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I was wrong to ever think that curbing the novel coronavirus could be simple. It is truly a dastardly bug. But I’m confident we can be smarter. Even if COVID-19 doesn’t vanish and becomes a seasonal illness, if we give it all we’ve got, I think we stand a good chance of getting this stealthy virus under control.
Good article. I hope she’s right.
I’m seeing where survivors are beginning to participate in studies, donating blood to the cause, to get to the bottom of this.
It has to start somewhere, finding the appropriate vaccine, but it can’t be at the expense of the average American who cannot afford multiple hundreds of dollars for a shot of the resulting vaccine. It just can’t. Then it would be useless, since more than half of the country wouldn’t be able to afford it.
When nurses at one Washington State hospital complained about having to use expired respirators, they allege that staff were ordered to remove stickers showing the equipment was years out of date.
This is important information, but what does it have to do with the rest of the article? It’s a non-sequitur.
So that tired doctor video somebody was posting was pretty much misinformation, a misguided attempt to reassure people?
I’d be interested in getting tested for antibodies. Not that’s a guarantee of immunity. But the cold season in Dec-Feb affected the spouse and me differently this year, and I have no idea if we had mild symptoms of Covid or not.
“Of course this is not possible for some places where there are mask shortages even for hospital workers,” which would be most of the United States.
These “mask shortages” have become accepted as a known fact that must be worked around in various ways. But this article from Forbes puts the lie to the idea of a real shortage. As always, the shortage is about capitalistic greed:
got it
we’ll get on that immediately
We really don’t know the physics of a virus laden droplet. How far does it travel on various types of exhalation? What does the spread look like as the droplets emerge from the mouth or nose?
If breaths are all it takes, why didn’t Gobert infect many, many more players? Surely an NBA athlete of his size is exhaling like crazy as he moves around the floor. His last game he played 30 min against the Raptors, yet infected no one.
I also wish we had some sort of light that could illuminate the virus on surfaces. I have the feeling if we did areas where the public walks would show a light dusting of COVID with heavier spots where someone coughed.
The article highlights what the author doesn’t understand.
Distancing: one meter or six feet?
Masks: yes or no? What kind and where to find?
No mention of hand washing or handling packages given to you by someone else.
Me too - I was basically sick from February-March. And I am never sick.
The part that frustrates me about this asymptomatic carriers stuff is that it is old news. There was plenty of data about asymptomatic carriers, especially children and young adults, coming out of China at least a month ago. And it was reported as a significant issue in rapid spread in China.
This is one of the things people who paid attention knew about going into this, but like so much other stuff, it got gobbled up in the need not to loose money during Mardi Gras and Spring Break and selling cheap plastic stuff from Asia.
There is a real, on the ground shortage in virus-grade masks and average folks don’t need them. I wear a bandana, just like John Wayne, if I’m feeling paranoid. Bandanas are washable. There are plenty of plans around for making your own stylish mask, also washable. Keep them clean, only wear them around folks you don’t know well and maintain 6 to 8 feet social distance. Projectile sneezing to 8 meters is a pretty robust sneeze, but should be well contained with a cowboy bandana.
“…where droplets are likely to persist and don’t have a chance to be carried away by wind.”
The author is describing an aerosol here, not droplets. Droplets fall to the earth almost immediately. The virus can only be aerosolized in the laboratory and in places where people are being intubated and/or respirators are in use. Coughing/sneezing do not produce aerosols.
If COVID RNA were that easy to spot under specific light wavelengths, then the entire testing regimine would be different and we would be way ahead in testing.
Frequent hand washing is to avoid moving the virus from the skin of your hands to your face (nose, mouth or eyes). Simple touch doesn’t cause infection without having a “wet entrance”.
I’m more worried about the anti-vaxxers – when you look at the current economic costs (6.6 million unemployed and rising, hospital systems collapsing), that vaccine will be free (and hopefully compulsory).
To the extent that anyone was in the dark as to how the virus spreads and how to prevent or markedly decrease the chances of its spreading, especially laypeople who don’t work in health care and related fields or in government especially in health care-related agencies and at the highest levels, and didn’t otherwise engage in clearly dangerous behavior, one can be excused for mistakes that might have lead to the spread of the disease. E.g. workplaces that remained open when word of the pandemic first came out but it was still mostly confined to Asia, or people who ventured out without masks until fairly recently.
But at this point, and going forward, anyone who still doesn’t get it, and insists on engaging in dangerous behavior that endangers others, needs to be dealt with in increasingly harsher ways, including fines, forced home confinement and even imprisonment (in isolation of course). And for employers, organizations, health care professionals and especially managers, and government leaders and managers, who allow or even order that unsafe practices be followed, there should be severe legal consequences, up to and including murder or at least negligent manslaughter charges, and appropriate fines and prison terms.
It’s one thing to walk out in public keeping a safe distance from others, but another thing entirely to get together with friends you don’t live with to socialize in close proximity. Similarly, it’s one thing for health care professionals and government officials to fail to be 100% up to date and effective on best practices and such, but another thing entirely for hospital managers to be ordering staff to remove expiration stickers on ventilators or government officials to refuse to order people to not congregate or do everything they can to get essential supplies to where they’re most needed.
Heads must roll when this is over. There MUST be an accounting. No one can be expected to be perfect or know everything there is to know as soon as it’s knowable, but in all too many cases that’s not what’s going on. There are so many obvious cases of willful negligence, malpractice and even malfeasance. It’s sickening–LITERALLY.
How about toilet flushing? Any risk there?
That’s it, I’m wearing a mask everywhere I go out in public around anyone. Currently, my mask will be a bandanna tided around my nose and mouth. Everyone should just put something on there face and wash it when you get home. Even if it gives you a 50% chance of not getting it, that’s better than nothing.
yes, and if you’ve been out where other people are, it’s recommended you wash your hands when you get home
