Many things may in general separate current Vice-President Mike Pence and Democratic Vice-President candidate Kamala Harris. However, the three physical things that will keep them apart in tonight’s debate will be about 12 feet and three inches and two plexiglass dividers. Will these be enough to prevent transmission of the Covid-19 coronavirus?

You can’t say for sure that neither Pence nor Harris is currently carrying the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV2). Testing can only tell you whether the person is shedding the virus right then and there. Presumably testing will not continue throughout the debate. It’s hard to imagine the moderator, Susan Page, who is USA TODAY’s Washington Bureau chief, saying, “Vice President Pence, before you respond to the question, it’s time to stick a cotton swab up your nose again.” Or asking, “Could you continue to respond while the swab is up your nose? You have two minutes.”

With a number of people around President Donald Trump testing positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus this past week, it is reasonable to be concerned that Pence may be carrying the virus too and could start shedding at any moment. And there won’t be a countdown clock available to say when this may happen. Of course, no one knows for sure Harris’s risk of carrying and shedding the virus as well.

Keeping them a distance apart makes sense. The distance is not to prevent hand-to-hand combat between them. Rather, the further apart they are from each other, the less the risk that something coming out of one of their noses or mouths will eventually reach the other. By now, you’ve probably heard the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refrain that you should keep at least six feet away from other people. Six feet is about one Denzel, because Denzel Washington is approximately six feet tall, assuming that he isn’t on stilts. The one Denzel distance is to keep you away from larger respiratory droplets and hot dog fragments that may shower out of another person’s mouth and nose. (Note: if hot dog fragments are coming out of a person’s nose, he or she is eating them incorrectly.) Such droplets tend to be too large and too heavy to float in the air much. Instead, they are like projectiles shooting out and then dropping to the ground before surpassing the one Denzel mark.

The growing concern is that some of the virus-laden particles that come out of people’s mouths and noses may be small and light enough to float in the air for greater distances. And that these so-called droplet nuclei may still consist of enough virus to infect you. Such so-called aerosol transmission would mean that one Denzel apart may not be enough to prevent infection.

Would 12 feet and some change then be enough to prevent aerosol transmission. Well, two Denzels are certainly better than one. However, some research has suggested that virus particles can float up to 20-something feet in the air. This could mean that three or even four Denzels apart would be better.

Would plexiglass prevent such aerosol transmission? Not really, unless, for example, you were to completely box Vice President Pence in plexiglass for the debate, sort of how they wrap Star Wars action figures in plastic before placing them on toy store shelves. Doing so would then protect others from Pence and Pence from others.

However, substantially less plexiglass, as in a simple plexiglass divider, would still allow droplet nuclei, the smaller virus-carrying particles, to float above and around the divider. The primary utility of a plexiglass divider would be to block the larger respiratory droplets that normally would hit the ground by the one Denzel mark anyway. So understand that if you see a plexiglass divider that doesn’t extend all the way up to the ceiling and down to the floor in a store, a school, or in your bed between you and your spouse, the divider may help block the bigger droplets but won’t fully protect you against aerosol transmission.

If they want to really reduce the risk of aerosol transmission, the debate organizers can do several things. One is to move everyone even further apart. Another is to place an air filtering machine between the two adversaries. You’d have to make sure things really suck during the debate. In other words, any air filtering devices between the candidates would have to actively suck in the air and filter it through something like a HEPA filter. A third possibility is to substantially increase the air circulation and ventilation. For example, they could convert the debate location, Kingsbury Hall of the University of Utah, into a wind tunnel. This would have the added benefit of creating interesting facial expressions on the candidates while they tried to answer the questions. It would also give the Vice President’s hair a new windswept look.

A final possibility would be to have the candidates wear face masks. This could block at least some of the virus particles even before they get aerosolized. Of course, the candidates would have to speak a little louder. You wouldn’t be able to tell if the candidates were sporting wide grins during the debate either unless their face masks were transparent.

Ultimately, the plexiglass dividers may look nice and prevent the candidates from connecting on any spit balls that they may launch at each other during the debate. But they are not going to do much to prevent possible aerosol transmission of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

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