A Covid question

[Scaredyburst]

Yes, this is balloon related!

If a person who has the covid infection blows up a balloon, how long does the virus stay active, such that the hot (?) damp breath inside is still a hazard from the infection point of view?

[BalloonblowerNYC]

Re: A Covid question

From my novice point of view: Viruses deteriorate in dry environments and with UV radiation (and of course heating up to the coagulation point of proteins which form the enclosure).

So if you want to blow a balloon together, viruses can get into your body by inhaling the air the other person blew in but not when you continue to inflate. Whether the virus is also in the saliva - I do not have hard information on this.

The popping will be the event where everything is spread in an aerosol.

Best is to be vaccinated - it may not prevent you to get sick but it prevents in a high probability to get into a stage to need a hospital or even an ICU bed.

After my 2x vaccination (Moderna here in the US in my case) I take the risk to share inflatables and balloons to inflate and pop.

[craggy2012]

Re: A Covid question

Sod that….. use a pump or electric inflator.

[balloonPatcher]

Re: A Covid question

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/prevention-risks.html

[Londonj2014]

Re: A Covid question

When Covid first hit, Qualatex were going to hold a charity event and training sessions. I thought that quite funny, I'm not sure if this still went ahead or someone told them it was in bad taste

[TL39]

Re: A Covid question

In all honesty, I always inflate my balloons and inflatables with a pump. Even in normal times I find it a little disturbing to inflate balloons with your own breath because even if it dries out under the sun, when it pops you're going to get dried spit juice flung everywhere.

Maybe thats just the germaphobe in me, but it makes my skin crawl every time I see some1 inflatabling anything with their own breath.

[b0f0s0f]

Re: A Covid question

I thought myself very clever for immediately realizing that balloons were basically covid grenades. Glad to see I'm not alone. I'm sure any aerosolized particles from the pop would indeed spread the virus, just like a sneeze. That being said, anyone who is pre- or asymptomatic is mostly infected in their nose from what I understand, so there probably isn't a lot of virus coming out of their lungs. Hard to say though, and I doubt we'll see any scientific studies about this topic unfortunately

[Pseudo]

Re: A Covid question

In my mind, I'm not scared by COVID (and not more by vaccination, so I did it). And I had COVID also, so I can speak about. Always in my point of view, COVID is dangerous due to TV and politics react (speak all day long).

For me, ballons is a vector for all sorts of other deseases much more agressives than COVID !! Included AIDS for some of our games ... And today, in France, there is a lot of kids who have "bronchiolite" (sorry i don't know terms in english) wich is very dangerous deseases for us !! A lot more than COVID. So I advice you to play balloons only with people you know well. And for party with lots or kids, maybe limite balloons for this winter. Just a last other think about my point of view, "bronchiolite" is very agressives this year due to hygiénists (ware masks all day, clean hands every minutes, and don't touch eatch other, ...) so immune isn't ready anymore for reacting with standards deseases.