[giraffe_lady]

No, there won't be any battle. If there were going to it would have been during covid, with improved indoor ventilation being one of the major components of an in-depth mitigation strategy.

There was no meaningful attempt or debate about changing ventilation standards then when it would have tangibly saved lives, there certainly won't be now.

[marcosdumay]

The covid years were crazy. People kept cleaning everything with all kinds of poison (thank god somebody published early that alcohol at 70% is enough, otherwise I think we would see people dropping dead from too much poison), that was known to be useless by around April 2020, and yet everybody actively refused to talk about indoor ventilation.

And most were the same people repeating the "are you for or against science?" line.

Crazy years, dominated by completely random propaganda. Discussions on calmer times follow different rules, and if nobody decides to spend a lot of money stopping it, it can follow rational, evidence based lines.

[giraffe_lady]

Very cynically I think it was rejected early and high up because it simply would have required a top-down decree that large corporations spend an astounding amount of money for the wellbeing of their workers. As a society we've basically ruled out interventions of that sort by now, and it would establish/reinforce the belief that companies are responsible for the health of their workers.

Whereas personal-domain actions like sanitizing and masking cost companies basically nothing and reinforce the mindset that covid mitigation is an individual responsibility and so the consequences from having it are an individual burden. It doesn't even matter if they work or not, from this perspective, which explains why pointless things like sanitizing and QR menus persisted so long.

[cameldrv]

I think it was a combination of things.

1. Inertia: Sanitizing and disinfection was what was recommended in March 2020. Even masking was actively discouraged until later.

2. "We have to do something." "This is something."

3. Handwashing/hand sanitizing and sanitizing surfaces are visible actions that reassure some people. Ventilation and filtration improvements are generally not visible.

4. Ventilation and filtration improvements are expensive and, for an institution, require certified professionals to design and implement. There aren't enough of these people and not enough equipment to implement this for every building in a timely manner. Handwashing and clorox wipes are cheap and anyone can use them.

Personally I think that COVID is likely going to be with us for some time to come and will cause significant disability as people get infected repeatedly. I think eventually we will see significant uptake of ventilation/filtration improvements.

[robocat]

Less cynically, there were no filtration units or HEPA filters available because demand far outstripped supply. It would be interesting to know how fast production could have been increased (face masks took a while).

[anonymouskimmer]

> otherwise I think we would see people dropping dead from too much poison

At least one person (with multiple chemical sensitivity) committed suicide (medically-assisted) because the sanitation and smoking in her apartment complex during COVID made her life so miserable she didn't want to live anymore. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-chemical-sensitivit...

[highmastdon]

Very cynical take: if there would’ve been a change in laws to increase ventilation, it would drastically reduce any illness, like flu, the common cold and other airborne viruses. This would lead to a decrease of taking vaccines for those, which would upset the big pharma.

Nearly any blanket-like measure was blocked by those. E.g. Vitamin-D supplementation, of which we know almost every indoor worker has a deficit of in western countries. Never ever was this prompted by govs even though there’s a clear correlation between deficit and deaths (not causation) and it has even antiviral properties (I suggest you to look into MedCram YouTube channel on videos around the first year of COVID where they go over many case studies on potential treatments)