vox--2020-09-28--Pennsylvania’s naked ballot problem, explained

If you ’ re voting by mail in Pennsylvania this year , and you want your vote to actually count , you need to remember one crucial thing : the secrecy envelope .
Once you fill out the ballot itself , you must place it inside the provided secrecy envelope , which contains no information about your identity .
Then you put the sealed secrecy envelope inside a different postage-paid addressed return envelope , on which you have to sign your name and write your address .
If you forget the secrecy envelope — simply dropping your ballot in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be deemed a “ naked ballot.
” And , according to a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling , election officials will have to throw it out .
The reason for the secrecy envelope , in theory , is to preserve the secret ballot and to prevent potential fraud .
That is : once election officials receive the mail-in ballot , they use the outer envelope to verify that the person voting is registered and hasn ’ t already voted , without being able to see who the vote is for .
Only later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and counted .
But the risk is that if the rule is implemented very strictly , many voters ’ non-fraudulent ballots will be thrown out on what ’ s essentially a technicality , simply because they misunderstood the rules .
So in the wake of the state Supreme Court ruling on the topic last week , Democrats are calling on the Republican-controlled state legislature to change the law to allow naked ballots to be counted .
Yet GOP legislators do not seem eager to take any such step .
( Both sides suspect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than Republicans , since more Biden supporters have told pollsters they are interested in voting by mail . )
And this could potentially be very consequential .
A Philadelphia official recently raised concerns that as many as 100,000 “ naked ballots ” could be thrown out — and pointed out that Donald Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by just 44,000 votes .
This time around , polls and models show Pennsylvania has a relatively high chance of being the “ tipping point ” state likely to put Trump or Biden over 270 electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elections expert for the Cook Political Report , asserted that we “ know ” that Pennsylvania ’ s “ rejected ballots will be *heavily* pro-Biden.
” Current polls suggest Biden ’ s lead is probably big enough in enough states that he can overcome this problem — but if polls are underestimating Trump ’ s support or if the race tightens , the fate of naked ballots very well could decide the presidency .
How to properly send back your mail ballot in Pennsylvania As you can see in the image below , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Pennsylvania , they ’ ll receive the ballot itself , and two envelopes .
The simple unaddressed envelope at the top here is the secrecy envelope .
It contains no address , and all it says is “ Official Election Ballot.
” The ballot must be filled out , placed in the secrecy envelope , and sealed .
Then the sealed secrecy envelope must be placed in the addressed , postage-paid envelope seen at the bottom of this image .
On the back of this envelope , the voter must write their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and date their signature , before sealing it and dropping it in the mail .
How Pennsylvania got here Last year , well before the Covid-19 pandemic , Pennsylvania Republicans and Democrats came to an agreement on a bipartisan election reform bill that Gov .
Tom Wolf ( D ) called “ the biggest change to our elections in generations.
” The centerpiece of this new law was a major expansion of mail-in voting .
Previously , Pennsylvania only allowed absentee voting by mail for people who could provide some reason for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote in-person .
With the new law , no-excuse vote-by-mail was permitted .
The new law stated that mail-in voters “ shall , in secret ... enclose and securely seal ” their ballot in the secrecy envelope , “ which shall be placed in the second ” addressed and signed envelope for mailing .
The call for some sort of “ secrecy sleeve ” isn ’ t unique — 15 other states also require it for absentee or mail voters , according to the National Conference of State Legislatures , including blue states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Washington ( though it ’ s not necessarily the case that votes in these states without a secrecy envelope won ’ t be counted ) .
And it wasn ’ t particularly controversial when Gov .
Wolf signed it into law .
Since then , the pandemic has thrown the safety of in-person voting into question , meaning there were far more requests for mail voting than had been expected ( the state anticipated 80,000 to 100,000 requests during the primary , but there were more than 1.8 million ) .
Also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ criticism against mail voting , saying he doesn ’ t trust it and calling it “ dangerous for this country.
” This has led to a historically unusual amount of partisan polarization around mail voting , as CNN ’ s Harry Enten has written — Democrats are now far more likely to say they intend to vote by mail , and Republicans now saying they ’ re less likely , a new phenomenon .
The natural conclusion here is that counting more marginal mail votes will advantage Democrats , while discarding more marginal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And the parties are responding accordingly .
The naked ballot issue was quickly consumed by legal wrangling Pennsylvania ’ s first attempt with the new system was for the state ’ s primary on June 2 .
And with an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots pouring in , local elections boards had to decide what to do with the many naked ballots lacking secrecy envelopes .
Now , the 2019 state law says that if the secrecy envelope contains any “ text , mark , or symbol ” revealing the voter ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ set aside and declared void.
” However , it does not explicitly say that mail-in ballots lacking a secrecy envelope should be thrown out .
There was some vagueness there .
Different election boards handled the situation differently .
The Philadelphia Board of Elections decided it would count naked ballots ( as it had done in previous years when the issue arise with absentee ballots ) , and other counties decided they wouldn ’ t .
This was a primary , so the partisan stakes for the outcome weren ’ t that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closely , in preparation for the general election .
In late June , the legal wrangling started .
Trump ’ s campaign and the Republican National Committee filed a suit in federal court challenging several policies and practices used in Pennsylvania ’ s primary — among them , the counting of ballots lacking secrecy envelopes .
Trump ’ s federal suit was then put on hold after the Pennsylvania Democratic Party filed their own lawsuit in state court .
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a Democratic majority , so Democrats likely expected favorable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they got them , when the justices ruled last week that mail-in ballots can be returned in drop boxes , and that ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to three days later will count .
On the naked ballot issue , though , Republicans triumphed .
In an opinion written by Democratic justice Max Baer , the court decreed that ballots that aren ’ t enclosed in secrecy envelopes will not count .
“ Whatever the wisdom of the requirement , the command that the mail-in elector utilize the secrecy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information is neither ambiguous nor unreasonable , ” Baer wrote .
Critics worry that too many legitimate votes will be thrown out on “ a minor technicality ” The problem , according to critics , is that in practice , many well-meaning voters will mess this up .
So the main impact of this policy might not be to prevent fraud at all — it might be to throw out tens of thousands of legitimately cast votes .
Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley ( D ) sounded the alarm in a letter to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is the naked ballot ruling that is going to cause electoral chaos , ” Deeley wrote .
She argues that tens of thousands of ballots are going to “ not be counted , all because of a minor technicality.
” Estimating how many Pennsylvania ballots will be sent in naked is challenging — the state has never had no-excuse vote-by-mail for a general election before , the pandemic is an added unprecedented situation , and many counties ( including Philadelphia ) didn ’ t keep track of how many naked ballots there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jonathan Lai of the Philadelphia Inquirer , who ’ s been doing excellent coverage of this issue , reports that two counties in the state — Mercer and Lawrence — did keep track , and both found that about 5 percent of total submitted mail ballots lacked a secrecy envelope .
Deeley ’ s letter makes the eyebrow-raising claim that over 100,000 ballots could be thrown out statewide .
This is based on taking the percent of naked ballots Philadelphia received for absentee votes ( before the vote-by-mail reforms ) in the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and extrapolating it statewide .
She also points out that there “ will be many thousands more voting through the mail for the very first time ” in the general election .
Deeley and other Democrats have called on state legislative leaders to change the law to let those ballots count .
But Republicans control the state legislature , and so far , they seem unmoved .
So Democrats ’ best hope at this point is an education campaign — to remind mail-in voters that , as the narrator in a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must place the ballot in the secrecy envelope first for your vote to count.
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If you’re voting by mail in Pennsylvania this year, and you want your vote to actually count, you need to remember one crucial thing: the secrecy envelope.
Once you fill out the ballot itself, you must place it inside the provided secrecy envelope, which contains no information about your identity. Then you put the sealed secrecy envelope inside a different postage-paid addressed return envelope, on which you have to sign your name and write your address.
If you forget the secrecy envelope — simply dropping your ballot in the ordinary return envelope — your ballot will be deemed a “naked ballot.” And, according to a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling, election officials will have to throw it out.
The reason for the secrecy envelope, in theory, is to preserve the secret ballot and to prevent potential fraud. That is: once election officials receive the mail-in ballot, they use the outer envelope to verify that the person voting is registered and hasn’t already voted, without being able to see who the vote is for. Only later will the secrecy envelope actually be opened and counted.
But the risk is that if the rule is implemented very strictly, many voters’ non-fraudulent ballots will be thrown out on what’s essentially a technicality, simply because they misunderstood the rules.
So in the wake of the state Supreme Court ruling on the topic last week, Democrats are calling on the Republican-controlled state legislature to change the law to allow naked ballots to be counted. Yet GOP legislators do not seem eager to take any such step. (Both sides suspect discarding naked ballots will disadvantage Democrats more than Republicans, since more Biden supporters have told pollsters they are interested in voting by mail.)
And this could potentially be very consequential. A Philadelphia official recently raised concerns that as many as 100,000 “naked ballots” could be thrown out — and pointed out that Donald Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by just 44,000 votes.
This time around, polls and models show Pennsylvania has a relatively high chance of being the “tipping point” state likely to put Trump or Biden over 270 electoral votes. And Dave Wasserman, an elections expert for the Cook Political Report, asserted that we “know” that Pennsylvania’s “rejected ballots will be *heavily* pro-Biden.”
Current polls suggest Biden’s lead is probably big enough in enough states that he can overcome this problem — but if polls are underestimating Trump’s support or if the race tightens, the fate of naked ballots very well could decide the presidency.
How to properly send back your mail ballot in Pennsylvania
As you can see in the image below, when a voter receives a mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania, they’ll receive the ballot itself, and two envelopes.
The simple unaddressed envelope at the top here is the secrecy envelope. It contains no address, and all it says is “Official Election Ballot.” The ballot must be filled out, placed in the secrecy envelope, and sealed.
Then the sealed secrecy envelope must be placed in the addressed, postage-paid envelope seen at the bottom of this image. On the back of this envelope, the voter must write their address, print and sign their name, and date their signature, before sealing it and dropping it in the mail.
How Pennsylvania got here
Last year, well before the Covid-19 pandemic, Pennsylvania Republicans and Democrats came to an agreement on a bipartisan election reform bill that Gov. Tom Wolf (D) called “the biggest change to our elections in generations.”
The centerpiece of this new law was a major expansion of mail-in voting. Previously, Pennsylvania only allowed absentee voting by mail for people who could provide some reason for why they couldn’t appear to vote in-person. With the new law, no-excuse vote-by-mail was permitted.
The new law stated that mail-in voters “shall, in secret ... enclose and securely seal” their ballot in the secrecy envelope, “which shall be placed in the second” addressed and signed envelope for mailing.
The call for some sort of “secrecy sleeve” isn’t unique — 15 other states also require it for absentee or mail voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including blue states like New Jersey, New York, and Washington (though it’s not necessarily the case that votes in these states without a secrecy envelope won’t be counted). And it wasn’t particularly controversial when Gov. Wolf signed it into law.
Since then, the pandemic has thrown the safety of in-person voting into question, meaning there were far more requests for mail voting than had been expected (the state anticipated 80,000 to 100,000 requests during the primary, but there were more than 1.8 million). Also, President Trump launched a barrage of criticism against mail voting, saying he doesn’t trust it and calling it “dangerous for this country.”
This has led to a historically unusual amount of partisan polarization around mail voting, as CNN’s Harry Enten has written — Democrats are now far more likely to say they intend to vote by mail, and Republicans now saying they’re less likely, a new phenomenon.
The natural conclusion here is that counting more marginal mail votes will advantage Democrats, while discarding more marginal mail votes could help Trump and Republicans. And the parties are responding accordingly.
The naked ballot issue was quickly consumed by legal wrangling
Pennsylvania’s first attempt with the new system was for the state’s primary on June 2. And with an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots pouring in, local elections boards had to decide what to do with the many naked ballots lacking secrecy envelopes.
Now, the 2019 state law says that if the secrecy envelope contains any “text, mark, or symbol” revealing the voter’s identity, the ballot should be “set aside and declared void.” However, it does not explicitly say that mail-in ballots lacking a secrecy envelope should be thrown out. There was some vagueness there.
Different election boards handled the situation differently. The Philadelphia Board of Elections decided it would count naked ballots (as it had done in previous years when the issue arise with absentee ballots), and other counties decided they wouldn’t. This was a primary, so the partisan stakes for the outcome weren’t that high. But both parties were watching closely, in preparation for the general election.
In late June, the legal wrangling started. Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee filed a suit in federal court challenging several policies and practices used in Pennsylvania’s primary — among them, the counting of ballots lacking secrecy envelopes. Trump’s federal suit was then put on hold after the Pennsylvania Democratic Party filed their own lawsuit in state court.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a Democratic majority, so Democrats likely expected favorable rulings there. For the most part, they got them, when the justices ruled last week that mail-in ballots can be returned in drop boxes, and that ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to three days later will count.
On the naked ballot issue, though, Republicans triumphed. In an opinion written by Democratic justice Max Baer, the court decreed that ballots that aren’t enclosed in secrecy envelopes will not count. “Whatever the wisdom of the requirement, the command that the mail-in elector utilize the secrecy envelope and leave it unblemished by identifying information is neither ambiguous nor unreasonable,” Baer wrote.
Critics worry that too many legitimate votes will be thrown out on “a minor technicality”
The problem, according to critics, is that in practice, many well-meaning voters will mess this up. So the main impact of this policy might not be to prevent fraud at all — it might be to throw out tens of thousands of legitimately cast votes.
Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley (D) sounded the alarm in a letter to state legislative leaders on Monday. “It is the naked ballot ruling that is going to cause electoral chaos,” Deeley wrote. She argues that tens of thousands of ballots are going to “not be counted, all because of a minor technicality.”
Estimating how many Pennsylvania ballots will be sent in naked is challenging — the state has never had no-excuse vote-by-mail for a general election before, the pandemic is an added unprecedented situation, and many counties (including Philadelphia) didn’t keep track of how many naked ballots there were in the primary.
However, Jonathan Lai of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who’s been doing excellent coverage of this issue, reports that two counties in the state — Mercer and Lawrence — did keep track, and both found that about 5 percent of total submitted mail ballots lacked a secrecy envelope.
Deeley’s letter makes the eyebrow-raising claim that over 100,000 ballots could be thrown out statewide. This is based on taking the percent of naked ballots Philadelphia received for absentee votes (before the vote-by-mail reforms) in the city’s 2019 election — 6.4 percent — and extrapolating it statewide. She also points out that there “will be many thousands more voting through the mail for the very first time” in the general election.
Deeley and other Democrats have called on state legislative leaders to change the law to let those ballots count. But Republicans control the state legislature, and so far, they seem unmoved. So Democrats’ best hope at this point is an education campaign — to remind mail-in voters that, as the narrator in a new Democratic digital ad says, “You must place the ballot in the secrecy envelope first for your vote to count.”


vox--2020-09-28--Coronavirus is in the air. Here’s how to get it out.

Share All sharing options for : Coronavirus is in the air .
Here ’ s how to get it out .
SARS-CoV-2 , the virus that causes Covid-19 , can float in the air .
In particular , it can linger in poorly ventilated indoor spaces , spreading farther than 6 feet from its source .
These indoor public spaces are high risk and should be avoided while the virus is still spreading .
But , increasingly , people are returning to those spaces : Bars and restaurants are operating in limited capacity in some places , and are fully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universities have resumed in-person classes , and mayors are allowing some live entertainment venues to host events .
With the weather growing colder , experts fear indoor gatherings in these and private spaces could spark new outbreaks .
Already , cases are increasing nationwide , and experts are growing more concerned about a potential fall-winter Covid-19 surge .
To make indoor communal spaces safer , experts keep stressing that they need to be “ well-ventilated.
” But what does that mean ?
In conversations with several air quality experts and engineers , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and potentially fraught in execution .
“ It ’ s a huge engineering problem , ” Shelly Miller , an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder , says .
“ We don ’ t have the systems in place for many buildings to be operated appropriately during a pandemic.
” As Derek Thompson observes in the Atlantic , a lot of places have put on a big show about cleaning surfaces — what he calls “ hygiene theater ” — though surface contamination is not thought to be a large source @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , instead , should mean improving air quality .
But “ have you ever heard a restaurant reopening announce they ’ ve improved ventilation or increased ventilation ?
” Lidia Morawska , an engineer and the director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology , recently told me .
“ No.
” Ventilation concerns are not limited to restaurants and schools .
Recently , a report from the University of California San Francisco noted “ exceedingly poor ventilation ” at the San Quentin State Prison , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 2,200 cases .
Ventilation efforts could easily fall into the “ hygiene theater ” trap if not done well .
So here ’ s a guide for how to think about safer — but not necessarily “ safe ” — indoor air , and all the hurdles that may get in the way .
We need to think about controlling the source of the virus indoors , about mixing more outdoor air with indoor air , and about air filtration and cleaning devices .
The experts I spoke with agreed : We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our way out of the need to wear masks , reduce occupancy in indoor spaces ( or just avoid many of them all together ) , and physically distance .
The indoor space that can ’ t enforce these measures , or allow activities that involve mask removal — like bars and restaurants — probably shouldn ’ t be open .
And , still , the most important way to make indoor spaces safer is to decrease community Covid-19 spread as much as possible .
It may not be easy for all spaces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no perfectly safe indoor environments during the pandemic , but there are clear goals to have in mind when trying to make them safer with ventilation .
Here ’ s where to start .
First : Limit the amount of virus in the air in the first place Intuitively , I think we all know how to think about cleaning surfaces : Wipe them down with a disinfectant , or scrub with good old soap and water .
Cleaning the air is an entirely different challenge .
You can ’ t just spray @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day .
“ Cleaning the air is at least as important as cleaning surfaces , but you do it very differently , ” says Linsey Marr , a Virginia Tech engineer who studies the airborne spread of viruses .
“ We end up having to breathe whatever it is we spray .
And if it ’ s harmful to the virus , it ’ s likely it ’ s also harmful to us .
So we need to take a totally different approach.
” There are other challenges to cleaning the air , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particles can move .
If you clean one section of air in a space , new dirty air can move in and replace it .
Also , air cleaning needs to be continuous in the spaces we inhabit .
As long as there are living , breathing people in a space , we ’ re potentially contaminating it with virus .
The first thing to do in thinking about cleaning the air , says Jeffrey Siegel , an air filtration expert at the University of Toronto , is to think about limiting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place ( i.e.
, living , breathing people ) .
There ’ s an old saying in his line of work : “ If you ’ ve got the odor of manure , don ’ t try and ventilate to get rid of it , get rid of the manure , ” he says .
“ That ’ s the exact idea , right ?
Get rid of the source or manage that source.
” SARS-CoV-2 gets into the air via human breath .
So we should start by reducing the number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have to enter , and limiting activities like singing or shouting that can propel even more virus-laden particles into the air .
From contact tracing studies , we know the virus spreads most readily through close contact , with the risks increasing with the amount of time spent in close proximity .
However , there are some situations in poorly ventilated indoor spaces where the virus may be able to float in the air for an extended period ( tens of minutes or more ) , or spread in a gaseous cloud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( some of that long-range floating virus may still be able to infect people , some of it may not ) .
Ventilation may help decrease the chances of transmission in these indoor environments .
“ Ventilation may be able to help reduce indoors transmission , but it ’ s never going to be as effective as simply not having lots of people in a single indoor space , ” Boston University epidemiologist Eleanor Murray says in an email .
“ If a workplace can function with employees working remotely , then it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so than to have all employees come back to work even with better ventilation .
But there may be a few employees who would be better served by being at the office , and for those , improving ventilation will help make the office as safe as possible.
” Outside of source control , there are three basic ways to clean the air and reduce the concentration of airborne virus .
The first is to simply ventilate , or increase the amount of outdoor air in indoor spaces , and to make sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ air several times per hour .
“ So the air in your home probably changes over once every hour or two hours , ” Marr says .
“ We ’ re aiming for an air exchange rate of , like , six per hour.
” That recommendation , she says , comes from studies of tuberculosis transmission .
( Tuberculosis is not SARS-CoV-2 .
TB is much more contagious and is thought to be able to spread farther and stay longer in the air . )
It ’ s important to remember , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t really have a specific figure on what amounts to a dangerous , infectious concentration of virus in the air .
“ There ’ s no perfectly ‘ safe ’ level of ventilation because we don ’ t actually know what ‘ safe ’ is , since we don ’ t know how much exposure leads to transmission , ” Angela Rasmussen , a Columbia University virologist , says in an email .
Six air changes an hour is a baseline .
“ If you want the risk down to zero , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infinite number of air changes per hour , ” Marr adds .
Which is impossible .
Again , more ventilation may be “ safer , ” but it ’ s not “ safe.
” The easiest way to increase ventilation : open windows .
This will increase the amount of outside air ( which does not have virus in it ) coming in to dilute indoor air ( which may have virus in it ) .
The less concentrated the virus is in the air , the less likely it is to infect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not foolproof .
There are some specific scenarios where opening windows can be counterproductive and yield unpredictable effects , as Siegel explains .
Let ’ s say you have a bathroom .
It would be a good idea to keep the bathroom air in the bathroom .
After all , many types of viruses can spread in bathrooms , and in the case of Covid-19 , it ’ s possible for the virus to be sent into the air via toilet flushes ( though it ’ s less clear if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So it ’ s ideally best to not let that bathroom air get out into other spaces .
To keep the air in the bathroom in the bathroom , it needs what engineers call “ negative pressure , ” meaning that air can flow into the bathroom but not out .
“ And then you open a window in the room beside the bathroom , ” Siegel says .
“ And once you open windows , you give up on any idea of controlling pressurization or depressurization.
” When this happens , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will start flowing out .
The point of this example isn ’ t to make people scared of opening windows .
It ’ s just that indoor spaces are complicated , and airflow can be hard to predict .
“ No one I know — even some of the best building modelers in the world — can accurately model a building with open windows , ” he says .
“ It ’ s just way too dynamic of a system .
We know that , in general , ventilation rate increases .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anyone not to open the windows .
But really we can ’ t tell you what it ’ s doing to airflow in the space.
” This is one of the potential pitfalls with ventilation : “ Ventilation pathway matters too , ” Siegel explained on Twitter .
If a fan meant to increase ventilation ends up blowing virus across people ’ s faces , it ’ s self-defeating .
This is what ’ s believed to have happened in a restaurant in China , where people sitting in the path of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , researchers also said that the restaurant A/C system pulled in no outdoor air , and the air in the restaurant wasn ’ t replaced even once in an hour , let alone six times , which likely contributed to the outbreak there .
So how do you know if you ’ re doing ventilation right ?
Is there any way to monitor your airflow and know the air exchange rate ?
Here , things get tricky .
One indirect way to do this is to purchase a carbon dioxide detector ( which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give you a rough sense of air quality .
When we exhale , we exhale CO2 .
“ How much CO2 is in an indoor space is basically a metric of how much air other people have expelled in that space , ” Jose-Luis Jimenez , a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado Boulder , says .
So high and rising CO2 levels in a space can be a sign it ’ s not properly ventilated .
“ The relationship between CO2 and outside air ventilation is really complicated and not something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to figure out , ” Miller says .
But , as a general benchmark , the average C02 concentration of outdoor air is around 400 ppm ( parts per million ) .
So indoor spaces should ideally have a CO2 concentration of under 500 or 600 ppm in a room where people are breathing .
That will tell , roughly , whether outdoor air is being mixed with indoor air at a reasonable level .
Building managers , though , shouldn ’ t depend entirely on a CO2 monitor .
Again , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are only a few people in a space , they may not generate enough CO2 to make the sensor rise that much even in a stagnant environment .
And it only takes one person to start an outbreak .
In commercial settings , some building operators might be able to adjust the amount of fresh air pumped into a building ’ s ventilation system .
During the pandemic , they should do this .
But , as Miller explains , “ many [ commercial HVAC ] systems don ’ t run on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s too energy-intensive .
“ You can ’ t provide air conditioning and heat with 100 percent outside air , ” she says .
So , in some cases , there is a limit to how much outside air an HVAC system can mix into a building .
Other systems might be in disrepair and unable to ideally ventilate buildings , even if their systems are cranked up .
Particularly in schools , ventilation systems can be old and in disrepair .
In June , the Government Accountability Office published a survey of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal government .
It found 41 percent of the districts needed to update HVAC equipment in half of their schools .
Separately , in New York City , a Daily News investigation found that “ roughly 650 of the 1,500 buildings surveyed in 2019 by city inspectors had at least one deficiency in their exhaust fans.
” A huge part of the challenge of increasing ventilation is that different buildings , built in different eras for different purposes , will need potentially different solutions .
Older buildings might not have any central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with HVAC systems may operate well for some rooms but less well in others .
“ When I think about my daughter ’ s school , ” Siegel says , “ I don ’ t worry about the school as a whole as much as I worry about that classroom where they can ’ t open the windows because there ’ s a construction site right nearby.
” It ’ s important to know here that ventilating schools has benefits that are broader than its pandemic applications .
Kids need to breathe healthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for children ’ s ’ health and cognitive well-being are as clear and critical as ever ) .
And allowing them to do so will require huge investments .
“ We can ’ t even get the Congress to allocate , you know , $ 600 a week in unemployment , let alone a billion dollars to schools to upgrade their HVAC , ” Miller says .
“ We have systematically neglected our HVAC systems for a very , very long time , ” Siegel says .
“ Schools are one classic example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so now all of a sudden , we ’ ve got a pandemic , and we say , well , we want to increase ventilation ... you don ’ t get there without some amount of investment.
” Air filters can work too — if used properly The goal in ventilation is to replace potentially virus-laden air indoors with virus-free air .
One way to do this is to bring more outdoor air inside .
But this isn ’ t always doable .
You can ’ t easily open windows for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of hazardous pollution outside ( like wildfire smoke ) .
So , the other way is to filter the indoor air itself .
This also is simple in theory , but the implementation can be tricky .
It starts with getting a good air filter .
For this , the American Society of Heating , Refrigerating , and Air-Conditioning Engineers suggests using filters with a MERV-13 designation or higher .
Or use a portable HEPA filter ( there are some DIY versions you can try on the cheap ) .
MERVs are based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filtering out particles between 0.3 and 10 microns .
SARS-CoV-2 could very well be found in respiratory droplets in this size range ; the higher the MERV number , the higher the probability that the filter will remove these droplets .
HEPA filters , more common in portable air filters , are slightly different .
The “ HEPA ” designation means they filter out at least 99.97 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns .
Which is to say , they filter out practically everything .
( A quirk of the physics of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually easier to filter out than the 0.3 micron ones .
The smallest particles get pushed toward filter fibers because of their collisions with gas molecules in the air , Siegel explains . )
“ I can ’ t just tell you in good conscience , ‘ This is the filter you should use to protect against Covid-19 transmission , ’ because it really depends how you use that filter , ” Siegel says .
“ We much more often have an implementation problem than a lack of technology problem.
” Often , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filter will be improperly sealed so that some unfiltered air sneaks past it and recirculates in the building ; this downgrades its filtering ability .
Also , not all systems can run these higher-efficiency filters , which can be quite dense .
They often require more powerful fans to push air through .
For instance , Siegel says that , typically , home window AC units don ’ t operate with very powerful fans .
So if you put a good filter in the unit , “ you would not move any air @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perform as an air conditioner , the coil would ice up very rapidly , and you ’ d have a nice block of ice with no air blowing across it.
” The other consideration : These higher-quality filters need to be replaced more frequently as they “ fill up ” with more stuff more quickly and it becomes harder to push air through the filter .
Also ( this list of caveats and considerations is getting long , right ? )
you need to buy a unit that ’ s sized correctly for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filtering unit should ideally , along with ventilation , lead to six or more air exchanges per hour .
“ You want something that ’ s good for the size of your room or bigger ; bigger will give you better cleaning power , ” Marr says .
“ But , you know , even if you get something that ’ s smaller , it ’ s not going to harm you.
” She adds that you also need to be careful when changing the filters because they could be contaminated with virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be constantly running to work .
“ Forced air systems [ like centralized heating and cooling ] in most residential contexts and in some commercial context only come on when there ’ s a need for conditioning , ” Siegel says .
That is , they only turn on when it gets too cold or too hot .
For a filter to work at its best , air needs to be constantly running through it .
Some systems may need to be tinkered with to get this to happen .
Again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exactly , what impact air purifiers will have on transmission .
“ My main concern with these ventilation systems is that we do not know really whether they will decrease transmission risk substantially , ” Muge Cevik , a physician and virology expert at the University of St. Andrews , says in an email .
After all , there aren ’ t randomized controlled studies of using air cleaners during this pandemic to decrease transmission .
In theory , air purifiers should help .
“ It ’ s not rocket science , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use , says .
“ If you pass air through the filter , it will catch the particles.
” There ’ s yet another option for removing virus from the air : killing it with ultraviolet lamps .
That said , Miller — who specializes in studying devices that do this sort of thing — doesn ’ t recommend these for the average consumer .
“ While they can be effective , there is not enough testing/certification for these devices , ” she says .
“ These are pretty complex , and there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some really good companies that can help with design and install.
” But , she says “ there are also a lot of bad lamp manufacturers and people selling devices that don ’ t work .
Best left to engineers and reputable companies to support these installations.
” If you look at air cleaning products , you ’ ll find a lot of gimmicks : ionizers , plasma generators that claim to amp up the power of filters .
“ There ’ s very little science behind them , ” Siegel says .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the devices are ineffective and maybe lull people into a false sense of security , but in some cases they ’ re actually harmful.
” Watch out , in particular , for machines that can generate ozone .
Ozone is a pollutant that can interact with a lot of different products in your home and create harmful chemicals to breathe in .
“ It reacts with carpets and skin oil and all kinds of things inside of buildings , ” Siegel says , “ forming all kinds of harmful byproducts , ultra-fine particles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things that we would worry about indoors.
” So stick with HEPA or MERV-13+ rated filters .
Or just open windows .
Remember : Hygiene theater is possible when it comes to air quality as well .
If a school or any indoor space says it has improved ventilation , ask how .
Marr suggests asking building operators what the air exchange rate is ( if they don ’ t know it , maybe be wary about the space ) .
Ask about what filters have been put in place .
Ask if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Even if you can ’ t reach the target — six air changes per hour — if you can improve , that will still be helpful , ” Marr says .
“ Do what you can , because that will reduce the risk of transmission .
Don ’ t give up.
” We need to invest in cleaner air , period .
Pandemic or not .
There are no risk-free situations in a pandemic .
Again , good ventilation needs to take place alongside other precautions .
The hope is “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of stopgap measures from the ventilation standpoint and add it to masks , social distancing , reduced occupancy , limited time indoors , the whole package could reduce our risk substantially to help get the case rates down , ” Miller says .
This is particularly important heading into the fall and winter seasons , when more people will be spending more time indoors in potentially risky environments .
Experts also worry that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not being helpful enough in its air quality recommendations .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ ensure ventilation systems operate properly and increase circulation of outdoor air as much as possible , for example by opening windows and doors.
” But they don ’ t even weigh in on the merits of putting a HEPA air purifier in each classroom .
“ It would carry more credibility , ” Jimenez says , if the CDC would discuss their use rather than leave the conversation in the hands of independent scientists speaking for themselves .
“ When I was talking to a school district , they were all saying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t recommend air cleaners.
’ ” In Jimenez ’ s mind , air cleaners are essential .
But it ’ s hard to get the message across without a huge institution like the CDC echoing it .
So much of the pain of the pandemic builds on preexisting problems .
Too many schools and other buildings have overlooked their ventilation and indoor air quality to begin with .
Addressing ventilation can ’ t just be a one-time Band-Aid during the pandemic .
It ’ s an investment .
And not just for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The best possible case is that you reduce risk of Covid-19 and you make your indoor air quality better , ” Siegel says .
“ The worst possible case is that you make indoor air quality better but don ’ t appreciably change Covid-19 risk.
” Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure how it would go .
Today , we ’ re humbled to say that nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive , and advertising alone won ’ t let us keep creating it at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

Share All sharing options for: Coronavirus is in the air. Here’s how to get it out.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, can float in the air. In particular, it can linger in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, spreading farther than 6 feet from its source. These indoor public spaces are high risk and should be avoided while the virus is still spreading.
But, increasingly, people are returning to those spaces: Bars and restaurants are operating in limited capacity in some places, and are fully reopened in others. Some schools and universities have resumed in-person classes, and mayors are allowing some live entertainment venues to host events.
With the weather growing colder, experts fear indoor gatherings in these and private spaces could spark new outbreaks. Already, cases are increasing nationwide, and experts are growing more concerned about a potential fall-winter Covid-19 surge.
To make indoor communal spaces safer, experts keep stressing that they need to be “well-ventilated.” But what does that mean? In conversations with several air quality experts and engineers, I found ventilation to be simple in concept and potentially fraught in execution.
“It’s a huge engineering problem,” Shelly Miller, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, says. “We don’t have the systems in place for many buildings to be operated appropriately during a pandemic.”
As Derek Thompson observes in the Atlantic, a lot of places have put on a big show about cleaning surfaces — what he calls “hygiene theater” — though surface contamination is not thought to be a large source of Covid-19 transmission.
Making places safer, instead, should mean improving air quality. But “have you ever heard a restaurant reopening announce they’ve improved ventilation or increased ventilation?” Lidia Morawska, an engineer and the director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology, recently told me. “No.”
Ventilation concerns are not limited to restaurants and schools. Recently, a report from the University of California San Francisco noted “exceedingly poor ventilation” at the San Quentin State Prison, which saw a huge outbreak of more than 2,200 cases.
Ventilation efforts could easily fall into the “hygiene theater” trap if not done well. So here’s a guide for how to think about safer — but not necessarily “safe” — indoor air, and all the hurdles that may get in the way. We need to think about controlling the source of the virus indoors, about mixing more outdoor air with indoor air, and about air filtration and cleaning devices.
The experts I spoke with agreed: We can’t ventilate and air purify our way out of the need to wear masks, reduce occupancy in indoor spaces (or just avoid many of them all together), and physically distance. The indoor space that can’t enforce these measures, or allow activities that involve mask removal — like bars and restaurants — probably shouldn’t be open. And, still, the most important way to make indoor spaces safer is to decrease community Covid-19 spread as much as possible. It may not be easy for all spaces to achieve ideal ventilation.
There are no perfectly safe indoor environments during the pandemic, but there are clear goals to have in mind when trying to make them safer with ventilation. Here’s where to start.
First: Limit the amount of virus in the air in the first place
Intuitively, I think we all know how to think about cleaning surfaces: Wipe them down with a disinfectant, or scrub with good old soap and water. Cleaning the air is an entirely different challenge. You can’t just spray it with chemicals and call it a day.
“Cleaning the air is at least as important as cleaning surfaces, but you do it very differently,” says Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech engineer who studies the airborne spread of viruses. “We end up having to breathe whatever it is we spray. And if it’s harmful to the virus, it’s likely it’s also harmful to us. So we need to take a totally different approach.”
There are other challenges to cleaning the air, too. One big one: Floating particles can move. If you clean one section of air in a space, new dirty air can move in and replace it. Also, air cleaning needs to be continuous in the spaces we inhabit. As long as there are living, breathing people in a space, we’re potentially contaminating it with virus.
The first thing to do in thinking about cleaning the air, says Jeffrey Siegel, an air filtration expert at the University of Toronto, is to think about limiting the source of the contagion in the first place (i.e., living, breathing people). There’s an old saying in his line of work: “If you’ve got the odor of manure, don’t try and ventilate to get rid of it, get rid of the manure,” he says. “That’s the exact idea, right? Get rid of the source or manage that source.”
SARS-CoV-2 gets into the air via human breath. So we should start by reducing the number of humans in a space, masking those who have to enter, and limiting activities like singing or shouting that can propel even more virus-laden particles into the air.
From contact tracing studies, we know the virus spreads most readily through close contact, with the risks increasing with the amount of time spent in close proximity. However, there are some situations in poorly ventilated indoor spaces where the virus may be able to float in the air for an extended period (tens of minutes or more), or spread in a gaseous cloud over an area larger than 6 feet (some of that long-range floating virus may still be able to infect people, some of it may not). Ventilation may help decrease the chances of transmission in these indoor environments.
“Ventilation may be able to help reduce indoors transmission, but it’s never going to be as effective as simply not having lots of people in a single indoor space,” Boston University epidemiologist Eleanor Murray says in an email. “If a workplace can function with employees working remotely, then it will be safer for them to do so than to have all employees come back to work even with better ventilation. But there may be a few employees who would be better served by being at the office, and for those, improving ventilation will help make the office as safe as possible.”
Second: Ventilate
Outside of source control, there are three basic ways to clean the air and reduce the concentration of airborne virus. The first is to simply ventilate, or increase the amount of outdoor air in indoor spaces, and to make sure the inside air is replaced by outside air several times per hour.
“So the air in your home probably changes over once every hour or two hours,” Marr says. “We’re aiming for an air exchange rate of, like, six per hour.” That recommendation, she says, comes from studies of tuberculosis transmission. (Tuberculosis is not SARS-CoV-2. TB is much more contagious and is thought to be able to spread farther and stay longer in the air.)
It’s important to remember, too, that scientists still don’t really have a specific figure on what amounts to a dangerous, infectious concentration of virus in the air. “There’s no perfectly ‘safe’ level of ventilation because we don’t actually know what ‘safe’ is, since we don’t know how much exposure leads to transmission,” Angela Rasmussen, a Columbia University virologist, says in an email.
Six air changes an hour is a baseline. “If you want the risk down to zero, you’ve got to get to an infinite number of air changes per hour,” Marr adds. Which is impossible.
Again, more ventilation may be “safer,” but it’s not “safe.”
The easiest way to increase ventilation: open windows. This will increase the amount of outside air (which does not have virus in it) coming in to dilute indoor air (which may have virus in it). The less concentrated the virus is in the air, the less likely it is to infect people.
It seems simple, but it’s not foolproof. There are some specific scenarios where opening windows can be counterproductive and yield unpredictable effects, as Siegel explains.
Let’s say you have a bathroom. It would be a good idea to keep the bathroom air in the bathroom. After all, many types of viruses can spread in bathrooms, and in the case of Covid-19, it’s possible for the virus to be sent into the air via toilet flushes (though it’s less clear if someone can be infected this way). So it’s ideally best to not let that bathroom air get out into other spaces.
To keep the air in the bathroom in the bathroom, it needs what engineers call “negative pressure,” meaning that air can flow into the bathroom but not out.
“And then you open a window in the room beside the bathroom,” Siegel says. “And once you open windows, you give up on any idea of controlling pressurization or depressurization.” When this happens, the potentially contaminated air in the bathroom will start flowing out.
The point of this example isn’t to make people scared of opening windows. It’s just that indoor spaces are complicated, and airflow can be hard to predict.
“No one I know — even some of the best building modelers in the world — can accurately model a building with open windows,” he says. “It’s just way too dynamic of a system. We know that, in general, ventilation rate increases. And I’m not going to tell anyone not to open the windows. But really we can’t tell you what it’s doing to airflow in the space.”
This is one of the potential pitfalls with ventilation: “Ventilation pathway matters too,” Siegel explained on Twitter. If a fan meant to increase ventilation ends up blowing virus across people’s faces, it’s self-defeating. This is what’s believed to have happened in a restaurant in China, where people sitting in the path of an air conditioning fan got sick. Later, researchers also said that the restaurant A/C system pulled in no outdoor air, and the air in the restaurant wasn’t replaced even once in an hour, let alone six times, which likely contributed to the outbreak there.
How to monitor ventilation
So how do you know if you’re doing ventilation right? Is there any way to monitor your airflow and know the air exchange rate? Here, things get tricky. One indirect way to do this is to purchase a carbon dioxide detector (which are around $100 online) to give you a rough sense of air quality. When we exhale, we exhale CO2. “How much CO2 is in an indoor space is basically a metric of how much air other people have expelled in that space,” Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, says. So high and rising CO2 levels in a space can be a sign it’s not properly ventilated.
“The relationship between CO2 and outside air ventilation is really complicated and not something I’m advocating the public try to figure out,” Miller says. But, as a general benchmark, the average C02 concentration of outdoor air is around 400 ppm (parts per million). So indoor spaces should ideally have a CO2 concentration of under 500 or 600 ppm in a room where people are breathing. That will tell, roughly, whether outdoor air is being mixed with indoor air at a reasonable level.
Building managers, though, shouldn’t depend entirely on a CO2 monitor. Again, it’s an indirect measure. If there are only a few people in a space, they may not generate enough CO2 to make the sensor rise that much even in a stagnant environment. And it only takes one person to start an outbreak.
(There’s also some room for commonsense measurements, too: Use your nose. If you can smell odors wafting through a building coming from indoor sources, the space may not be adequately ventilated. “If you walk into a place and it feels stuffy and the windows aren’t open, then that’s an indicator that there’s not good ventilation there,” Marr says.)
In commercial settings, some building operators might be able to adjust the amount of fresh air pumped into a building’s ventilation system. During the pandemic, they should do this. But, as Miller explains, “many [commercial HVAC] systems don’t run on 100 percent outside air.” It’s too energy-intensive. “You can’t provide air conditioning and heat with 100 percent outside air,” she says. So, in some cases, there is a limit to how much outside air an HVAC system can mix into a building.
Other systems might be in disrepair and unable to ideally ventilate buildings, even if their systems are cranked up. Particularly in schools, ventilation systems can be old and in disrepair. In June, the Government Accountability Office published a survey of 65 school districts that receive aid from the federal government. It found 41 percent of the districts needed to update HVAC equipment in half of their schools. Separately, in New York City, a Daily News investigation found that “roughly 650 of the 1,500 buildings surveyed in 2019 by city inspectors had at least one deficiency in their exhaust fans.”
A huge part of the challenge of increasing ventilation is that different buildings, built in different eras for different purposes, will need potentially different solutions. Older buildings might not have any central HVAC systems at all. And some with HVAC systems may operate well for some rooms but less well in others.
“When I think about my daughter’s school,” Siegel says, “I don’t worry about the school as a whole as much as I worry about that classroom where they can’t open the windows because there’s a construction site right nearby.”
It’s important to know here that ventilating schools has benefits that are broader than its pandemic applications. Kids need to breathe healthy air (the dangers of air quality for children’s’ health and cognitive well-being are as clear and critical as ever). And allowing them to do so will require huge investments.
“We can’t even get the Congress to allocate, you know, $600 a week in unemployment, let alone a billion dollars to schools to upgrade their HVAC,” Miller says.
“We have systematically neglected our HVAC systems for a very, very long time,” Siegel says. “Schools are one classic example of that. But also every building. And so now all of a sudden, we’ve got a pandemic, and we say, well, we want to increase ventilation ... you don’t get there without some amount of investment.”
(Hospitals, you might be curious to know, already have extensive requirements in place for ventilation. So which comes at a great cost and takes lots of energy to use.)
Air filters can work too — if used properly
The goal in ventilation is to replace potentially virus-laden air indoors with virus-free air. One way to do this is to bring more outdoor air inside. But this isn’t always doable. You can’t easily open windows for ventilation when there’s a lot of hazardous pollution outside (like wildfire smoke). So, the other way is to filter the indoor air itself.
This also is simple in theory, but the implementation can be tricky.
It starts with getting a good air filter. For this, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers suggests using filters with a MERV-13 designation or higher. Or use a portable HEPA filter (there are some DIY versions you can try on the cheap).
MERVs are based on a filter’s performance in filtering out particles between 0.3 and 10 microns. SARS-CoV-2 could very well be found in respiratory droplets in this size range; the higher the MERV number, the higher the probability that the filter will remove these droplets.
HEPA filters, more common in portable air filters, are slightly different. The “HEPA” designation means they filter out at least 99.97 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns. Which is to say, they filter out practically everything. (A quirk of the physics of filtration is the very smallest particles are actually easier to filter out than the 0.3 micron ones. The smallest particles get pushed toward filter fibers because of their collisions with gas molecules in the air, Siegel explains.)
But installing higher-quality filters isn’t enough.
“I can’t just tell you in good conscience, ‘This is the filter you should use to protect against Covid-19 transmission,’ because it really depends how you use that filter,” Siegel says. “We much more often have an implementation problem than a lack of technology problem.”
Often, he says, in buildings, a filter will be improperly sealed so that some unfiltered air sneaks past it and recirculates in the building; this downgrades its filtering ability. Also, not all systems can run these higher-efficiency filters, which can be quite dense. They often require more powerful fans to push air through.
For instance, Siegel says that, typically, home window AC units don’t operate with very powerful fans. So if you put a good filter in the unit, “you would not move any air, your air conditioner would cease to perform as an air conditioner, the coil would ice up very rapidly, and you’d have a nice block of ice with no air blowing across it.”
The other consideration: These higher-quality filters need to be replaced more frequently as they “fill up” with more stuff more quickly and it becomes harder to push air through the filter. Also (this list of caveats and considerations is getting long, right?) you need to buy a unit that’s sized correctly for the space you are in. The filtering unit should ideally, along with ventilation, lead to six or more air exchanges per hour.
“You want something that’s good for the size of your room or bigger; bigger will give you better cleaning power,” Marr says. “But, you know, even if you get something that’s smaller, it’s not going to harm you.” She adds that you also need to be careful when changing the filters because they could be contaminated with virus.
And finally: Air filters have to be constantly running to work.
“Forced air systems [like centralized heating and cooling] in most residential contexts and in some commercial context only come on when there’s a need for conditioning,” Siegel says. That is, they only turn on when it gets too cold or too hot. For a filter to work at its best, air needs to be constantly running through it. Some systems may need to be tinkered with to get this to happen.
Again, it’s hard to know, exactly, what impact air purifiers will have on transmission. “My main concern with these ventilation systems is that we do not know really whether they will decrease transmission risk substantially,” Muge Cevik, a physician and virology expert at the University of St. Andrews, says in an email. After all, there aren’t randomized controlled studies of using air cleaners during this pandemic to decrease transmission.
In theory, air purifiers should help. “It’s not rocket science,” Jimenez, who strongly advocates for their use, says. “If you pass air through the filter, it will catch the particles.”
Watch out for snake oil air-cleaning products
There’s yet another option for removing virus from the air: killing it with ultraviolet lamps. That said, Miller — who specializes in studying devices that do this sort of thing — doesn’t recommend these for the average consumer.
“While they can be effective, there is not enough testing/certification for these devices,” she says. “These are pretty complex, and there are a lot of great applications and some really good companies that can help with design and install.” But, she says “there are also a lot of bad lamp manufacturers and people selling devices that don’t work. Best left to engineers and reputable companies to support these installations.”
If you look at air cleaning products, you’ll find a lot of gimmicks: ionizers, plasma generators that claim to amp up the power of filters. “There’s very little science behind them,” Siegel says. “It’s not only that the devices are ineffective and maybe lull people into a false sense of security, but in some cases they’re actually harmful.”
Watch out, in particular, for machines that can generate ozone. Ozone is a pollutant that can interact with a lot of different products in your home and create harmful chemicals to breathe in. “It reacts with carpets and skin oil and all kinds of things inside of buildings,” Siegel says, “forming all kinds of harmful byproducts, ultra-fine particles, formaldehyde, all kinds of other things that we would worry about indoors.”
So stick with HEPA or MERV-13+ rated filters. Or just open windows.
Remember: Hygiene theater is possible when it comes to air quality as well. If a school or any indoor space says it has improved ventilation, ask how. Marr suggests asking building operators what the air exchange rate is (if they don’t know it, maybe be wary about the space). Ask about what filters have been put in place. Ask if their HVAC systems have been routinely maintained.
“Even if you can’t reach the target — six air changes per hour — if you can improve, that will still be helpful,” Marr says. “Do what you can, because that will reduce the risk of transmission. Don’t give up.”
We need to invest in cleaner air, period. Pandemic or not.
There are no risk-free situations in a pandemic. Again, good ventilation needs to take place alongside other precautions. The hope is “if we can take this whole suite of stopgap measures from the ventilation standpoint and add it to masks, social distancing, reduced occupancy, limited time indoors, the whole package could reduce our risk substantially to help get the case rates down,” Miller says.
This is particularly important heading into the fall and winter seasons, when more people will be spending more time indoors in potentially risky environments.
Experts also worry that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not being helpful enough in its air quality recommendations. For instance, the CDC recommends that schools “ensure ventilation systems operate properly and increase circulation of outdoor air as much as possible, for example by opening windows and doors.” But they don’t even weigh in on the merits of putting a HEPA air purifier in each classroom.
“It would carry more credibility,” Jimenez says, if the CDC would discuss their use rather than leave the conversation in the hands of independent scientists speaking for themselves. “When I was talking to a school district, they were all saying, ‘Well, the CDC doesn’t recommend air cleaners.’” In Jimenez’s mind, air cleaners are essential. But it’s hard to get the message across without a huge institution like the CDC echoing it.
So much of the pain of the pandemic builds on preexisting problems. Too many schools and other buildings have overlooked their ventilation and indoor air quality to begin with. Addressing ventilation can’t just be a one-time Band-Aid during the pandemic. It’s an investment. And not just for future pandemics but for our overall health.
“The best possible case is that you reduce risk of Covid-19 and you make your indoor air quality better,” Siegel says. “The worst possible case is that you make indoor air quality better but don’t appreciably change Covid-19 risk.”
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-09-28--Joe Biden’s plan to beat the coronavirus

Evidence-based explanations of the coronavirus crisis , from how it started to how it might end to how to protect yourself and others .
Joe Biden ’ s plan to beat back the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States is founded on a simple premise : leadership matters .
President Donald Trump has badly botched the response thus far , according to most experts , and the numbers tell the tale : 200,000 Americans are dead .
He ’ s tried to discredit the scientific institutions tasked with managing the response .
Millions of people are still out of work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will never reopen .
Biden ’ s campaign has spent the last six months coming up with its plan to fix it .
“ What worries me now is we ’ ve been living with this pandemic for so long , we ’ re at risk of becoming numb to the toll it ’ s taken on us and our country , ” Biden said last week .
“ There are 200,000 moms and dads , sons and daughters , grandmothers and grandfathers , aunts and uncles , friends and coworkers who are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many of them didn ’ t have to lose their lives to this virus if only the president had acted sooner.
” If he ’ s elected president , Biden sees his role as , fundamentally , removing the obstacles set up by the Trump administration that hindered an effective Covid-19 response .
The Trump White House has pressured states to reopen before they contained their outbreaks ; Biden would encourage mask mandates and , if necessary , new lockdowns .
The president has undermined the government ’ s top scientists ; Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress has failed to appropriate any new funding for Covid-19 response since the spring ; Biden and congressional Democrats want to make major new investments .
Biden believes the public needs to hear a new message from the government , one founded in good science .
His top adviser and presumed chief-of-staff in waiting is Ron Klain , who oversaw the Obama administration ’ s Ebola response .
He has convened an informal panel of experts , who have briefed him regularly on the state of the US outbreak and on the best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the campaign is working toward what public health experts say is the most effective strategy for containing Covid-19 : a test-trace-isolate program , making mask-wearing and social distancing mandatory , and , once the science supports it , an equitably distributed vaccine .
Totally suppressing Covid-19 to the same level that South Korea or New Zealand have is likely a lost cause at this point .
But the Biden campaign believes it can flatten cases and deaths until a vaccine is widely available , potentially saving thousands of lives in the process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Vox reported at the beginning of the pandemic , local officials are largely tasked with executing these public safety measures , and it ’ s entirely possible Republican governors aren ’ t going to want to go along with Biden ’ s way of doing things .
It could be difficult to restore public trust in the scientific process .
And equitably distributing a scientifically sound vaccine to the general population is something the candidate himself has compared to a large-scale military operation .
Still , Biden says he is up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as we have so many times in our history , begin anew , ” Biden said this week .
“ We can get control of this virus.
” America has never had a cohesive Covid-19 testing strategy .
Since February , there have been regular supply shortages delaying test results .
States have been fighting each other for precious resources .
Contact tracing has not been a priority for the federal government , and most states have still not hired nearly enough people to perform that work .
Without an effective test-trace-isolate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a realistic chance of stamping out the virus .
After talking with some of Biden ’ s Covid-19 advisers , it ’ s clear that his first priority as president would be to use the tools at the federal government ’ s disposal to improve US testing .
The goal is more testing and faster testing that then allows for better contact tracing to identify which people need to be isolated , all in order to slow down Covid-19 ’ s spread .
Biden wants to set up a pandemic testing board to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country .
That could help the kind of testing bottlenecks the US has periodically experienced throughout the year ; tests in Florida during its summer spike were taking a week or more to come back , making them effectively useless for contact tracing and isolating , while people in a state like Connecticut , where cases had actually fallen off , could get results in a day or two .
The Trump administration has explicitly tried to limit testing to symptomatic individuals only , after the president has said both privately and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testing means more cases are identified .
The FDA currently has a restriction in place that limits rapid-results antigen tests to symptomatic individuals , when the expert consensus says those tests should actually be used to screen asymptomatic people .
Because people with Covid-19 can spread the virus before they show symptoms , that broader community-based testing would help identify infectious individuals early so they can isolate and avoid spreading it to others .
A Biden-led Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would likely issue new federal guidelines on Covid-19 testing , encouraging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers as well as in nursing homes .
“ I had thought for the first several months , this was an allocation problem , getting the tests where they need to be , ” David Kessler , the former FDA chief who is advising the Biden campaign on Covid-19 , told me .
“ But there is this artificial impediment to testing , by setting up this restrictive criteria.
” High-level coordination conducted by a centralized testing board , as Biden is proposing , would also be important for equitably distributing those new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely take months .
Right now , NBA and NFL players can get tested all the time because their leagues can afford to buy the available antigen tests .
But essential workers might not have the same opportunity .
That ’ s the kind of disparity a Biden administration would want to try to fix as tens of millions of antigen tests are shipped around the country in the coming months .
“ This is turning into an equity problem , a world of haves and have-nots , ” said Thomas Tsai , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worked on testing issues .
Testing ultimately matters only if sick people isolate themselves and public health workers can contact the people they may have exposed so they can isolate , too .
Most US states have also still not hired enough contact tracing workers .
Biden has said he wants to establish a new US public health job corps that would perform that contact tracing work , with federal money to hire at least 100,000 people and train them , a plan that would likely require new funding from Congress .
Polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with smartphone contact tracing apps , and public health workers have anecdotally reported encountering skepticism from people they ’ ve interviewed , who are wary of sharing personal information with the government .
Biden campaign advisers believe federal leadership that encourages trust could lead to more buy-in from the public for these public health efforts , though it will likely remain a challenge given the deep political polarization in the US .
The pandemic is not going to end without an adequate test-trace-isolate program ; anything else , including eventual vaccine distribution , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread .
Step 2 : Provide people , businesses , and states with more economic relief Trump has presented the pandemic and the economic crisis as fundamentally at odds , saying the US can not let the cure ( lockdowns ) be worse than the disease ( Covid-19 ) .
But public health experts say the two are inevitably linked .
The only way to fully restore the economy is to get the virus under control ; people aren ’ t going to resume their normal lives if they are worried about getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Still , the economic pain is real , and that pain puts pressure on government leaders to allow some business activities to resume lest jobs and businesses be permanently lost .
One way to alleviate that pressure and allow more time for better public health interventions to start suppressing Covid-19 ’ s spread is to provide more economic relief .
The US economy has regained some of the jobs lost since March , but millions are still out of work .
It ’ s clear by now that the V-shaped recovery hyped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to happen .
The unemployment and business relief provisions Congress passed earlier in the year have started to expire , and nobody in Washington seems optimistic that any new deal on extending that assistance will be reached by the end of the year .
Biden could take administrative actions that would provide Americans with some economic relief .
But the most powerful tools will need to be approved by Congress — and the difference between President Biden negotiating with a Congress fully controlled by Democrats versus a Congress split between a Democratic House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats in Congress say their first order of business would be a new Covid-19 relief and response package .
It would likely incorporate the necessary funding to improve testing and tracing , according to Senate Democratic aides , as well as specifications about how federal money should be spent .
It would also be expected to include economic provisions .
Increased unemployment aid and new funding for state and local governments would be a given , based on the legislation already passed by House Democrats and interviews with aides .
Democrats will likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ additional unemployment benefit .
Congress could also add funding specifically for state Medicaid programs , which have had enrollment swell during the economic downturn , aides say .
Democrats will have to decide whether their first big bill will focus narrowly on Covid-19 or whether to include bigger permanent reforms .
On health care , they could either stick with more incremental improvements , such as covering treatment for the people with long-term Covid-19 complications , or go bigger by enhancing the Obamacare tax subsidies and even possibly establishing the public health insurance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats acknowledge there will be enormous pressure from the more progressive members to go big .
Nobody is ruling anything out , but as one health policy expert put it recently : “ First , you have to stop the bleeding.
” Step 3 : Fast and equitable use of an effective Covid-19 vaccine More economic relief should lower the pressure on states and businesses to reopen , while more testing and tracing should help reduce Covid-19 ’ s spread .
But to actually put an end to the pandemic , we will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s antics around a Covid-19 vaccine , the bottom line is that an effective vaccine does seem likely to be developed in record time .
Several candidates are already in phase 3 trials , and there is hope that within a matter of months , one or more will be approved .
Then comes the hard part , which is distributing the vaccine to people .
That mission will require a tremendous amount of coordination : producing the doses , shipping them around the country , figuring out which populations will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and getting the message out to the public about how to get their vaccine .
“ Distributing a vaccine to the entire population is as complex and challenging as the most sensitive military operation , ” Biden said in remarks earlier this month .
He promised to develop a more detailed plan for vaccine distribution before assuming office , but he did lay out what that plan would cover : • a detailed timeline for when people would get the vaccine • a clear delineation of which populations would be prioritized • @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the vaccines at appropriate temperatures • which government agencies would be responsible for implementing that plan The Trump administration , through its Operation Warp Speed , already placed orders for some of the most promising vaccine candidates and it has paid drug companies to start manufacturing doses even before they know whether the vaccine will be viable .
It also , somewhat controversially , asked state and local health departments to develop distribution plans so they ’ d be ready to start vaccinating people as soon as October .
Some saw that as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get a vaccine sent out before the election .
Practically speaking , however , that directive should still encourage health agencies to make preparations before Biden takes office .
They won ’ t be starting from scratch .
Rather , Biden ’ s leadership role will be just as critical as his operational responsibilities .
Public trust in an eventual Covid-19 vaccine is not very high right now , polls show , and it has been deteriorating over the last few months .
If too few people take a vaccine because they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s going to be harder to completely stamp out the virus .
So Biden will have a public health imperative to strengthen the American public ’ s faith in a vaccine .
He has had to equivocate during the campaign , emphasizing that while he doesn ’ t trust Trump himself , he does trust vaccines and scientists as a rule .
“ I trust vaccines .
I trust the scientists , ” he said recently .
“ But I don ’ t trust Donald Trump — and the American people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the president , then he can empower those scientists and even make them the face of a vaccine push .
But even under the most optimistic scenarios , vaccinating some 60 percent of Americans will take months .
Dr. Anthony Fauci , one of the government scientists Biden says he trusts , has said as much .
A President Biden couldn ’ t do everything to stop Covid-19 .
He couldn ’ t mandate a national stay-at-home order , and it would take a huge amount of political capital to get Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couldn ’ t require masks nationwide , though he could urge states to issue their own .
And he certainly can ’ t speed along the science that will , hopefully , eventually lead to a vaccine .
That ’ s why Biden ’ s Covid-19 plan starts with improving US testing and tracing .
That ’ s how the country gets through those intervening months .
It ’ s the first step toward the end .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
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Joe Biden’s plan to beat back the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States is founded on a simple premise: leadership matters.
President Donald Trump has badly botched the response thus far, according to most experts, and the numbers tell the tale: 200,000 Americans are dead. He’s tried to discredit the scientific institutions tasked with managing the response. Millions of people are still out of work. Thousands of businesses have closed that will never reopen.
Biden’s campaign has spent the last six months coming up with its plan to fix it.
“What worries me now is we’ve been living with this pandemic for so long, we’re at risk of becoming numb to the toll it’s taken on us and our country,” Biden said last week. “There are 200,000 moms and dads, sons and daughters, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, friends and coworkers who are no longer with us. And so many of them didn’t have to lose their lives to this virus if only the president had acted sooner.”
If he’s elected president, Biden sees his role as, fundamentally, removing the obstacles set up by the Trump administration that hindered an effective Covid-19 response. The Trump White House has pressured states to reopen before they contained their outbreaks; Biden would encourage mask mandates and, if necessary, new lockdowns. The president has undermined the government’s top scientists; Biden is promising he will empower them. Congress has failed to appropriate any new funding for Covid-19 response since the spring; Biden and congressional Democrats want to make major new investments.
Biden believes the public needs to hear a new message from the government, one founded in good science. His top adviser and presumed chief-of-staff in waiting is Ron Klain, who oversaw the Obama administration’s Ebola response. He has convened an informal panel of experts, who have briefed him regularly on the state of the US outbreak and on the best strategies for containing it.
Taken together, the campaign is working toward what public health experts say is the most effective strategy for containing Covid-19: a test-trace-isolate program, making mask-wearing and social distancing mandatory, and, once the science supports it, an equitably distributed vaccine. Totally suppressing Covid-19 to the same level that South Korea or New Zealand have is likely a lost cause at this point. But the Biden campaign believes it can flatten cases and deaths until a vaccine is widely available, potentially saving thousands of lives in the process.
The Biden plan faces enormous challenges. As Vox reported at the beginning of the pandemic, local officials are largely tasked with executing these public safety measures, and it’s entirely possible Republican governors aren’t going to want to go along with Biden’s way of doing things. It could be difficult to restore public trust in the scientific process. And equitably distributing a scientifically sound vaccine to the general population is something the candidate himself has compared to a large-scale military operation.
Still, Biden says he is up for the challenge.
“We can, as we have so many times in our history, begin anew,” Biden said this week. “We can get control of this virus.”
Step 1: Fix America’s test-trace-isolate problem
America has never had a cohesive Covid-19 testing strategy. Since February, there have been regular supply shortages delaying test results. States have been fighting each other for precious resources. Contact tracing has not been a priority for the federal government, and most states have still not hired nearly enough people to perform that work. Without an effective test-trace-isolate program, the US has never had a realistic chance of stamping out the virus.
After talking with some of Biden’s Covid-19 advisers, it’s clear that his first priority as president would be to use the tools at the federal government’s disposal to improve US testing. The goal is more testing and faster testing that then allows for better contact tracing to identify which people need to be isolated, all in order to slow down Covid-19’s spread.
Biden wants to set up a pandemic testing board to oversee the allocation of testing materials around the country. That could help the kind of testing bottlenecks the US has periodically experienced throughout the year; tests in Florida during its summer spike were taking a week or more to come back, making them effectively useless for contact tracing and isolating, while people in a state like Connecticut, where cases had actually fallen off, could get results in a day or two.
The Trump administration has explicitly tried to limit testing to symptomatic individuals only, after the president has said both privately and publicly he wants less testing because more testing means more cases are identified. The FDA currently has a restriction in place that limits rapid-results antigen tests to symptomatic individuals, when the expert consensus says those tests should actually be used to screen asymptomatic people. Because people with Covid-19 can spread the virus before they show symptoms, that broader community-based testing would help identify infectious individuals early so they can isolate and avoid spreading it to others.
A Biden-led Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would likely issue new federal guidelines on Covid-19 testing, encouraging more testing of asymptomatic individuals and front-line workers as well as in nursing homes.
“I had thought for the first several months, this was an allocation problem, getting the tests where they need to be,” David Kessler, the former FDA chief who is advising the Biden campaign on Covid-19, told me. “But there is this artificial impediment to testing, by setting up this restrictive criteria.”
High-level coordination conducted by a centralized testing board, as Biden is proposing, would also be important for equitably distributing those new antigen tests, a process that will likely take months. Right now, NBA and NFL players can get tested all the time because their leagues can afford to buy the available antigen tests. But essential workers might not have the same opportunity.
That’s the kind of disparity a Biden administration would want to try to fix as tens of millions of antigen tests are shipped around the country in the coming months.
“This is turning into an equity problem, a world of haves and have-nots,” said Thomas Tsai, a Harvard health policy professor who has worked on testing issues.
Testing ultimately matters only if sick people isolate themselves and public health workers can contact the people they may have exposed so they can isolate, too.
Most US states have also still not hired enough contact tracing workers. Biden has said he wants to establish a new US public health job corps that would perform that contact tracing work, with federal money to hire at least 100,000 people and train them, a plan that would likely require new funding from Congress.
Polls have shown a lack of public comfort with smartphone contact tracing apps, and public health workers have anecdotally reported encountering skepticism from people they’ve interviewed, who are wary of sharing personal information with the government. Biden campaign advisers believe federal leadership that encourages trust could lead to more buy-in from the public for these public health efforts, though it will likely remain a challenge given the deep political polarization in the US.
The pandemic is not going to end without an adequate test-trace-isolate program; anything else, including eventual vaccine distribution, depends first on slowing Covid-19’s spread.
Step 2: Provide people, businesses, and states with more economic relief
Trump has presented the pandemic and the economic crisis as fundamentally at odds, saying the US cannot let the cure (lockdowns) be worse than the disease (Covid-19). But public health experts say the two are inevitably linked. The only way to fully restore the economy is to get the virus under control; people aren’t going to resume their normal lives if they are worried about getting sick at a restaurant or a store.
Still, the economic pain is real, and that pain puts pressure on government leaders to allow some business activities to resume lest jobs and businesses be permanently lost. One way to alleviate that pressure and allow more time for better public health interventions to start suppressing Covid-19’s spread is to provide more economic relief.
The US economy has regained some of the jobs lost since March, but millions are still out of work. It’s clear by now that the V-shaped recovery hyped by the Trump administration is not going to happen. The unemployment and business relief provisions Congress passed earlier in the year have started to expire, and nobody in Washington seems optimistic that any new deal on extending that assistance will be reached by the end of the year.
Biden could take administrative actions that would provide Americans with some economic relief. But the most powerful tools will need to be approved by Congress — and the difference between President Biden negotiating with a Congress fully controlled by Democrats versus a Congress split between a Democratic House and a Republican Senate is substantial.
Democrats in Congress say their first order of business would be a new Covid-19 relief and response package. It would likely incorporate the necessary funding to improve testing and tracing, according to Senate Democratic aides, as well as specifications about how federal money should be spent.
It would also be expected to include economic provisions. Increased unemployment aid and new funding for state and local governments would be a given, based on the legislation already passed by House Democrats and interviews with aides. Democrats will likely want to extend the now-expired $600 additional unemployment benefit. Congress could also add funding specifically for state Medicaid programs, which have had enrollment swell during the economic downturn, aides say.
Democrats will have to decide whether their first big bill will focus narrowly on Covid-19 or whether to include bigger permanent reforms. On health care, they could either stick with more incremental improvements, such as covering treatment for the people with long-term Covid-19 complications, or go bigger by enhancing the Obamacare tax subsidies and even possibly establishing the public health insurance option Biden says he supports.
Senior Democrats acknowledge there will be enormous pressure from the more progressive members to go big. Nobody is ruling anything out, but as one health policy expert put it recently: “First, you have to stop the bleeding.”
Step 3: Fast and equitable use of an effective Covid-19 vaccine
More economic relief should lower the pressure on states and businesses to reopen, while more testing and tracing should help reduce Covid-19’s spread. But to actually put an end to the pandemic, we will need a vaccine.
And for all Trump’s antics around a Covid-19 vaccine, the bottom line is that an effective vaccine does seem likely to be developed in record time. Several candidates are already in phase 3 trials, and there is hope that within a matter of months, one or more will be approved.
Then comes the hard part, which is distributing the vaccine to people. That mission will require a tremendous amount of coordination: producing the doses, shipping them around the country, figuring out which populations will be prioritized, setting up vaccination sites, and getting the message out to the public about how to get their vaccine.
“Distributing a vaccine to the entire population is as complex and challenging as the most sensitive military operation,” Biden said in remarks earlier this month.
He promised to develop a more detailed plan for vaccine distribution before assuming office, but he did lay out what that plan would cover:
a detailed timeline for when people would get the vaccine
a clear delineation of which populations would be prioritized
the specific means for shipping and storing the vaccines at appropriate temperatures
which government agencies would be responsible for implementing that plan
The Trump administration, through its Operation Warp Speed, already placed orders for some of the most promising vaccine candidates and it has paid drug companies to start manufacturing doses even before they know whether the vaccine will be viable. It also, somewhat controversially, asked state and local health departments to develop distribution plans so they’d be ready to start vaccinating people as soon as October.
Some saw that as an example of Trump applying government pressure to get a vaccine sent out before the election. Practically speaking, however, that directive should still encourage health agencies to make preparations before Biden takes office. They won’t be starting from scratch.
Rather, Biden’s leadership role will be just as critical as his operational responsibilities. Public trust in an eventual Covid-19 vaccine is not very high right now, polls show, and it has been deteriorating over the last few months. If too few people take a vaccine because they don’t trust it, then it’s going to be harder to completely stamp out the virus.
So Biden will have a public health imperative to strengthen the American public’s faith in a vaccine. He has had to equivocate during the campaign, emphasizing that while he doesn’t trust Trump himself, he does trust vaccines and scientists as a rule.
“I trust vaccines. I trust the scientists,” he said recently. “But I don’t trust Donald Trump — and the American people can’t either.
If Biden is the president, then he can empower those scientists and even make them the face of a vaccine push. But even under the most optimistic scenarios, vaccinating some 60 percent of Americans will take months. Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the government scientists Biden says he trusts, has said as much.
A President Biden couldn’t do everything to stop Covid-19. He couldn’t mandate a national stay-at-home order, and it would take a huge amount of political capital to get Republican governors on board with one. He couldn’t require masks nationwide, though he could urge states to issue their own. And he certainly can’t speed along the science that will, hopefully, eventually lead to a vaccine.
That’s why Biden’s Covid-19 plan starts with improving US testing and tracing. That’s how the country gets through those intervening months. It’s the first step toward the end.