Airborne viruses recovered through low-level ventilation systems may produce Germany‘S first super communicator event Coronavirus disease The pandemic, found by CSI-style analysis of carnival celebrations.
This event, held in the town hall of Gangert, a city bordering the Netherlands, was found to be the driving factor of the large-scale outbreak in North Rhine-Westphalia in western North Rhine-Westphalia last year, and was labelled the “Wuhan of Germany”.
Scientists later tested 411 people who attended the party, and nearly half of them were found to be infected with the virus. A 47-year-old man performing a “male ballet” at the carnival was the first person in the country to enter the intensive care unit because of the coronavirus.
Researchers at the University of Bonn spent several months analyzing the location and activities of the rave party, and now they say that the city hall’s ventilation system is poor and can only bring 25% of the fresh air into the airflow, which is a key factor in the spread of the virus in the crowd. . crowd.
Researchers say people sitting near the air outlet have the highest risk of infection Written in preprint Scientific papers that have not been peer-reviewed.
One of the authors of the paper, virologist Hendrik Streeck, said: “Everything shows once again that aerosols and ventilation play a vital role in determining whether an infection will occur.”
Stricker and his co-authors were criticized last year for disclosing some of their findings during the early stages of the investigation. People accused the project of providing scientific support to politicians who pushed for the lockdown to exit.
The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia provided 65,000 euros in funding for this research.
The researchers said that they could not find any evidence that party attendees sharing drinks or reducing social inhibitions when drunk were the main driving factors of super-spreading events.
“We determined the level of alcohol consumption as the number of beverages (highly concentrated liquor or beer), and did not observe any effect of alcohol consumption on the risk of infection,” the paper said.
It turns out that the length of time guests stay in the city hall is more indicative of whether they are infected with the virus than whether they are sitting together. The paper stated: “There is no evidence that being closer to other infected people increases the risk of infection.”
Compared with children, the elderly are more likely to contract the virus during the carnival, and the average risk of infection increases by 28% every 10 years.
The researchers found an unexpected common factor among people who left the event without infection. People who smoke regularly at carnivals are at a lower risk of contracting Covid-19, even considering the time they spend on smoking breaks outside the hall.
Scientists pointed out that it is well known that current or former smokers suffer disproportionately from severe Covid-19 symptoms, and “strongly recommend” that smoking should not be used as a protective habit to prevent the risk of infection.
