Theaters thought to pose less covid risk than thought

[Harold Hallikainen]

I'm continuing to gather death data at http://hallikainen.org/cv/ . There was a peak of 142% of the average deaths (total deaths, regardless of cause) for the past three years the week of April 11. That then dropped to about 110% the week of June 6. It held there until the week of July 4, then started climbing again towards 120% where it sits now. On average, there's 6 weeks from infection to death. Going back 6 weeks from July 11 (first week of increase), we land very close to Memorial Day. Large gatherings for Memorial Day MAY have contributed to the increased deaths 6 weeks later. It will be interesting to see the effects of Labor Day.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Hello Harold,

Thank you for taking the time and interest to compile these disparate numbers into something one can understand. Your trend analysis is very interesting as well as frightening.

Since the schools are reopening, we may have another unknown in your compilation. When I was a classroom teacher, I noticed how rapidly Rhino Virus, the common cold, got passed throughout the entire school.

KEN

[Lyle Romer]

I'm continuing to gather death data at http://hallikainen.org/cv/ . There was a peak of 142% of the average deaths (total deaths, regardless of cause) for the past three years the week of April 11. That then dropped to about 110% the week of June 6. It held there until the week of July 4, then started climbing again towards 120% where it sits now. On average, there's 6 weeks from infection to death. Going back 6 weeks from July 11 (first week of increase), we land very close to Memorial Day. Large gatherings for Memorial Day MAY have contributed to the increased deaths 6 weeks later. It will be interesting to see the effects of Labor Day.

Thank you for continuing to track this data. I would expect that once there is (hopefully) an effective vaccine, the average deaths will drop slightly below normal for a little while. A huge percentage of the COVID deaths are in the elderly. In Florida, currently 82% of the deaths are in people age 65 and over while that age group only accounts for 15% of documented cases. 32% of the deaths are people who were 85 and older (3% of cases). Many of the people of advanced age with multiple underlying health conditions would have died over the next year without getting COVID. Basically, I expect that there have been many deaths from COVID that have really just been accelerated by a few months.

Regarding the risk of transmission posed by movie theatres, if it isn't relatively low risk to have transmission with spaced out seating and people wearing masks in a large volume room then we really might as well just give up. This virus is going to be around for a while even if there is a vaccine.

I know that aircraft have the advantage of the air being changed out frequently (although some percentage is recirculated through HEPA filters), it seems to be OK to sit in a completely full (76 seat) Embraer E175 with mostly 30" seating pitch for 3 hours. Watching a movie shouldn't be any higher risk with capacity restrictions, spacing and face coverings.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Lyle,
Are you saying that it is (thought to be) more dangerous to watch a movie in the theater rather than in a full aircraft?

[Steve Guttag]

Everything, thus far, I've read on aircraft air indicates that it is nominally 50% recirculated air versus fresh. The recirculated air is filtered. Theatre construction/HVAC systems are going to vary wildly (and I have now verified that some do have a percentage of fresh air) with respect to fresh air and filtration however i would think that some sort of minimum standards could be met. There are still no definitive studies that I've been able to find (and I have looked) with respect to COVID-19 and movie theatre spread of the virus. All that you'll find is speculation that mostly presumes that because they are indoor, mostly recirculated air, are therefore not safe. But none have taken their hypothesis and moved that to an actual experiment in several theatres to see what the real risks are to see just how the virus moves in an actual movie theatre environment.

I'm not even sure they have done the experiment in several commercial airliners either. It may all be conjecture though with airliners, the variation is going to be far less than with cinemas since there are but a few airplane companies with considerably fewer models in operation than for cinema types. Hopefully, they've done that experiment(s). That still doesn't account for transmission in places like an airplane bathroom where there isn't any automated means of washing up...you are touching what someone else has touched at that sink (soap dispenser, water, flush and I dare say that virtually nobody does the full 20-second washing, including between fingers. Its a very tight space in there with a lot of non-permeable surfaces (stainless steel).

[Lyle Romer]

Lyle,
Are you saying that it is (thought to be) more dangerous to watch a movie in the theater rather than in a full aircraft?

Based on the fact that you can (and I did) fly on a full aircraft but many places still don't allow movie theatres to be open, somebody seems to think that. I certainly don't and would have no problem going to see a movie today with spaced out seating, even if masks weren't required.

To Steve's point, I agree that actual scientific experiments and studies should be done to try and actually quantify the risk and account for different factors like the operation of the HVAC system. The vast majority of the guidelines/directives are based on guesses even at this point.

[Bob Ezra]

I bought 3 of these https://www.oransi.com/p/oransi-ej-air-purifier

[Carsten Kurz]

Wondering wether the typical air heating process will kill the virus even in circulating air. From around the beginning of october, we switch on the heating for the auditorium. It's a gas burner with a heat exchanger. I don't know how hot the air is there, but after traveling from the heating system in our basement to the ceiling of the auditorium, the air is still at around 60 degree C. So I would assume that the air goes at least to around 100 degreeC within the heat exchanger?

We had a video meeting yesterday among german exhibitors. As far as it seems, not a single cinema in germany so far is known to have been requested to hand out contact tracing information to authorities that ALL german cinemas are collecting since they opened late may. It doesn't prove no one was actually ever infected in a cinema here, but, there have been reports of mass infections during many other types of events (restaurants, church, parties, family gatherings etc.). At least it seems as if cinema is comparably safe when current regulations are adhered to.

- Carsten

[Steve Guttag]

What is severely lacking in the world is actual experiments in the various businesses to determine just how much risk each type of business/venue poses. Instead people rely on "experts" that have nothing more than hypothesis...which is just the first step in the scientific method. One does not draw conclusions from mere guesses, regardless of how well meaning or how good the source.

[Carl Martin]

well, no one is going to do a proper scientific study of this. as variable as movie theater layouts and ventilation systems are, you can count on people facing the same direction most of the time for 1.5-2.5 hrs. there's a much greater variability in how people are arranged in, say, restaurants or salons. type of business isn't really a very useful way to break things down.

but the more fundamentally, you're not going to find a lot of people willing to participate in a proper transmission study, and you couldn't do it ethically. yeah, you can study droplet propagation and whatnot, but that isn't the same as transmission. so to some extent we have to rely on analyzing situations retroactively and speculation.

[Harold Hallikainen]

I think contact tracing to identify the source of outbreaks will be important evidence. Carsten said that theaters in Germany have had to keep records of all theater attendees and to make that information available to public health officials upon request. So far, this info has not been requested of any theater, so no transmission is thus far suspected in theaters.

[Steve Guttag]

If people are going to speculate that, somehow, theatres are unsafe or more-unsafe than other types of indoor businesses, then they need to back that up with evidence. To not do so is a degree of slander. It is the equivalent of declaring a neighbor of being a murderer without any proof or evidence of that other than speculation. As for testing, no you wouldn't put people in harms way but you should be able to track/trace an equivalent droplet (or more likely a group of like sized droplets) to see how it/they propagates through an HVAC system and where/how/if it comes it comes out to determine what the "risk" is that it falls were someone else may be sitting minutes, hours, days later and what then would the likeliness be that it could be inhaled or otherwise contact someone else.

Shutting down industries on mere speculation has a real consequence on peoples lives, not just the their livelihoods. It should require more than "I think" sort of statements and if the expert is so certain, they should back it up with their study that give them the evidence.

For now, the only evidence we have about cinemas is that those that are operating have not been traced to any COVID-19 cases, world-wide. That may change or it may not but it certainly doesn't make it seem like cinemas are more dangerous than other indoor activities.