ARE MIAMI’S LOUD TALKERS
SUPER SPREADERS OF COVID-19?
Scientists and public health experts say limiting yelling can reduce contaminated aerosols and the risk of coronavirus transmission. Can Miami comply?
Listen, loud Miami talkers and habitual shouters. Shut up or quiet down and don’t be super spreaders of the coronavirus.
Scientists have found that speaking softly cuts the exhaled spray of contaminated particles into the air and reduces the risk of transmission of highly contagious COVID-19 by 80 percent — and can even prevent infection as effectively as wearing a mask.
In Miami, notorious for its noisy narrators, experts say turning down the volume could save lives. Talk as if you’re in a library: Add the habit to public health guidelines that include wash hands frequently, practice social distancing and wear a snug face covering, urge experts who have studied the pathways of microscopic disease-laden aerosols sucked into nostrils, throats and lungs.
Simple in theory, but this is South Florida — Babel, U.S.A.
“Good luck with that in Miami,” Tony Moya said as he departed Cafe Versailles with takeout coffee. “I’m guilty, I’m a loudmouth, I’m Cuban. It’s part of the culture here where 70 percent of the population is Latin, which makes it a city of loud people.”
Moya paused to talk, through his mask, about why it will be difficult in Miami to enforce scientists’ recommendation for more subdued communication.
“Hispanic people are constantly trying to get our point across — we even get involved in conversations with complete strangers,” said Moya, a construction manager from Miami Beach who was born in Havana and grew up in Miami. “It’s in our nature to be passionate, while Anglos are more reserved and introverted. You walk into Versailles when it’s full, you can’t hear yourself think. The decibel level is higher than in a restaurant in Jacksonville or Oklahoma. To me, that’s normal.”
Yolanda Valdes, standing in line at the Versailles ventanita, considers herself a keen observer of Miami. She was visiting from Union City, N.J., another Cuban enclave where her vociferous 86-year-old immigrant father is a dominoes champion.
“I can compare: New York City is loud but not as loud as Union City and definitely not as loud as Miami,” Valdes said. “My parents raised me super Cuban. I’ve been in Manhattan restaurants and other customers will say, ‘Can you keep it low?’
And I’m like, ‘Oh, sorry. We’re not arguing, we’re just talking.’ My kids will tell me, ‘Mom, why are you screaming? Are you mad?’ No, no, I’m just talking.’ ”
‘I’M SUSPICIOUS OF QUIET PEOPLE’
Miguel Saavedra had lunch at Versailles, the Little Havana institution that has kept its character intact, pandemic or not, by hanging gaudy chandeliers over tables in the outdoor dining tent. Miami Cubans tend to be more animated, he said, because they appreciate what’s denied to people still living on the island.
“Cubans in Cuba are in bad shape, miserable, hungry, oppressed, and then they come to the United States and they are so happy, so excited to be in a free country, they speak openly, with strong voices, muy alto,” said Saavedra, president of the Cuban exile organization Vigilia Mambisa. He’s known to lead frequent, vehement anti-Castro and now pro-Trump demonstrations punctuated by chanting — but he showed recent photos of his group, all wearing masks.
“Personally, I’m suspicious of quiet people. They seem unfriendly,” said Saavedra, whose regular tone of voice is at bullhorn-level. “I think this Latin way of expression originated in Spain, where people converse at a high volume. You know they had horrible COVID outbreaks in Spain.”
The science is clear. If we all took a vow of silence, the pandemic that has sickened 31 million worldwide and killed 200,000 in the United States and more than 3,000 in onetime hot spot Miami might be snuffed out, said Jose-Luis Jimenez, a University of Colorado professor of chemistry and biochemistry who specializes in the dynamics of aerosols, clouds and pollutants.
“If we were quiet, it would have a huge suppressant effect,” Jimenez said from his lab. “But coronavirus has already been so hard on our mental health and social lives. You tell someone to be quiet, they resent it and they respond to you in an even louder voice.”
He created an Aerosol Transmission Estimator, a mathematical model that measures the risk of activities based on aerosol spread. For
‘‘ PERSONALLY, I’M SUSPICIOUS OF QUIET PEOPLE. THEY SEEM UNFRIENDLY.
Miamian Miguel Saavedra
example, a person is 85 times more likely to get infected at an indoor gathering with pervasive talking than on a ventilated subway or bus ride.
A study published last month in the British Medical Journal found that 6 feet of separation is not enough to dissipate expulsions of tiny droplets, called aerosols, that form moist clouds able to travel 20-25 feet and remain airborne for hours.
“You’re breathing out 10 times more virus when you’re talking, 30 times more when you’re speaking loudly, 50 times more if you’re yelling or singing,” Jimenez said. “A COVID-19 carrier who remains silent could reduce transmission by 98 percent.”
So you’ve heard the gasbag spouting his or her life story on their cellphones at the park or grocery store. Your tranquil beach visit has been interrupted by groups braying over the din of music they assume the public wants to hear.
Now, you can shushshame them: “Shhh. You’re making me sick.”
Miami’s vocal exuberance could be problematic as the phased reopenings of indoor spaces accelerate.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ sweeping move Friday to move the state into Phase 3 of reopening means bars and nightclubs can open in Miami-Dade County, with some restrictions. Bars are among the worst places to go if you want to avoid spreading or catching COVID-19, say scientists who have studied outbreak epicenters.
“For every large droplet you see, 100 to 1,000 times more invisible aerosols are being expelled from someone speaking loudly,” said Linsey Marr, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. “We shouldn’t open any indoor dining places, bars or nightclubs. I refuse to go until the pandemic is over. People aren’t wearing masks because they’re eating and drinking; everyone is talking at close range, often over loud music; it’s crowded; they are staying for an hour or more, and they don’t know about the ventilation quality. All the prime ingredients make it a contagious environment.”
Using his Estimator, Jimenez said theaters could be safer entertainment venues than a club, bar or restaurant where patrons speak loudly — although in Miami rude yappers are commonplace at movies and plays. He suggests turning down music, turning up air conditioning, opening windows — and never standing behind a person wearing an ill-fitting mask.
OUTDOORS LIFESTYLE MAY HELP
Miami has one asset that could offset its noisy speech patterns: a subtropical climate. Contact tracing studies show that being outdoors is 20 times safer than being indoors. More air means a higher chance that aerosols will be dispersed or diluted before they’re inhaled.
“Maybe you could open bars on the beach in Miami,” Jimenez said. “It’s really not looking good for fall and winter and flu season. Miamians should take advantage of their weather and do as many activities as possible outside — drinking, dining, exercising, going to school.”
If Miami wants to steer clear of another surge, and another shutdown, Miamians should follow the risk reduction strategy of being softspoken. Businesses should put up signs: “Whispering works wonders.”
Can they comply? Yes, they can, said sociologist Lisandro Perez, an expert on Latin culture. Inconsiderate behavior crosses all borders “and there’s no empirical evidence to support the stereotype that you talk louder if you’re Hispanic,” he said.
“The complete disregard for a sense of privacy is what annoys me. You’re at a nice restaurant and this couple is broadcasting the most intimate aspects of their lives,” said Perez, professor of Latin American and Latinx studies at John Jay College at the City University of New York. He was born in Cuba, founded FIU’s Cuban Research Institute and splits his time between Miami and Brooklyn.
Coronavirus has forced oblivious people to become hyper aware of how they invade personal space physically and sonically, Perez said.
“If you were too selfabsorbed to care before, now you’ve been educated about social distancing,” Perez said. “Loud talking has always had a negative connotation, with social class dimensions. In Cuban films and TV programs, the loud talkers are uncouth, untrustworthy, the bad guys, the ones who left the island.”
THINK OF CIGARETTE SMOKE
Think about how exhaled cigarette smoke swirls and lingers if you want to protect yourself, Jimenez said.
“One just has to imagine that others they encounter are all smoking, and the goal is to breathe as little smoke as possible,” he said of the analogy he uses to explain aerosols. “Inhaling a little whiff of ‘smoke’ here and there is OK, but a lot of ‘smoke’ for a sustained period of time and without a mask is risky.”
Think about smokefilled rooms in old movies, like Rick’s Cafe in “Casablanca,” and you can position yourself in — or avoid — a place like the Taurus, a historic watering hole in Coconut Grove where on a recent Sunday boisterous conversations could be heard from the street. Customers at three patio tables engaged in a trifecta of transmission: They spoke ridiculously loudly in close proximity, did not wear masks and exchanged hugs and cheek kisses.
Jimenez and Marr were among 239 scientists from 32 countries who wrote an open letter to the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies demanding more recognition of research and warnings to the public about aerosol spread.
“We think the aerosol pathway is the main route,” compared to transmission from contaminated objects or visible droplets from coughing and sneezing, Jimenez said.
The CDC, however, reversed itself last week and edited out the new reference to aerosol risks on its website, saying the guideline was posted in error.
Aerosol transmission explains how many super spreader events occurred, including at a Guangzhou, China, restaurant where tables were far apart but air circulation was poor; a 2 1/2-hour choir rehearsal in Skagit County, Washington, where 53 of 61 singers got infected by one person, and two died; a karaoke party in Japan; a call center in South Korea; cramped, noisy, cold, poorly-ventilated meat-packing plants; a cruise ship and hospitals and nursing homes.
There is one other challenge for multilingual Miami. Often, people aren’t speaking the same language. What do they do to overcome this failure to communicate?
They talk louder and louder, as if somehow that will make them understood.
Recently at the Home Depot on Southwest
Eighth Street, a customer who didn’t speak English tried to get help from a clerk who didn’t speak Spanish. They obliterated the six feet of separation between them and gesticulated forcefully until they were arguing over the background beeping of a forklift.
Miami’s language barriers are a “big problem” and another reason the volume of speech can be unnerving, agreed Omar Martinez, talking in muy
alto tones on the phone to the Social Security Administration about a missing check while he ate lunch at La Esquina de La Fama on Calle Ocho.
“I am almost deaf in one ear because I served in the Cuban military during the war in Angola,” Martinez said, waiting to be connected with a Spanishspeaking rep.
“Ay, finalmente!” he shouted into the phone. “Dígame, Papi.”