{"id":1602,"date":"2021-09-23T09:01:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T13:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2021-09-23T09:01:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T13:01:08","slug":"could-farts-be-a-helpful-way-to-explain-risk-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1602","title":{"rendered":"Could farts be a helpful way to explain risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note: I was curious what we were talking about this time last year, so I went into the archive<\/a> and saw we were talking about farts!\u00a0 I thought this post from last year<\/a> was both informative and funny.\u00a0 And since it’s still relevant, I figured I’d share it again.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0I thought of an analogy today and I wonder what you think of it. If I fart indoors and I\u2019m 6 ft away from someone, they will still smell it. If I fart outdoors and I am 6 ft away, they likely won\u2019t. Could this be a helpful way to explain the dissipating effects of being outdoors as well as the risks indoors? Heck, I wouldn\u2019t fart indoors even if I was 20 feet away, but I might risk farting outdoors (depending on the breeze of course) even if I was 3 feet away. The same thing can be said for COVID. (and a mask will, of course, help in any of the situations)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Your analogy made me laugh, thanks! And if people are confused about why outdoors is safer than indoors then I think your analogy is great! There are two questions that may arise in making this analogy though, and I raise the questions and answers because the internet raised them earlier in the pandemic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. If you can still smell a fart through your mask, what good is the mask doing for you?:<\/em><\/strong> As Trevor Makal, chemistry professor at University of Virginia explains<\/a> that farts smell because they contain methanethiol, which is about 0.4nanometers (nm) in diameter. Meanwhile, most viruses range from about 20 to 400 nm \u2014 and SARS-CoV-2 is 60 to 140 nm in size. \u201cThe difference in sizes of the COVID-19 virus and a common odorant in farts is 2\u20133 orders of magnitude (100\u20131000 times the diameter of the smaller methanethiol).\u201d Most tight weave masks will block the virus, but because the odor molecule of a fart is so much smaller, the smell gets through. Masks== protect from virus, not from stink.<\/li>
  2. Can coronavirus be spread through farts?:<\/em><\/strong> No! Snopes did a factcheck<\/a> on this one after online rumors were apparently flying and even Stephen Colbert did a bit<\/a> (around minute 5:22). Basically, pants and other clothing keep the aerosol components of farts contained; it\u2019s these aerosol components that carry wee bits of feces with them, which are the only components of farts that could be linked to disease; there\u2019s evidence that the coronavirus can be found in feces, but as CDC writes<\/a>, \u201cit is unclear whether the virus found in feces may be capable of causing COVID-19. There has not been any confirmed report of the virus spreading from feces to a person.\u201d Basically, as long as you wear pants when you fart and\/or stay far away from other people when you fart, you will not spread any disease, including coronavirus. You\u2019ll just spread some stink!<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Note: I was curious what we were talking about this time last year, so I went into the archive and saw we were talking about farts!\u00a0 I thought this post from last year was both informative and funny.\u00a0 And since it’s still relevant, I figured I’d share it again.\u00a0 Question:\u00a0I thought of an analogy today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[100,18],"tags":[231],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-masks","category-transmission-routes","tag-feces","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/pexels-photo-5262444.jpeg?fit=867%2C1300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1604,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions\/1604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}