Consider This from NPR - Indoor Spread, Workers' Anxieties, And Our Warped Sense Of Time

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

There are still a lot of questions about how the coronavirus is transmitted through air. Researchers are looking at how the virus is spread indoors and how to safely have people under one roof. As states around the country lift restrictions and businesses reopen, many workers in close-contact jobs are scared for their health and would rather stay on unemployment. NPR's Chris Arnold reports on what options workers have.Listen to Short Wave's episode about why it's so hard to remember what day it is and some tips for giving time more meaning on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and NPR One.Find and support your local public radio stationSign up for 'The New Normal' newsletterThis episode was recorded and published as part of this podcast's former 'Coronavirus Daily' format.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

How long can businesses stay closed before it is impossible to reopen? The longer that we continue a shutdown, when weeks turn into months, doesn't that necessarily increase the risk that some businesses will fail? That was Republican Senator Pat Toomey in a Senate hearing on Tuesday. The answer from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. There is the risk of permanent damage. He said the administration is looking for a safe path forward. Democrats, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said the federal government needs to do more to make sure every worker is safe.

How many workers should give their lives to increase our GDP by half a percent? Coming up as more churches and businesses consider reopening. What we're still learning about how this virus spreads indoors, and options you have if you're afraid to go back to work. This is Coronavirus Daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Tuesday, May 19th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Over six days back in early March, 92 people went to a church in Greer's Ferry, Arkansas. Bill Barton was the door greeter.

If you came to First Assembly, and probably a lot of you have, you were greeted by Bill at the door. Bill Barton died on March 24th. Mark Polensky, a pastor at the church, talked about his death on local radio. Bill is 91 years old, has been at that door for years and years. We are heartbroken, literally, over his death. And it just kind of tells you how serious this is. And that is exactly the point the CDC is making in a new report. Just one church had confirmed COVID-19 cases in almost 40 percent of the congregation. Three people died, including Bill Barton. 26 more people outside the church were infected, and one of them died too. That was

months ago, but the results this week mean there is still a lot to learn about how this virus spreads. Recent studies suggest the virus could be small enough to spread by way of tiny particles in the air, not just larger particles that land on surfaces. Which means that it would be small particles that can be caught in drafts and air currents and moved over distances that you might not obviously expect. That's Joshua Santarpia at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It can move more like smoke than like droplets. He says that's why masks could help you from spreading the virus to someone else.

Santarpia talked to NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. As businesses think about bringing people back into offices, they need to know a lot more about how the novel coronavirus travels through the air indoors. A recent study from South Korea's version of the CDC might tell us something about that. In early March, some cases emerged at a call center in downtown Seoul. The call center was in a 19-story building, mixed use, lots of different offices and apartments. Seemed like a place where there'd be a major cluster of cases. But when they investigate, what they find is really interesting. That's Derek Thompson,

senior editor at The Atlantic. He told Here and Now host Robin Young that only 100 people in the building tested positive. But they're all on one floor. And more than that, they're all on one side of the floor in one densely packed phone bank. And what this says more broadly about all of our indoor spaces is that what seems to be most dangerous are these spaces that are tightly packed, closed spaces where lots of people are going to be talking. And so they're going to be breathing in a lot of the same air. That seems to be the most dangerous place where you can see the transmission of COVID-19. It sounds like they are saying that if you're in an elevator and nobody's talking and you're only in there for a couple of minutes, as opposed to people who are talking for a living because it's a call center and they're tightly packed together for a long time, that's a huge

difference. Yeah. From the public health experts that I've spoken to, I would say it's a spectrum of risk. You don't want to be in an elevator that suddenly breaks with four other people if one of those people has COVID-19. But loud speech in particular emits a spray of fluid droplets. So people who are talking loudly, if you're in a call center, you are being paid to constantly talk. There's been other studies that have shown that there's been huge outbreaks in choral rehearsals. So I think what the public health experts would say is think about this as a spectrum. If you're in a closed space with people

that are wearing masks and not talking, that's definitely a lot safer than being in a similarly close place where there aren't masks, where people are talking constantly. But at the same time, you do, I think, in general want to avoid being in a tightly closed, unventilated space

with other people if one of them is sick. You know, this is all reminding me, I was just reading that during the 1918 flu pandemic in Boston, there were fines for people who were called big talkers, you know, people who were just loud and emitted. So they had a sense back then that it was the amount of energy behind your speech as well. But what does that mean for like, you know, sporting events? Yeah, this is a really good question. I mean, you're already seeing in places like South Korea that are beginning very slowly to open up professional sports. They're starting without fans. And that's because if you're a fan of your team and they hit a home run or you're watching basketball and someone hits a three to win the game, you want to scream.

But that very same instinct that is cherishable in normal circumstances suddenly becomes potentially toxic during an epidemic. And so I think, you know, I've spoken to healthy building experts thinking exactly about how we can get back to normalcy even before a vaccine in sports stadiums. But it simply requires not filling those stadiums to capacity. It requires queuing up lines that people can constantly remain socially distanced even if they are wearing masks. You're not going to get back the same level of normality in a world where normal behavior is suddenly so dangerous. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic talking to Here and Now host Robin Young. Some workers at restaurants, hair salons, and other places where they have to deal with customers up close are scared to go back to work. Others can't work because their kids are home or they have pre-existing conditions.

So NPR's Chris Arnold took a look at workers' options as businesses start to call them back. Lindsay is a waitress in Iowa who's been out of work for two months. But this week, the pub-style restaurant that she waited tables at is reopening. I don't feel comfortable going back yet. I don't think that there's any way with people eating food, not having masks on with servers having to touch their plates and their silverware. There's just absolutely no way to keep the servers safe. Lindsay says her restaurant's setting up increased handwashing and disinfecting rules and spacing the table six feet apart, but she doesn't think that that's enough. We're only using her first name because she's worried about losing her job.

And she just feels like it's too early for restaurants to reopen. It's insane to put yourself in that sort of risk category just so you can walk people their food to their table. Still, if your employer offers you your job back and you refuse it, generally speaking, you are not supposed to be able to keep collecting unemployment. But there are exceptions and strategies that workers should know about. Andrew Stettner is a worker protection expert at the progressive think tank, the Century Foundation. He says for people like Lindsay, the best place to start is

by talking to your employer. And say, you know what, I don't feel comfortable coming back right now, but maybe in two weeks I might feel comfortable. Once we know how this is all working out, can I wait? And if your employer says, okay, sure, I can't even bring everybody back in anyway, then your unemployment benefits won't stop. That's something that any worker can try. But beyond that, some workers have special protections. My big concern is that most workers don't understand their rights here. Michelle Evermore is with the nonprofit National Employment Law Project. She says if you have a medical condition like, say, diabetes, heart disease and immune deficiency, and your doctor advises against going to work during the pandemic, Congress voted to let people in that situation collect unemployment.

If you have an underlying condition, first contact your employer and explain why you can't return to work, and then explain to the state agency why you can't report to work, and you should be eligible to remain on unemployment assistance. Then there's the problem of parents who are stuck because they can't do their job from home, but they also can't return to work because they don't have child care. Congress approved help for them, too.

High Feldblum is a lawyer with Morgan Lewis in D.C. She advises businesses as they reopen. And she says she tells many employers to consider letting those parents not return to work. If someone is unable to work because of child care needs, because a school place of care has closed, then that person is eligible for unemployment. But she says getting back to the safety issue, just feeling unsafe, that's not enough to stay on unemployment. No, if you're just scared about going to work, you have to go to work in order to get paid. Stettner and Evermore say, though, if your workplace is not taking the basic safety precautions that similar businesses in the area are, and you can document that,

you might qualify to refuse to go back to that job and stay on unemployment. NPR's Chris Arnold. On Fox 8 News in Cleveland. Time now for a new daily feature on Fox 8 News in the morning. They do this segment every day. What day is it with Todd Meany? A segment that many of us, including those of us who work on this show, might find helpful. Wednesday.

By the way, today is not Wednesday. But the question is, why are we all having this problem? Because memory thrives on novelty. You don't store events that are sort of insignificant or not novel. Neurobiologist Dean Buonamano told NPR's daily science podcast, Shortwave, that when you're bored, time moves slowly. So retrospectively, it seems to fly by because you don't have many mental landmarks or mental crumbs.

His advice, if you're trying to lock your sense of time back in a little. Try to engage in novel activities. If you do the crossword puzzle every day, even that will become a bit predictable and non-novel. So if you know, well, now I'm not going to do the crossword puzzle. I'm going to do Sudoku puzzle. Well, then that is something new, something novel, something that your brain will have to work a bit more at and might store some novel experiences.

A link to more on the pandemic time warp from NPR's shortwave is in our episode notes. All right, Todd, that was great. A great lead in and Todd says, Wednesday. That's all you need to know. For more on the coronavirus, you can stay up to date with all the news on your local public radio station or on NPR.org. We will be back with more tomorrow. I'm Kelly McEvers.