Why clean air might be for the 21st century what clean drinking water was for the 19th | TVO Today
▻https://www.tvo.org/article/why-clean-air-might-be-for-the-21st-century-what-clean-drinking-water-was-for-t
For Jimenez, this is one of the most important implications of taking #aerosol spread seriously: who ends up being held responsible for it.
“It’s very inconvenient,” Jimenez says. “It’s like climate change … if it’s all surfaces and droplets, all the responsibility is with the individual.” If diseases are airborne, the argument for public policy becomes stronger.
While this would be an undeniably large undertaking, it’s worth keeping in mind that, in their time, things as basic as sewers and clean water were considered enormously expensive — and controversial. Toronto, for example, spent much of the 19th and early 20th century rejecting costly sewer plans and ignoring repeated outbreaks of waterborne disease.
The dissidents have not yet won the war to change public policies to reflect aerosol spread of disease. But they aren’t giving up.
“I know what I’m going to be talking about for the next 10 years,” says Fisman “If they would just do this, I’d have to find something else. But it’s going to be indoor air — not just COVID.”