Yank here. I have seen many posts here and while I lived in the UK, that Brits think the US concern about molds and ventilation in homes was quite silly. There were very many British medical reports on the problem, but citizens don’t seem to care about airborne disease in homes.
Is this still true? Do citizens not care about ventilation, humidity, pathogens growing in their homes? Do Brits still think paying to live in a home full of mold is as it should be?
We are surrounded by thousands of viruses and bacteria, with only very few impacting on health. One reason we survive this continual onslaught is because our immune systems has learnt to defeat almost everything that comes our way. Certainly immunity can be fast-tracked with a vaccine, but in general this is only needed for a tiny number of bugs. There is a school of thought that those who develop in almost sterile environments are more likely to suffer ill health later, because their immune systems are not attuned to the world around them. For example, getting chicken pox when you are 5 is trivial and very different to getting it in your 40s. Infection control in hospitals makes a lot of sense. But infection control in schools, less so. And I would worry that we might have unintended consequences if we try to sterilise young peoples environments too much.
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Yank here. I have seen many posts here and while I lived in the UK, that Brits think the US concern about molds and ventilation in homes was quite silly. There were very many British medical reports on the problem, but citizens don’t seem to care about airborne disease in homes.
Is this still true? Do citizens not care about ventilation, humidity, pathogens growing in their homes? Do Brits still think paying to live in a home full of mold is as it should be?
We are surrounded by thousands of viruses and bacteria, with only very few impacting on health. One reason we survive this continual onslaught is because our immune systems has learnt to defeat almost everything that comes our way. Certainly immunity can be fast-tracked with a vaccine, but in general this is only needed for a tiny number of bugs. There is a school of thought that those who develop in almost sterile environments are more likely to suffer ill health later, because their immune systems are not attuned to the world around them. For example, getting chicken pox when you are 5 is trivial and very different to getting it in your 40s. Infection control in hospitals makes a lot of sense. But infection control in schools, less so. And I would worry that we might have unintended consequences if we try to sterilise young peoples environments too much.