I like the general approach and organization of this post.
I have some modest disagreements about the details.
I doubt that many schools will manage to get HVAC right even if someone does provide them with clear rules, and our system doesn’t seem competent enough to provide such rules within a reasonable time.
Having schools be mostly outdoors would solve many problems. I expect that most people overestimate the costs of being outdoors.
I know that I am very reluctant to step out into the rain. But there are many situations where I’ve gone out hiking in light rain, and once I’m out there, the subjective costs feel dramatically lower than they feel when I’m just stepping out into the rain. That remains true even now that I’m aware of the effect. I suspect something like that is causing many people to mistakenly assume that outdoor schools are prohibitively unpleasant.
My guess is that less than 5% of the value of schools depends on paper. I expect that the value of in-person school compared to remote comes from things like interaction with peers, or day care. See The Elephant in the Brain for more hints.
My local school system hired a contractor over the summer to improve the HVAC and also fix all the windows such that they can open if they were previously broken and stuck closed. I don’t specifically know if they “got it right” but I’m not sure why you’re so skeptical … measuring air changes per hour, installing HEPA filters, etc. … that’s standard stuff in the same category as following electrical code, designing buildings with proper structural support, etc., I think, and I expect whatever overpriced building firm they hired did it correctly … (This is in a medium-sized town in the USA.)
I like the general approach and organization of this post.
I have some modest disagreements about the details.
I doubt that many schools will manage to get HVAC right even if someone does provide them with clear rules, and our system doesn’t seem competent enough to provide such rules within a reasonable time.
Having schools be mostly outdoors would solve many problems. I expect that most people overestimate the costs of being outdoors.
I know that I am very reluctant to step out into the rain. But there are many situations where I’ve gone out hiking in light rain, and once I’m out there, the subjective costs feel dramatically lower than they feel when I’m just stepping out into the rain. That remains true even now that I’m aware of the effect. I suspect something like that is causing many people to mistakenly assume that outdoor schools are prohibitively unpleasant.
Schools make a lot of use of things made out of paper. Paper suffers in even quite light rain, especially after say 30-60 minutes.
My guess is that less than 5% of the value of schools depends on paper. I expect that the value of in-person school compared to remote comes from things like interaction with peers, or day care. See The Elephant in the Brain for more hints.
My local school system hired a contractor over the summer to improve the HVAC and also fix all the windows such that they can open if they were previously broken and stuck closed. I don’t specifically know if they “got it right” but I’m not sure why you’re so skeptical … measuring air changes per hour, installing HEPA filters, etc. … that’s standard stuff in the same category as following electrical code, designing buildings with proper structural support, etc., I think, and I expect whatever overpriced building firm they hired did it correctly … (This is in a medium-sized town in the USA.)
Depends a lot on where you are. In California, sure. But in the winter in Scandinavia or Canada?
Yeah, I don’t think that HVAC in schools is something which will make a difference to their safety in time. My point was more
We have a large set of buildings we should open regardless of safety
We have an expensive intervention which may drastically reduce transmission.
Here is an opportunity to experiment.
I would imagine that we could install experimental HVAC systems in a few hundred schools for not much money and get decent data.