DUBAI: Every day some 7 billion elevator journeys take place. Those were the days when lifts can be packed with people. Well, not anymore. Today, there are well-established elevator mandates, discouraging passengers from talking, overcrowding, among others.
This may remain so for the foreseeable future. And that’s because elevators meet at least two conditions known to contribute to the easy spread of the coronavirus: High-touch surfaces and people confined in a tight space breathing each other’s air. In some countries, like Germany, France, The Netherlands, Norway, a “third wave” of COVID-19 cases are still spiking again exponentially, though case numbers are starting to drop in countries that have ramped up vaccinations, including the UAE.
University of Amsterdam
A specific type of nasal oxygen therapy for Covid patients does not cause a higher risk of virus infection for health care workers. In an article in Respiratory Care, researchers from the group of Daniel Bonn (UvA-IoP) and from the Amsterdam UMC conclude that this therapy does not increase the risk of aerosol formation. The result may help in lessening the pressure on ICUs.
A nasal cannula. Image: Amsterdam UMC.
According to the researchers, which include UvA physicists Daniell Bonn and Stefan Kooij, the result takes away the worries about the use of high flow nasal oxygen (HFNO). This is a special technique used to administer a high flow of heated and moistened oxygen to the (Covid) patient through a nasal cannula.
With the temperatures outside below zero and the speed skating world championships around the corner, ice is on everyone's mind. One thing we all know:.
University of Amsterdam
The Physica Prize 2021 has been awarded to Daniel Bonn of the University of Amsterdam. Prof. Dr. Daniel Bonn is a leading expert in soft matter, a field that encompasses a wide field of materials that deform easily, such as plastics and gels. The Physica Prize is awarded annually to an eminent physicist working in the Netherlands.
Daniel Bonn. Photo: UvA
Daniel Bonn revolutionised the scientific fields that deal with systems that are neither solid nor liquid (‘complex fluids’) and with the interaction between liquids and solids (‘wetting’). Most of his research is centred around materials that appear in everyday life. Blood, shampoo and oil are examples of complex fluids, which sometimes act as liquids and sometimes as solids. Daniel Bonn’s breakthrough work on the phase transition between solid-like and liquid-like behaviour has led to a much more complete understanding of the underlying physics.
While the device used comes with six different size channels 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, and 10.0 microns ( 1 micron is a millionth part of a metre) a lot of the dust is so fine that aerosols in that range cannot really be measured. More than 98% of the dust, in fact, is contained in the first two channels (smallest particles) of size 0.3 and 0.5 microns. The study did not consider particles in these channels for the aerosol assessment. “But there’s a reasonable sized range where you can detect the aerosols,” Bonn said.
For validation, the researchers compared their measurements with those from specialised laboratory techniques. Aerosol concentration is often measured using a technique called laser diffraction, in which a laser beam passing through a sample lights up different-sized particles differently. Results from this highly specialised technique and the method used in the study, the researchers found, matched up perfectly.