As usual, it appears the experts’ advice of maintaining “social distancing” of 6 feet is inaccurate. It needs to be at least 4 times that or more like 26 feet according to a study conducted by MIT.
The study, which was reported by the Telegraph, found that viral droplets expelled in coughs and sneezes can travel in a moist, warm atmosphere at speeds of between 33 and 100ft per second (ten metres to 100 metres).
This creates a cloud within the atmosphere that can span approximately 23ft to 27ft (seven metres to eight metres) to neighbouring people.
It has also been warned that droplets, which contribute to the rapid spread of covid-19, can remain suspended in the air for several hours.
So perhaps it’s just as well that we are in day 14 of our little town’s shutdown. The resorts would normally have the town packed to the rafters for late spring skiing this time of year. Instead it’s a ghost town.
Lower Main Street, Park City, UT early last week
Upper Main Street, on Friday; more pedestrians getting a little exercise than cars
So just how bad is it in Summit County UT, home of Park City? On a per capita basis, apparently pretty bad. Not quite as bad as New York City which by all accounts is the U.S. “epicenter” - a word that, like “anarchy,” has come to mean something altogether different from its original sense – but still bad. Aside from New Orleans parish and 5 New York counties the worst Wuhan coronavirus clusters in the US are in ski towns.
Four counties – Blaine County, Idaho; Summit County, Utah; and Eagle County and Gunnison County, Colorado – lead the nation in per capita rates of confirmed cases outside New York and Louisiana.
Note: excludes New York City where there are 8.7 million people and nearly 30,000 cases or 1 in 292.
All you can tell from this is that the Wuhan coronavirus likes to party…and ski. Gunnison County, Co is home to Crested Butte, Blaine County, ID, Sun Valley, Eagle County, CO, Vail and Summit County, Park City.
There are only 42,000 residents here but 1 out of every 312 of us has been confirmed positive for the WuHu Flu. So with that kind of saturation we’ve decided to hunker down a bit more than we have been. Accordingly, we placed our first ever grocery home delivery order yesterday. Of course the earliest they can deliver is Wednesday afternoon, but I’m hardly in dire need of anything as I keep a well stocked larder all year round – you know, in case of emergencies like cootie attacks.
So if you need me I’ll just be sitting here, at home, wiping down the cooties…and waiting for the world to end.
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