There will be plexiglass barriers on the vice presidential debate stage tonight to reduce the potential spread of COVID-19. However, once experts got a look at the actual barriers, they weren’t impressed.
After some back-and-forth over the past few days, Vice President Mike Pence’s team agreed to have plexiglass barriers installed on the stage for his debate with Senator Kamala Harris on October 7, CNN reports. The two will also be set up 12 feet apart in an effort to stay socially distanced.
Although the plexiglass seems well intentioned, it likely wouldn’t do much to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 based on the way we know the virus moves. The coronavirus mainly spreads via respiratory droplets containing the virus that people who have the infection expel when they talk, yell, cough, or sneeze, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Someone else can then inhale those droplets or the droplets might land in their nose, mouth, or eyes and possibly go on to infect them.
Sometimes those droplets are smaller and form an aerosol that can linger in the air or be carried further than the usual six feet, the CDC says. When this happens, it’s colloquially known as airborne transmission. And, as SELF explained previously, airborne transmission is most likely to occur indoors between people who are spending a prolonged period of time together like, say, during a debate.
Although plexiglass may help prevent some spread of larger droplets within six feet, the plexiglass shown on the vice presidential debate stage is woefully inadequate to protect the candidates, experts say. Not only is plexiglass not likely to be enough to prevent airborne spread of the coronavirus, the plexiglass setup on display is so minimal that it barely acts as a barrier.
“Those plexiglass barriers are really only going to be effective if the vice president or Kamala Harris are spitting at each other,” Ellie Murray, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston University, told the New York Times.
“Potentially infectious aerosols can go around these plexiglass barriers and spread the virus,” Ali Nouri, Ph.D., molecular biologist and president of the Federation of American Scientists, wrote on Twitter.
“The plexiglass really brings this laughably inadequate infection control theater set together,” Angela Rasmussen, Ph.D., a virologist at Columbia University School of Public Health, wrote on Twitter.
“Imagine you’re sitting in a restaurant at tables this far apart,” Linsey Marr, Ph.D., an engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies the airborne transmission of pollutants and viruses, wrote on Twitter. “Someone at the other table is smoking. Are these barriers going to do anything?”
Instead of using tiny slabs of plexiglass, experts say it would be much safer if this and future debates were held with the candidates wearing masks, outside, or even remotely through the use of video software. “Masks will do a lot more than plexiglass if they’re already distanced,” Marr wrote on Twitter.
But we already know how the Trump-Pence campaign feels about masks: President Trump mocked former vice president Joe Biden during their debate last week for wearing a mask frequently. And Trump’s family wasn’t wearing masks in the audience—despite it being a health recommendation from the venue. And even the president announcing that he had tested positive for COVID-19 just days later wasn’t enough to change their minds. Trump left the hospital after only three days of treatment for the coronavirus—and took his mask off right before entering the White House.
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