October 11, 2024

The Queens County Citizen

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Black light experiment videos from Japan show how quickly a virus like Covid-19 can spread in a restaurant

Black light experiment shows how quickly a virus spreads

The video shows 10 people coming to the restaurant, with one selected as “infected”. Each participant did the buffet as usual, not considering the potential for contamination.

At the end of the video, participants are thrown under a black light illuminating where the “infection” has spread.

The substance, which is used to signify germs, can be seen on food, serving utensils and plates, and even on the faces of some participants.

This is what experts say

While such experiments are not new, John Nicholls, a clinical professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong, said they show how quickly a virus can spread, especially when hand washing is not done.

“What the video shows, is that it will spread to the surface and to people very efficiently,” Nicholls told CNN, “and I think it really highlights the need for what people say about hand hygiene to stop the spread of disease. . “

However, Nicholls said that the situation was “artificial” because so much emphasis was placed on touch alone.

Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease specialist at Kobe University, agrees.

“Experiments only describe the possibility of spread by contact, and that is not evidence of what happened, so a distinction must be made clearly between what can happen and what happened,” Iwata told CNN.

But both experts said the experiment was a good way to show the importance of washing hands.

For the sake of science, Nicholls said it would be more effective to see experiments carried out after “infected” people washed their hands for five and then ten seconds.

“So the general public gets a number of concepts about how much use of hand washing can actually reduce transmission of potentially infectious material,” Nicholls said.

Bex Wright from CNN contributed to this report.

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