

> "virus floating in the air"

Air with humans is an I/O. There is a minor risk of COVID on cigarette butts, because they made contact with peoples' lips, but that is basically inhalation. I'll make another Assumption: more COVID comes from exhalation.

How do we stop exhalation? Masks with 0.1 µm between each fibre (that's an N95). The common surgical masks are less efficient, but because we breathe several times, the lower efficiencies are increased. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. The efficiencies add up closer to 100%. But the wind blows! Which is why we also need 2m distancing.

Yes, there's a risk in handling PPE without extra PPE. But having thought about this, if I do that, then people will think I'm professional. So they'll think that I'm going to be there to do it tomorrow. The reality is, the Bus factor on this process is distressingly low.

I'm not planning to handle thousands of masks! I'm planning to dispose of every mask I see. Unfortunately, a large portion of the rest of the population decided that they don't care enough to help, which means there are thousands out there.

This is a call to help, and arguing on the Internet about whether it is or isn't beneficial to the world in the precise way that I imagine it works is just causing division between people, which isn't desirable. Rather, let's find someone else who is a better communicator to rewrite this as an academic paper in order to persuade you that there's an environmental feedback loop, and we should love our neighbour.

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