A dance organization I help run, BIDA, recently ran a survey.
Several of the questions asked how folks felt about using
far
UVC and glycol vapors to reduce risk from COVID, flu, and other
airborne pathogens. There were 208 respondents, which is pretty good!
When asked how their attendance would change if BIDA used these
interventions, the response was:
Unchanged
Increased
Decreased
Far UVC
75% (153)
25% (50)
1% (1)
Glycol Vapor
77% (156)
14% (29)
8% (17)
There were also free response answers, which you can read in the full
writeup, on
the BIDA blog. Summarizing them:
On far UVC, the person who said their attendance would decrease
didn’t give a comment giving more detail. The other comments were
broadly supportive (~54) people, followed by neutral (~18 people),
uncertain and wanting more information (~11 people), and skeptical
that the lamps would actually reduce infections (~9 people).
On glycol vapors, the most common response was generally
positive about more ways to reduce infection (~37), followed by
wanting more information (~19), not caring (~17), strongly disliking
the idea (~14), and more complex views (~10).
These results show a community that’s strongly in favor of far UVC,
which makes a lot of sense to me. The efficacy of UVC is proportional
to sight lines, since it’s beams of light, so it’s a great fit for a
big room with a tall ceiling. We’d need four lamps, which would cost
$2,000. This is a meaningful
amount of money, but with a total of 5,400 admissions at our dances in
the 2024-2025 season and the lamps lasting at least 5y it’s
~3¢/person-hour. For comparison, we spend about ten times that
much per person-hour to provide people with disposable N95s.
The situation with glycol vapors, however, is much less clear. The evidence
on safety is if anything stronger than on far UVC, and it’s
incredibly cheap (a $50 gallon of Triethylene Glycol is good for about
2y of dances). But we also have a significant number of
people who don’t like the idea (8% saying they’d attend less; ~14
negative comments out of 97). Reading through the comments I think
some objections would turn out not to be an issue once people had
experience with glycol vapor:
“I don’t know much about them, but the CDC says they can irritate
eyes and lungs”: the level in the air is very low, and no one reported
irritation at the trial dance.
“I have a sensitive nose and an aversion, sometimes reaction, to
strong scents, especially chemical ones. I am deeply grateful for the
fragrance free policy and am worried that this may adversely affect my
experience and ability to attend and that of those similarly
situated”: Similarly, no one reported being able to smell the vapor at
the trial dance. But BIDA also doesn’t prohibit
fragrances, and it’s common for dancers (especially newer dancers)
to wear scents, so I’m a bit confused about their reference to a
‘fragrance free policy’.
Other objections, however, are from a perspective where experience
wouldn’t be relevant:
“I absolutely would not attend any event that had this in the
air.”
“I’m not comfortable with chemicals being deliberately pumped
into the air by a DIY project. If there is a commercial system on the
market using this technology, that would change my opinion.”
All this has me feeling like I shouldn’t push for us to deploy glycol
vapors now, and the key thing is getting a commercial system on the
market to address concerns. But then I go back and read the comments
of people who are really positive on them:
“It would GREATLY improve my safety, comfort, and enjoyment!!! I
hope other dances can also take these same precautions! Thank you for
doing this work. (I LOVE SCIENCE when it’s used for good. Thank you
for this work!)”
“I would be more comfortable and feel safer, to the point where
I might be okay with dancing unmasked.”
“Also strongly in favor, for the same reasons. Let’s do both!”
“Increase safety comfort and enjoyment so so so much!!!”
Overall I’m really torn on glycol vapors: the community is, on
balance, in favor of them, and I think the evidence is really
positive. On the other hand I also respect people having a high bar
for evidence for things you breathe in. The board hasn’t met to talk
about this yet, and I’m not sure which way I want to push. Thoughts?
EDIT: in the comments people brought up the idea of having glycol
vapors at only some dances. This could allow people with strong
opposition the option to keep dancing while others could still get the
benefits about half the time. If we did this, it could be either just
the masked dances (to offer an extra safe option) or just the unmasked
dances (to bring up the level of safety): which might be more popular?
I categorized the responses (script)
to look at the relationship between whether someone preferred more vs
less masking and whether their attendance would go up or down with
glycol vapors.
I started with the full 208 responses, discarded two people who said
they didn’t dance at BIDA because they didn’t live in town, and then
discarded another six who didn’t answer all four of “I
currently attend BIDA: ___”, “If we started requiring masks at all our
dances, I would attend: ___”, “If we stopped requiring masks at any of
our dances, I would attend: ___”, and “If BIDA added Glycol Vapors, my
attendance would: ___”. This left me with 200 responses. I
considered a response as inconsistent on masking if they said they’d
attend more if we always required masks and also more if we stopped
ever requiring masks, and also as inconsistent if it was the other way
around. Here’s what I found:
attendance with masks
higher masked
no change
higher optional
inconsistent
attendance with glycol
increase
14
5
8
2
same
29
53
69
3
decrease
4
5
8
0
Looking at the table, if we were going to have glycol at only either
mask-required or mask-optional dances it should be the mask-required
ones: 30% of dancers who prefer masked prefer glycol vapors, vs 9% of
dancers who prefer mask-optional and 8% of who said masking changes
wouldn’t affect their attendance. I also looked over the free text
responses, and a large majority of the people with the strongest
objections to glycol vapors preferred less masking.
Survey Results: Far UVC and Glycol Vapors
Link post
A dance organization I help run, BIDA, recently ran a survey. Several of the questions asked how folks felt about using far UVC and glycol vapors to reduce risk from COVID, flu, and other airborne pathogens. There were 208 respondents, which is pretty good!
When asked how their attendance would change if BIDA used these interventions, the response was:
There were also free response answers, which you can read in the full writeup, on the BIDA blog. Summarizing them:
On far UVC, the person who said their attendance would decrease didn’t give a comment giving more detail. The other comments were broadly supportive (~54) people, followed by neutral (~18 people), uncertain and wanting more information (~11 people), and skeptical that the lamps would actually reduce infections (~9 people).
On glycol vapors, the most common response was generally positive about more ways to reduce infection (~37), followed by wanting more information (~19), not caring (~17), strongly disliking the idea (~14), and more complex views (~10).
These results show a community that’s strongly in favor of far UVC, which makes a lot of sense to me. The efficacy of UVC is proportional to sight lines, since it’s beams of light, so it’s a great fit for a big room with a tall ceiling. We’d need four lamps, which would cost $2,000. This is a meaningful amount of money, but with a total of 5,400 admissions at our dances in the 2024-2025 season and the lamps lasting at least 5y it’s ~3¢/person-hour. For comparison, we spend about ten times that much per person-hour to provide people with disposable N95s.
The situation with glycol vapors, however, is much less clear. The evidence on safety is if anything stronger than on far UVC, and it’s incredibly cheap (a $50 gallon of Triethylene Glycol is good for about 2y of dances). But we also have a significant number of people who don’t like the idea (8% saying they’d attend less; ~14 negative comments out of 97). Reading through the comments I think some objections would turn out not to be an issue once people had experience with glycol vapor:
“I don’t know much about them, but the CDC says they can irritate eyes and lungs”: the level in the air is very low, and no one reported irritation at the trial dance.
“I have a sensitive nose and an aversion, sometimes reaction, to strong scents, especially chemical ones. I am deeply grateful for the fragrance free policy and am worried that this may adversely affect my experience and ability to attend and that of those similarly situated”: Similarly, no one reported being able to smell the vapor at the trial dance. But BIDA also doesn’t prohibit fragrances, and it’s common for dancers (especially newer dancers) to wear scents, so I’m a bit confused about their reference to a ‘fragrance free policy’.
Other objections, however, are from a perspective where experience wouldn’t be relevant:
“I absolutely would not attend any event that had this in the air.”
“I’m not comfortable with chemicals being deliberately pumped into the air by a DIY project. If there is a commercial system on the market using this technology, that would change my opinion.”
All this has me feeling like I shouldn’t push for us to deploy glycol vapors now, and the key thing is getting a commercial system on the market to address concerns. But then I go back and read the comments of people who are really positive on them:
“It would GREATLY improve my safety, comfort, and enjoyment!!! I hope other dances can also take these same precautions! Thank you for doing this work. (I LOVE SCIENCE when it’s used for good. Thank you for this work!)”
“I would be more comfortable and feel safer, to the point where I might be okay with dancing unmasked.”
“Also strongly in favor, for the same reasons. Let’s do both!”
“Increase safety comfort and enjoyment so so so much!!!”
Overall I’m really torn on glycol vapors: the community is, on balance, in favor of them, and I think the evidence is really positive. On the other hand I also respect people having a high bar for evidence for things you breathe in. The board hasn’t met to talk about this yet, and I’m not sure which way I want to push. Thoughts?
EDIT: in the comments people brought up the idea of having glycol vapors at only some dances. This could allow people with strong opposition the option to keep dancing while others could still get the benefits about half the time. If we did this, it could be either just the masked dances (to offer an extra safe option) or just the unmasked dances (to bring up the level of safety): which might be more popular? I categorized the responses (script) to look at the relationship between whether someone preferred more vs less masking and whether their attendance would go up or down with glycol vapors.
I started with the full 208 responses, discarded two people who said they didn’t dance at BIDA because they didn’t live in town, and then discarded another six who didn’t answer all four of “I currently attend BIDA: ___”, “If we started requiring masks at all our dances, I would attend: ___”, “If we stopped requiring masks at any of our dances, I would attend: ___”, and “If BIDA added Glycol Vapors, my attendance would: ___”. This left me with 200 responses. I considered a response as inconsistent on masking if they said they’d attend more if we always required masks and also more if we stopped ever requiring masks, and also as inconsistent if it was the other way around. Here’s what I found:
Looking at the table, if we were going to have glycol at only either mask-required or mask-optional dances it should be the mask-required ones: 30% of dancers who prefer masked prefer glycol vapors, vs 9% of dancers who prefer mask-optional and 8% of who said masking changes wouldn’t affect their attendance. I also looked over the free text responses, and a large majority of the people with the strongest objections to glycol vapors preferred less masking.
Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, the EA Forum, mastodon, bluesky