Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vog obam here. Over the past two weeks, enormous crowds of protesters in the United States have met with, in some cases, ominous clouds of tear gas. But the use of tear gas to disperse protesters and cities in the United States and around the world could have unintended consequences when it comes to the spread of the coronavirus.
The large crowds that have gathered to demonstrate for racial justice and against police brutality in the weeks after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May, we're already worrisome to public health officials. Although many demonstrators have worn masks, many crowds have grown much too large to
maintain social distance and guidelines. Also, the protests have typically involved crowds of people shouting and chanting, activities that could potentially send infected droplets far and wide, and that involved the kind of deep, open mouthed breathing that has been observed to increase the risk of catching the virus. We spoke with Ambushment Key, PhD, an assistant professor of microbiology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Mercer University's School
of Medicine in Making, Georgia. She explained, tear gas components are mainly there to hit the pain receptors in your body to get you to move. It's like you're poked with a stick. You want to get away from the pain. The other thing tear gas does is trigger your parasympathetic response, a neurologic series of activities that are outside of your control. But because there's a chemical irritant in place, your body is going to do everything it can to flush it out.
A person will feel the symptoms of the chemicals most commonly used in tear gas, CSCN and CR within twenty to thirty seconds after being exposed. Schmicky said, it's going to increase mucus production along the sites where you've had exposure, and that's mainly your respiratory mucos alignings in your nose. That means you'll have a runny nose. You're going to have mucas production in the lungs along the track ya your windpipe. You're going to want to cough that out.
You're also going to want to salivate more than you ordinarily would you're going to produce more tears. How much a person is affected depends on many variables, such as whether there's a breeze or how close they are to the agent. A person's eyes will sting, they may sneeze or rich Schmickey said, But the most dangerous thing is the coughing that will happen in response to the tear gas. It's a deep cough because you're trying so hard to get this out of your body, and it has the
potential to spread vible particles rather far. It's your body's natural response to get rid of a chemical irritant. But it's the same mechanism that we're concerned about with virus spread. It's the perfect storm of things you don't want to happen in a pandemic. And of course she's not the only concerned party. During a June four House Appropriations hearing on the Coronavirus Response Centers for Disease Controlled Director doctor Robert Redfield also specifically called out that the use of
tear gas by police might help the virus spread. We also spoke with Forest Brown, a resident of Atlanta who lives downtown just two blocks from the CNN building and Centennial Olympic Park. The entire area has been the site of many Atlanta protests past and present. The first weekend of the current demonstrations, he stood outside his building with neighbors with an eye on protecting their property when he got a whiff of a pungent odor tear gas. Brown said,
we could smell it and it stung our eyes. We would go inside waited out, but it wasn't a strong hit. You could feel it, but then it dissipated. That was Saturday. Sunday night was a different story. Brown said, I was actually in the interior courtyard of our building. I didn't see the cloud, but it was a bad dose. Compared to Saturday night, my symptoms were much worse, stinging and watering eyes. It also made my lips feel like they were tingling and burning. I felt like I wanted to
throw up. It made me feel very weak, almost jittery, like I might pass out. Brown says the worst of it was over in about thirty minutes, though he felt nauseated for several hours and even had blurred vision on Monday, though he was wearing a mask following standard protocols and a full block away from where the tear gas was
actually released, he was exposed to it. Schmid Key is concerned with the use of tear gas demonstrations during the pandemic, not only because it potentially increases the spread of the coronavirus, but also because the same people who are at risk for COVID nineteen infection people with underlying conditions, are also at risk for side effects from tear gas exposure. Schmidkey said, COVID nineteen sort of blurs the lines between being a
respiratory disease and a cardiovascular disease. The similarities aren't uniform, but if you have asthma, you're going to be at higher risk of complications from something like a tear gas exposure. People who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or any of those sorts of ailments could have more severe outcomes. She concedes that it's a difficult situation because a person can make plans to participate in a peaceful protest and find
themselves in a situation that they aren't prepared for. She encourages all protesters, whether they were exposed to tear gas or not, to make plans to be tested for COVID nineteen. However, don't get tested immediately. When the virus gets into the body, it goes into what's called the eclipse period, hiding out in the cells while it makes copies of itself. Then it starts to leave the cells and spread to other cells,
and that's when it becomes detectable. Schmickey suggests that everyone who has been at a protest rally get tested between three and seven days after participating, even if they're not showing symptoms, because of the high rate of asymptomatic carriers. CDC Director Redfield issued the same advice at the June fourth Sended Appropriations hearing, saying, I do think there's a potential, unfortunately, for this to be a seating event. Schmickey said, protesters
do have some things going for them. They're outside, they have the benefit of ventilation, they have sunlight. We know that evy light is an't advantageous for the virus. Protesters are typically young, but I wouldn't count on those things being some sort of anti COVID security blanket if you
do come into contact with tear gas. Amnesty International says that gas masks are the best protection if they're properly fitted and sealed, though if you don't have one, they recommend wearing goggles and a respirator or a wet bandana over the nose and mouth. If you're exposed, try to stay calm and breathe slowly, blow your nose, rinse your mouth with water, cough and spit. Try not to swallow,
because you want to get those irritants out. Today's episode was written by Patty Resmusen and produced by Tyler Playing. For more in this and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,