I see this but I wonder if it really makes a difference. Doesn’t seem that efficient in terms of use of resources.
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I’m sure it’s effective against larger targets, like the mosquitoes carrying malaria or dengue. but against viruses? and I’d be quite interested to know what they are spraying. a lot depends on that, of course.
Hypochlorous acid is a useful disinfectant. we use it on surfaces all the time at work, in our animal labs in particular. and it’s fairly innocuous stuff to humans.
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If the virus is on that surface, then yes, but the current understanding is that COVID is transmitted mainly from person to person, so in that sense it is not efficient.
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I also saw this article earlier. I seriously doubt it does anything remotely useful - I think it’s just theater (and a bit ridiculous, tbh, like when China was doing it). The risk of the tiny quantities of expelled virus from a handful of cases remaining viable for several days on pavements etc. then infecting others must be as close to zero as it’s possible to get. Probably makes sense to disinfect handrails in the hospital etc., but not the street.
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Definitely theatre! when I arrived at Taipei airport a week ago, a team of people were walking and spraying in front of and behind me whilst a woman filmed 
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It’s extremely sad that we’ve been reduced to such ridiculous measures. Take a step outside ourselves, as a species, and look down upon this. Widespread disinfection of an outdoor area, trying to eradicate shell traces of a respiratory virus. And this isn’t being roundly condemned or scoffed at. Just accepted, as though it’s right and normal behaviour.
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I mean just the amount of disinfectant used to do this seems crazy.
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Well when you see how much insecticide is dumped into the sewers regularly and the cockroaches running all over the place… 
I’m not surprised
WTAF …
I’m really disappointed to see Taiwan indulging in this sort of ‘let’s just spray everything’ nonsense. Taiwan has always been a bit spray-happy, but they’re usually a bit more circumspect about doing it in urban areas.
I fully expect pointless and dangerous showmanship here in Elbonia (they have “virus control booths” in some places where they spray people with sodium hypochlorite … you can see the industrial barrel sitting on top, complete with all the ‘corrosive’, ‘do not ingest’ etc warnings). I thought Taiwan was a bit more sensible/pragmatic than that.
I’m guessing they now see maintaining their “virus free” status as a matter of National Pride, and are getting a bit over-zealous.
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They did this at the beginning of the pandemic too.
That was before we learned that the virus is almost entirely transmitted by aerosol transmission. Also some direct contact: you kiss an infectious carrier and you will most likely get it too.
But now that we know better, they should cease and desist this farcical noncery!
Number one factoid in the pandemic: masks prevent aerosol exhalation and inhalation. And also with most people, kissing. Unless you’re into that gimp thing
if we as a species did that as we should, quite a lot of problems would cease to exist and many more prevented from happening.
Schools better be teaching this to all the youngins by now.
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People have been complaining that the govt isn’t ‘doing enough’. Contact tracing is effective though not that sexy and doesn’t play on social media.
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Crikey. Don’t tell me the Catholic church is involved in all this?
Contact tracing done well is effective in the early stages of spread. But once the spread is extensive, the ROI diminishes considerably.
In many US and European cities, for instance, government contract tracing is virtually useless at this point because the spread is so intense. It literally becomes impossible to determine who gave the virus to who, or if two given people who came into contact were the source of the other’s infections.
Yes.
In Taiwan it is a good idea. I finally see some cities in the places you mentioned saying they are doing it and it’s insane to consider.
Note that though I think the disinfecting thing is political theater, I didn’t say that was a bad thing.
Narrator: They didn’t
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