Pattaya health workers continued spraying city streets with disinfectant, a tactic that has more public-relations benefit than any effect on the spread of coronavirus across Chonburi.
Trucks sprayed diluted, alcohol-based aerosol from trucks, blasting pavements and walls along Naklua, North, Central, South and Beach roads Jan. 1 in a largely symbolic effort that administrators could point at to show they’re doing “something” to lessen the outbreak.
Thailand is not alone in the world at spraying clouds of diluted alcohol or bleach around after an outbreak, but studies have shown it doesn’t have the effects one might think. The coronavirus is spread principally through droplets breathed out by people that are too heavy to remain airborne for long, especially outside. And even if lighter aerosolized virus were present, it would evaporate long before the spray trucks rolled through the city at night.
While laboratory tests have shown the virus can be spread on surfaces, the virus would not survive long outside and sunlight and the buildup of organic matter on outside surfaces quickly renders any disinfectant inert, even more so with alcohol, which quickly evaporates.
