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thebibliosphere · 4 years

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I don't want to stress you out so feel free to just delete my message if this is a topic you're avoiding! I was wondering how you're handling all the panic around coronavirus. I'm immunocompramised and even 'the common cold' will knock me on my ass for weeks and the only reassurance I'm hearing is that it doesn't kill healthy people. I'm trying to reassure myself that people are more likely to wash their hands& the like during the outbreak, but I was hoping you might share some thoughts?

Immunocompromised solidarity fist bump. I too am only just now getting back on my feet after the cold I caught two weeks ago, and I do mean back on my feet in a very literal sense. That shit knocked me six ways from Sunday and now suddenly people are telling me it’s March. Amazing.

That said, when it comes to coronavirus, I’m treating it like every flu season. Which is to say, the usual annual fear and preparedness that comes from being immunocompromised and surrounded by privileged, healthy people who don’t seem to understand the importance of handwashing and covering their mouths when they cough or sneeze all of the time, not just when we’re facing a possible global pandemic.

What I am having to factor in now, however, is other people’s panic, and the fact that healthy and able-bodied people are buying up medical supplies that disabled and chronically ill people need to use, sometimes on a daily basis, despite the fact that things like paper face masks really won’t protect them from something like the COVID-19 virus, not least of all because they don’t know how to use them, and don’t know how to take them on and off without the risk of contamination. Same with vogmaks. Vogmasks should never be used to prevent the spread of illness, firstly because their filter doesn’t work that way (it’s not small or well fitted enough) and secondly because as a reusable mask, it’s a high risk of contamination every time you put it on, especially given that vogmask comes with a fitted filter, and washing the mask renders the filter into mulch. So using a vogmask in a contagion type situation is highly not recommended, and if one has to be used, it should be discarded immediately afterward. This hasn’t stopped people from panic buying them in droves, however, and as of March 2nd 2020 the official store is still out of stock, meaning that people like myself who need them to go outside due to pollen and air pollutant risks aren’t able to get our hands on them. Heck, we can’t even get our hands on regular paper masks, and the ones that are available are selling on Amazon for $200 a pop and are not properly made and are not certified medical grade. Fuck, even my SIL’s hospital where she works is running out of masks, all because people are panic buying.

Which sure was the long way round of me saying, I’m more pissed than worried.

Oh sure I’m worried, but no more so than I am for usual cold and flu season because every year is a potential risk to my health and longevity of life. And while I think some worry is healthy and entirely understandable, I also think it’s important not to let it escalate to full-blown “gargling with bleach” panic, which yes, is apparently a thing people are asking google if you should do. Cause, y’know, can’t catch coronavirus if you’re dead...

Being alert and aware is good, being prepared is good, and sure, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you’ve got some extra meals in the freezer and an extra package of two of toilet paper in the house just in case all of humanity grinds to a halt for a few weeks. (also stock up on any meds you might need) But I’m also not lying awake at night worried about it. I’m far too busy lying awake at night worried about my own body and the things it’s capable of all on its own. So yeah, am I more at risk from something like COVID-19? Yes. Am I worried about it? Yes. Do I find it completely callous, ableist and utterly monstrous to hear able-bodied and healthy people saying things like “don’t worry, it’s only going to kill the weak”, abso-fucking-lutely. I’m legit one more comment like that away from drowning a motherfucker.

But I’m also trying very hard not to let panic and fear rule my life. Which is basically how I’ve been living for the last 5 years anyway if I’m honest. It’s so very, very easy at the moment to look around and be consumed by terror, and if I’m honest, it happens to me at least ten times a day before I’m able to reel it back in and do what I can about it. Which in this instance, is taking care of myself, and taking a few extra precautions here and there to avoid potential sickness.

So yeah, I don’t know if any of this is reassuring, cause honestly, I’m not sure how to reassure myself sometimes. But I also acknowledge that anxiety and stress take a toll on my immune system, and I need to do what I can to stay calm and not weaken an already fragile vessel any further. So I’m taking my meds, I’m practicing good hygiene habits, I’m avoiding people where possible, and generally just trying to live my life as safely and as best I can in a world where people cite the death of people like me as an acceptable statistic provided they make it out all right. Sad, pissed, and resolved to outlive every one of the motherfuckers if it’s the last thing I do.

Take care of yourself. I know you will, but take extra care of yourself. Be kinder than usual, allow yourself to rest more, stock up on your meds if you can, get some extra food in the freezer so you don’t have to expend energy going grocery shopping. And toilet paper. Trust me, you never want to run out of toilet paper while in self-imposed quarantine.

#petaluhsims #chronic health tag #I hope some of this makes sense #I have a lot of complicated thoughts on the matter #and most of them are me trying to curtail the white noise of panic

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themeatlife · 4 years

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The March Into the Unknown

A personal perspective at the moves made for public health and safety and the harsh realities of the COVID-19 crisis.

I’ve half written this about a handful of times. At first I was going to write about the timeline of events until current on what has been going on with COVID-19. But that news changes rapidly, with new news coming out almost instantly since we live in the world of fast information. So instead at the end of this I’ll provide some links.

Rather than go through all that, I’ll talk about my personal experience with the reaction to the viral outbreak.

Initially, I was like most people. When I first heard of the novel coronavirus, I thought “well this won’t affect me. The cases are so far away from where I am.” As more and more places started to have confirmed cases, I was concerned. But like I was concerned with the 2002 SARS and the Ebola outbreak in 2014, but I was not worried about COVID-19 reaching me.

But more and more these cases made their way.

One of the first major US event cancellations I remember was being announced was South by Southwest. Around the same time that the James Bond film No Time to Die was pushed back to November, SXSW was cancelled. A man in Tulsa was also the first confirmed case in Oklahoma. That same day, late in the afternoon, my company started taking a survey about who was ready to work remotely and for everyone to update their emergency contacts. All of this was March 6.

From there, it became more and more real until everything came to a grinding halt. That following week the company I work for started prepping to move our employees to work from home. Just as exponentially the virus was spreading, so were things starting to change. On March 10th, the World Health Organization officially recognized the coronavirus as a worldwide pandemic.

As all these things were going on, I was still skeptical. Still optimistic that this would eventually just vanish.

But March 11th, things began to become real to me.

My wife and I usually do our major grocery shopping once a month. We’ll still hit up the store every few weeks for snacks and veggies and things. But for the most part we’ll hit Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target, and occasionally Sprouts and Trader Joe’s once a month. I saw articles about toilet paper shortages and stores running out of bread and milk like it sometimes does here before potential snow storms. I didn’t believe it until we went to Sam’s that evening after work. Even chicken breast was sold out.

While we were walking around Sam’s and while I was pushing the cart, my wife read a notification that the Thunder game against the Jazz was being delayed for an undisclosed reason. This never happens in the NBA unless it’s the second game of a national telecast, this game was not a national game. We then travelled from Sam’s to the house to drop off our haul and we learned that Jazz player Rudy Gobert, who had been battling illness earlier in the week, tested positive for COVID-19.

This is when it became real to me.

The game was announced as postponed. Within the hour, the NBA suspended its season. The next day the MLB, MLS, and NHL jointly announce they suspended their seasons as well. Then the NCAA basketball conferences cancel their conference tournaments. Then the very next day the NCAA announced the cancellation of the NCAA winter sports tournaments and spring sports seasons. By Friday, school districts like my kids’ were closed. Public schools in Oklahoma closed until at least April 6th. My kids’ sports were also suspended to mirror the school cancellation. And I didn’t know this, but some people have had to actually be told and taught how to properly wash their hands. Crazy, I know.

While this was going on, I was busy at work. Not to go into too much detail, based on the survey my company had our employees do they determined the course of action to get people activated to work from home. Our corporate IT started sending in company-issued laptops to my office along with two other offices we work closely with. So I worked with our training manager and training staff to develop walkthroughs and how-tos and then distribute WFH laptops and equipment. To fill in the gaps we had from not enough laptops, we help also set up personal home computers of our employees. As well, me and some of the training staff played sort of the first-stop IT to troubleshoot those issues coming up working from home.

This past week getting all that set up and running, I’ve been at the office 10-12 hours a day while some of the other leadership team worked up to 15 hours days. All the while we saw more closures around us and around the country. The Center for Disease Control recommended avoiding crowds of 10 or more people. Events around the country are either cancelled or postponed. The city of Oklahoma City shut down bars and gyms and restrict restaurants to drive thru/carry out only. Our work has not been in vain though. On Friday the 13th, we were only at 10% working remotely at my office. When I left the office on Friday the 20th, we were close to 90%. My company hasn’t officially closed offices, but they have said if you can work from home, work from home. And that’s what we are now doing.

When the COVID-19 pandemic became real to me, it became scary. And not scary in the horror or suspense thriller movie kind of way, but scary in the “I’m not prepared for this” kind of way. What’s scary isn’t the possibility of getting sick but the dangers of my kids and family getting sick. And even scarier than getting sick is all the social distancing and isolation. Once I set up some of my employees to work from home, I told some that this may be the last time I see them for a while. We broke the social distancing guidelines and they usually hugged me and some of our other staff members goodbye.

I think what gets lost on people, especially those that still doubt the severity of the situation is that it’s not necessarily how sick a person will get. It is how the health care system will be strained if the virus spreads too quickly. We already see shortages of available COVID-19 tests, but in heavily populated areas like New York City and San Francisco we also see shortages in equipment like ventilators, surgical-grade masks, and personal protective equipment for health care workers. And those doctors and nurses are also working long hours and getting exposure to the virus, making them more susceptible to illness. The outbreak of coronavirus has already severely strained those areas’ health care infrastructure. Imagine if we all aren’t practicing all the social distancing and isolation. It wouldn’t just be strains in those big cities, but even those medium and small markets that would experience this. Overrun hospitals are something that the United States is not ready for and it is already happening in New York.

But through all the closures and social distancing, the technology we were trying to cut back on all these years has been useful to reach out to people, making the distancing less difficult. I have texted friends and family and called them more often in the last couple weeks than I have in several years. And others that I normally just throw a like at on Facebook or Twitter I have conversations with in their comments or messaging. It has actually made things more bearable.

I work in the logistics industry, one of the industries that will probably be able to endure through this and during this crisis. Some people aren’t so lucky and won’t be able to work during this time or have lost their jobs or businesses. Those along with people in the health care professions are the ones we have to worry about the next few weeks and months. Not just the local and state economies, but the national and international economy will be affected for a long time.

But the quicker everyone gets on board and practices the social distancing and proper hygiene, the better we’ll be able to slow down the spread of the virus and the sooner we’ll get closer to normal.

In the meantime, stay clean, stay healthy, stay in contact, and stay informed. Here are some links I’ve been using.

Center for Disease Control - Coronavirus (COVID-19) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

World Health Organization - Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) Situation https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd

New York Times Coronavirus Map https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html

Bing - COVID-19 https://www.bing.com/covid

A look at symptoms of COVID-19 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/video/what-covid-19-symptoms-look-like-day-by-day/vi-BB11pWbr?ocid=ASUDHP

WebMD - Latest Coronavirus News https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200124/coronavirus-2020-outbreak-latest-updates

For those who miss sports, for the sports/stats nerds here is a cool site: What If Sports https://www.whatifsports.com/locker/

Also hit up Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ for your streaming needs!

Give me about a week and I’ll have my 15th anniversary of The Office post. I would have had it ready for the anniversary on March 24th, but it’s been crazy at work and I’ve been working on this post.

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componentplanet · 4 years

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The Misinformation About Coronavirus Coming From the White House Must Cease

Public Domain: NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), U.S. NIH

On Friday, President Trump declared an emergency over the outbreak of Covid-19 sweeping across the United States and the world. One of the major points of his speech was to emphasize that the United States government is working with major corporations to quickly deploy testing capabilities across the United States. To that end, Trump said:

Google is going to develop a website — it’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past — to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,” Trump said. “We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover this country and large parts of the world, by the way. We’re not gonna be talking about the world right now, but we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location. Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.

Trump’s comments were backed up by Dr. Deborah Birx, described by Ars Technica as “a key official in the administration’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator.” According to Birx, “We wanted to also announce this new approach to testing,” she said, “which will start in this screening website facilitated by Google.” The only problem was, as of Friday, basically none of this was true. Google released a statement saying as much at the time, shown below:

Statement from Verily: "We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.

— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) March 13, 2020

The app portal that President Trump told Americans would be “very quickly done,” is only in the early stage of development. It’s only intended to be tested in the Bay Area. The Google engineers assisting with the project are doing so voluntarily and no Google or Alphabet employees actually spoke at the unveiling.

Later, on Sunday, Google and Verily did make additional announcements — but they aren’t exactly shipping the programs that the White House said they would be. Verily has issued a press release confirming its limited Bay Area testing setup, while Google is working with the government to provide a clearing-house information site, but not the app portal that was described on Friday.

Having been caught with his pants down on the topic, the President is trying to claim that the news media lied. This is bullshit. The press — including this story, as written in its original form, properly and accurately informed citizens that Google isn’t building a nationwide portal to evaluate whether or not you have coronavirus and that Verily’s project was only in the testing stages. Ars Technica’s own writeup, linked above, confirms these points. The President denies them. This is so normal as to barely be worth mentioning, except for the fact that we are in the middle of a true international pandemic, and POTUS can’t resist a little branded messaging.

The Fake and Corrupt News never called Google. They said this was not true. Even in times such as these, they are not truthful. Watch for their apology, it won’t happen. More importantly, thank you to Google! https://t.co/AuvpbXNouW

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2020

The reason the press will not be apologizing is that the press was not wrong to inform Americans that, as of Friday, Google had no such program and Verily was launching a trial in the Bay Area. The only thing that has changed on Monday is that Google is launching some new information portals.

Accurate Information in an Emergency Is Essential

I am not here today to re-litigate every statement President Trump has made or the appropriateness of any given comment. I am speaking solely to the pandemic we face today.

When security issues arise — and a global pandemic is a security issue — corporations and governments have an ironclad responsibility to communicate in a neutral, calm, and truthful manner. If this were the first time the Trump Administration had misinformed the American people during the coronavirus crisis, we could chalk it up to chaos and miscommunication. But it isn’t.

At multiple points, the President has claimed we would have a vaccine in a matter of months when the effort is expected to take at least a year. He has claimed that testing is readily available to anyone who wants it. According to The Atlantic, they’ve only been able to confirm about 14,500 Americans had been tested as of Friday. For comparison, South Korea has been capable of testing up to 20,000 people per day.

Trump has told the American people that insurers would pay for testing and treatment for coronavirus when insurers have actually stated they would only pay for testing. Given the size of medical bills in the United States, that’s no small difference. He has told the nation that SARS-CoV-2 cannot live in warm weather and will die off as summer approaches. That could be true, but the WHO disagrees:

From the evidence so far, the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in ALL AREAS, including areas with hot and humid weather.

He has repeatedly declared that the coronavirus is “under control” in the United States, while test kit orders go unfilled and likely-infected people are refused testing and sent home to self-quarantine instead.

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2020

Epidemiologists have begun emphasizing the need to “flatten the curve” of infection because, with only 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people and 65,000 full ventilators across the entire nation, we literally can’t triage the impact of a massive infection wave quickly enough to save everyone.

Slowing down the spread is critical to minimizing the damage. Image by Wikipedia

For three and a half years, liberals and conservatives across America have battled over the meaning of Trump’s language and how his statements should be interpreted. There is, however, no room for ambiguity here. Testing is either happening or it is not. Google is either building a massive testing portal with 1700 engineers or Verily is in the early stages of a test program in a single city with no plans for near-term national deployment. These are not the same thing. They are never going to be the same thing.

It is one thing to make allowances for a person’s style of communication. It is another thing altogether to excuse the dispensation of inaccurate information simply because it comes out of the mouth of the most powerful leader on Earth.

This Is Absolutely Political, Just Not the Way You Think

Having written the above, I realize a certain type of Trump supporter will likely Have Some Things To Say About Me. Allow me to preempt them: Yes, I’m talking about politics — specifically, the question of what the state owes to its citizens.

One of those obligations — one of the most fundamental and important reasons for individuals to form a government in the first place — is for mutual defense and protection. Part of providing mutual defense and protection, in the context of disease or imminent disaster, is to ensure that accurate information can be gathered, processed, and quickly distributed to the citizenry. From weather reports and hurricane forecasting to quarterly job reports, the government produces an enormous amount of data and critical decisions get made on the basis of those reports.

Does the government release reports that favor its own interpretation of the data? Of course they do. Do governments sometimes lie to their own citizens? Of course they do. Does that excuse the unclear, half-baked, and downright false verbiage that has come spewing from the White House regarding Covid-19 to-date? It does not. At a time when the need for accurate, unified communication is the largest, the Trump White House has dropped the ball — followed by Trump completely disclaiming all responsibility for the problem of limited test kit production.

Harry Truman: “The buck stops here.” Donald Trump: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

There is no justification for the misinformation barrage that has characterized the White House’s response to the coronavirus to date, but there is a way for the Administration to recover, and even some tentative reasons to hope it will improve its disaster response. It’s called “Start dealing with the problem in an honest way.”

The announcement of a national emergency on Friday and the declaration that an additional $50B in funds would be used for disaster relief are both good steps. The next step should be to pass specific legislation mandating various types of relief for those most affected by the coronavirus. Paid leave for all and mortgage relief would be two excellent steps. Late on Friday, Trump reached an agreement with House Democrats on a disaster relief bill. Fox News even had the minimal good grace to put Trish Reagan, who declared coronavirus was a scam by Democrats to harm President Trump’s re-election, on indefinite hiatus from the network.

But no matter what happens, and no matter how terrible or mild the Covid-19 outbreak in the United States is, it is essential that the White House speak with one voice. The data it dispenses must be accurate and truthful to the greatest standard humans can reasonably achieve. This is no time for spin, regardless of who is doing the spinning. We, the citizens of the United States, deserve to be able to trust the words coming out of our elected leaders’ mouths, regardless of who they are or what party they belong to, and we need to be able to trust them now more than ever.

Could Covid-19 still turn out to have a relatively mild effect on the United States? Absolutely. But the best — and according to epidemiologists the only — way to make that happen is to treat the reality of the pandemic seriously. Wash your hands. Practice social distancing. Don’t panic. Coronavirus is not the Black Death 2.0. It doesn’t have to be, in order to cause tremendous damage.

The combined economic impact of all of the canceled conferences across the world is already well into the billions, in terms of expected economic activity that now will not occur. Airlines are calling this even worse than 9/11, in terms of reduced flight bookings. The question isn’t whether we’re going to see significant economic damage, but how much and for how long.

Every single American deserves accurate, factual, and trustworthy data from the government (even if we don’t always get it), but we especially deserve it during a time of uncertainty and crisis. Thus far, the White House has botched the job. Now that we have a formal declaration of a national emergency under the Stafford Act, hopefully, we will see a more coordinated response and an increased focus on dispensing accurate information.

I reject, completely and disdainfully, the idea that demanding accurate, factual, and honest data from my government represents some kind of liberal plot or sneak attack on Donald Trump. I don’t care if we’re talking about Barack Obama, Zombie Reagan, or an unusually ambitious philodendron. I expect government messaging on the pandemic to focus on saving as many human lives as possible and to communicate both failures and successes whether they paint the President and his party in a positive light. I expect the President to put the value of American lives above his own tendency towards self-aggrandizement and to speak honestly about the condition of the country, the impact of coronavirus, the specific steps the government is taking to address it, and the realistic likelihood that any treatments will emerge in the short term.

I don’t call that being liberal. I call it demanding accountability. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, anarchist, or.. .whatever Marianne Williamson is, you deserve accurate information. You deserve it even if you disagree with everything I just wrote. You deserve it if you plan to vote for Trump in November. This isn’t about partisan politics. You — we — deserve accurate messaging and factual data and we haven’t been getting it. I hope Friday was the beginning of a major shift in what has, to date, been an absolutely appalling trend.

On Sunday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, told Americans they should expect to “hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing.” There were also reports that the United States was trying to buy access to a German company’s in-development Covid-19 vaccine, with the requirement that the medicine is deployed solely in the United States. As a reminder, an effective Covid-19 vaccine is still expected to be 12-18 months away, best-case, and our allies would take an exceptionally dim view to any attempt America might make to hold back such a vaccine to its own advantage.

Now Read:

How to Help the Fight Against Coronavirus From the Safety of Your Own Home

The Fastest Supercomputer on Earth Is Being Deployed Against Coronavirus

World Health Organization Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/internet/307605-trump-said-google-was-building-a-national-coronavirus-portal-it-isnt from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-misinformation-about-coronavirus.html

#The Misinformation About Coronavirus Coming From the White House Must Cease

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scootoaster · 4 years

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Thirteen science questions about COVID-19 from teens

Most people have no reason to worry, but we can all take precautions. (Unsplash/)

Popular Science has spent the last few weeks working hard to keep our readers informed about COVID-19, the novel strain of coronavirus that’s infected close to 100,000 people worldwide since December. Here, we answer a few questions from students at Vineland High School in New Jersey. Still have questions of your own? Let us know in the comments and we’ll do our best to find answers.

What are the best methods to prevent getting the virus?

The best way to keep yourself from getting COVID-19 is to wash your hands frequently (and adequately) and try not to touch your face. This is because respiratory viruses like COVID-19, the common cold, and the flu are primarily transmitted from droplets of spit or mucus, which are easy to transfer from person to person via handshakes and food preparation if people aren’t washing their hands frequently. When you touch your face, you expose your eyes, nose, and mouth to these bits of virus. So, by limiting how much you touch surfaces in public areas (like subway poles) and washing your hands well and often, you can drastically reduce your risk of getting the virus. Hand sanitizer is a good substitute in a pinch, but not a replacement for washing your hands.

You should also keep your distance from people who are actively coughing and sneezing.

Should we be scared?

It’s understandable to feel frightened by news of a novel virus, but the risk to individuals in the United States is still very low. Most people who get COVID-19 have only mild cold or flu-like symptoms. The important thing is to do what you can to practice good hygiene, which will minimize your risk of getting COVID-19, and keep you from spreading it to others if you do contract it. You should keep yourself informed using trusted news sources (like PopSci!) and stay home if you’re sick. For now, that’s all you should be doing!

Which is better for cleaning hands? Soap and warm water or alcohol?

Most people don’t wash their hands properly. Here are instructions on how to do it right. A summary: Use soap and warm water (the temperature doesn’t matter, just use what’s comfortable) and lather the soap for 20-30 seconds before rinsing.

Hand sanitizer is not as good as a thorough hand-washing session, but it’s better than nothing if you can’t get to a sink and soap. Make sure you’re using a hand sanitizer that’s at least 60 percent alcohol. Check the label of the product you’re using to see how much you should dispense, then squirt that amount onto the palm of one hand and rub your hands together. It’s important to rub the sanitizer all over your hands and fingers, and to continue doing so until your hands are dry—don’t just wipe the sanitizer off on a towel or your clothes.

Without media do you believe the whole COVID-19 issue would be present?

While the fatality rate of COVID-19 is around 2 percent—much lower than some pandemics, like SARS or Ebola—it has infected and killed enough people in China that it would definitely have caused public health officials to be concerned, even before the age of digital media. But the spread of disinformation that exists online is certainly dangerous during international incidents like the COVID-19 outbreak. Research shows false information often spreads quicker than actual facts do, and we’ve already seen people try to take advantage of the situation by selling “cures” for COVID-19 to their online followings. There is no cure or treatment for COVID-19, and you should only get news from trustworthy publications like The New York Times, STAT News, The Washington Post, Popular Science, and Reuters. These aren’t the only trustworthy sources out there, but they have health reporters I know and trust.

With so many pandemics in the world, should COVID-19 be taken serious in everyday life even though you are nowhere near the areas that are in effect?

Pandemics aren’t actually all that common—and thank goodness for that! Pandemic isn’t a term with a strict definition, but an epidemic is when we see a surge of case numbers above what is considered normal for any given disease, and a pandemic is generally what we call an epidemic that has spread significantly across multiple continents. Epidemics don’t happen every day, and pandemics are even less common. Public health officials consider AIDS to be an ongoing pandemic, but most disease outbreaks do not reach that scale.

To answer the second part of your question, the best way to keep COVID-19 from affecting your area is to practice good hygiene before it becomes a problem. In the Pacific Northwest, health officials are seeing cases that make them suspect the disease has been circulating in local communities for weeks. This is not surprising, given how mild COVID-19 symptoms are for most people, how bad most of us are at washing our hands and not touching our faces, and how difficult it is to take time off work and isolate ourselves for what seems to be a minor cold. COVID-19 was able to spread in that area because people went about their everyday business while coughing and sneezing. That’s not their fault, but we can learn from what happened there and try to do better. (Seriously, I’m writing this from my couch because I have a cough).

If I was to boost my immune system would it help fight the virus?

The idea of being able to do certain activities or eat something specific to boost your immune system such that you can become an illness-fighting ninja sounds incredibly enticing. But unfortunately, it’s not exactly how the immune system works. Your body builds up immunity by encountering a pathogen and learning to recognize it and fight against it, so there’s nothing you can do before it encounters the virus to get it ready.

On the other hand, you can do some things to make sure your body is in its best fighting shape when it has that first encounter with a new virus.

The best thing you can do to help your body fight off disease is to get plenty of sleep. You should really aim for eight hours or more! Eating a healthy, balanced diet is also a great way to stay healthy. Doing these things won’t protect you from every potential health threat, but eating a poor diet and depriving yourself of sleep will definitely leave you more vulnerable.

You should also get your flu shot, if you haven’t already done so. It won’t protect you from COVID-19, but it will lower your chances of getting influenza—which can be just as dangerous!

How long do you think the virus will be a problem?

It’s too soon to tell how long COVID-19 will remain significantly active. Some public health experts think it will stick around as a new virus that picks up every season, the same way the flu does. Influenza and the common cold are both types of coronaviruses, so COVID-19 may follow some of the same patterns. However, if COVID-19 does stick around as a persistent threat, it’s likely that we’ll have a vaccine developed by this time next year, and we’ll know to keep an eye out for it and try to minimize this spread. It’s worrisome to imagine such a mysterious virus persisting for months or years, but the upside is that COVID-19 is mostly a problem because of how little we know about it. The longer it stays around, the better our tools for tracking and fighting it will get. That being said, we’ve been dealing with influenza for all of modern history, and it still kills tens of thousands of people in the United States every year. Adding another potentially dangerous respiratory virus to our annual list of concerns will definitely strain the healthcare system, even if it won’t produce dramatic outbreaks like this one annually.

Are they going to shut down the schools?

While individual communities with high case rates have shut down some schools and public gatherings, there is no reason to do this before COVID-19 is obviously circulating in any given area. However, schools and businesses should be as flexible as they can be about people taking sick days and working remotely to prevent the spread of disease.

If a vaccine is developed, could the virus somehow adapt to the treatment?

Many viruses originate in non-human animal hosts. We call these zoonotic diseases. The fact that they jump from animal to human hosts means they’re more likely to catch us by surprise. But they’re not all as scary as COVID-19: The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 60 percent of the infectious diseases that affect humans originated in another animal. Microbes mutate all the time, because of how quickly they reproduce—the reason we need new flu vaccines every year is that influenza mutates into new strains so rapidly—but there is no reason to think COVID-19 will be particularly resistant to vaccination or treatment.

What makes COVID-19 different from other pandemics? (Flu, etc?)

As mentioned above, the World Health Organization does not yet consider COVID-19 a pandemic. But COVID-19 does pose some unique challenges compared to other viruses. It appears to be more contagious than the average seasonal flu, though not nearly as contagious as some other viruses like measles. It also presents in incredibly mild symptoms for most people who are infected, which means many people with COVID-19 have been going about their usual routines and exposing others to the disease. But like the flu, COVID-19 can cause serious or even fatal pneumonia in some cases—which becomes much more likely in people who are elderly or sick with underlying health problems. Another difference between COVID-19 and your typical seasonal flu is that a higher rate of infected patients seem to experience these dangerous symptoms: While the fatality rate of influenza is less than 1 percent, estimates for COVID-19 have gone as high as around 3 percent. However, it’s difficult to know how reliable those estimates are. Because so many cases of COVID-19 are easy to ignore, it’s possible that infection rates are much higher than we’ve been able to calculate, in which case the percentage of patients who have died would be much lower.

The flu kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, so adding another virus with similar fatality rates—let alone much higher ones—to our seasonal illness rotation could put serious strain on our healthcare system. However, because COVID-19 is new, we’ve had no chance to develop immunity to it (or to engineer our immunity by crafting a vaccine). If it sticks around for months or years, it will become less deadly as we get better at diagnosing and treating it, and as our immune systems start to recognize it.

Where are scientists currently with the vaccine or medicine?

Several pharmaceutical companies and research institutions around the globe are working to find potential treatments or vaccines for COVID-19. A U.S. biotech firm says its vaccine is ready for preliminary testing, but the process of approving it could take as long as a year. It could easily take months to get a formula that works well enough to test on humans, let alone something that can be broadly deployed.

Many claims of cures or preventative treatments are circulating online, but the World Health Organization confirms that there’s no known supplement, food, or medication that can protect people from COVID-19. However, it is advisable to get a flu shot if you have yet to do so: The similar symptoms between the two viruses could lead those with influenza to take up valuable space and time in hospitals, and a compromised immune system could leave you more susceptible to catching COVID-19.

Was the coronavirus ever seen in humans prior to recent cases?

Coronaviruses have existed in humans for a long time, but this particular coronavirus is new.

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that often cause mild respiratory symptoms (the common cold is one of them), but some can cause serious illness. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which jumped from bats to humans in China’s Guangdong Province in 2002, infected more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed at least 774.

COVID-19 wasn’t detected in humans until December 2019, when it started showing up in patients in Hubei Province, China. The outbreak may have originated due to close contact between humans and wild animals at a market in Wuhan, but the exact time and location of the initial jump from animal to human isn’t yet known.

With the process of a universal vaccine in the making, could we possibly ever stop a pandemic or another virus from happening?

No one is at all close to developing a vaccine that kills all viruses. Vaccines work by introducing certain molecules from a virus or strain of bacteria into your body; this gives your immune system the chance to learn to fight the disease before you actually encounter it. Obviously it’s a tricky business to create a cocktail that looks enough like a dangerous virus to help your body out without actually hurting you in the way the virus would, which is why it takes months to study and approve a new vaccine even under the absolute fastest and well-funded timeline.

Because a vaccine works by mimicking the virus or bacterium it protects against, there’s no way to create a “universal” vaccine (at least not with the understanding of biology and technology that we have today). Even the hunt for a universal flu vaccine is going to require several more years of effort, if we can manage it at all. Right now, scientists have to attack a few select strains of the flu with each year’s vaccine, based on research about which strains will be most dangerous. If we could create a universal flu vaccine, we might be able to get one flu shot and be done with it. That would be a huge deal in terms of lowering humans’ overall risk of flu transmission, but it wouldn’t have any effect on the risk of other pandemics.

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kristablogs · 4 years

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How to prepare for a viral outbreak like COVID-19

It's good to have your supplies in one easy-to-find location. (milan degraeve via Unsplash/)

Viruses love us. That’s a fact. Every year, run-of-the-mill respiratory diseases like the common cold and the flu infect millions of people, and once in a while, brand new afflictions like the coronavirus dubbed COVID-19 rise up and grab headlines worldwide. While the fatality rate for most of these illnesses is low, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

“One should be aware of one’s surroundings, be aware of the situation, but not be fearful,” says Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa.

Most importantly: wash your hands

The No. 1 thing you can do to avoid getting sick is to regularly wash your hands. Doing so dramatically reduces your chances of transmitting or contracting both respiratory illnesses and those that will give you diarrhea, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The story linked at the start of this section gives detailed information about how to properly wash your hands, but here’s the quick version: use a water temperature that feels good, lather with any soap you like, scrub for 20 to 30 seconds, and don’t forget the backs of your hands. If you’re not sure how long half a minute is, try spending two seconds washing each finger—that should get you pretty close.

If all you’ve got is hand sanitizer (maybe you just touched something mysteriously goopy on public transit or took a tumble in the dirt outside), it’ll do a passable job until you can actually wash your hands. Use products that are at least 60 percent alcohol and rub it in until your skin is dry. Don’t consider it a substitute for a solid hand-washing, though.

Get a flu shot

“But the coronavirus isn’t the flu!” you yell across the internet, angrily slamming your fingers against your poor keyboard. Yes, you’re right, it’s not, but the symptoms are similar enough across respiratory diseases that if you’re sick, it’s hard to know what you have without going to a doctor.

The problem is that if hospitals are preoccupied with thousands of people who think they have the latest sensationalized disease but actually have the flu, it’s harder for them to treat people who are truly suffering from something that can’t yet be prevented with a vaccine.

“If you get the flu, you’ll say, ‘Oh my goodness, do I have the flu or coronavirus?’” says Perlman, who studies coronaviruses. “If you don’t get the flu, you’re going to eliminate a lot of that worry.”

Don’t stock up on face masks

Even heavy-duty N95 face masks alone won’t do much to stop viruses from entering your body. They might offer some protection as a physical barrier, especially if you’re close to an infected person, but air can always find its way around the mask. Plus, public health experts say you’re far more likely to become infected by touching things with your hands and then touching your face. So again: wash your hands.

Plus, hoarding masks for yourself may keep them out of the hands (and off the faces) of medical professionals who actually need them as part of their protective suite while they treat the sick.

If you do get sick, that’s when you should consider using a face mask. If you can’t stay home and have to go to the doctor’s office or a hospital, covering your own mouth and nose will reduce the number of viral particles you release into the air around you.

And if you do decide to buy masks, get disposable ones, not cloth ones. Covering the warm, wet environment around your mouth can turn your face into a sort of greenhouse for bacteria and viruses. Not cool. You’ll want something you can toss in the trash. Don’t wear the same one for days, either—even N95 masks should be changed every eight hours.

Stock up on food, but like, not all at once

Empty supermarket shelves are a common sight before snowstorms, hurricanes, and even potential viral outbreaks. But with a little bit of foresight, you can avoid doubling your weekly grocery bill, depriving your neighbors of food, and potentially brawling with Joe from across town over the last can of chicken noodle soup.

If you understand that there might be times when you’re forced to stay inside, either because you or a family member or sick or because a blizzard shut down your city, the easiest thing to do is buy one extra can of beans or another non-perishable item whenever you can. Then, just stash them away for a rainy (or sniffly) day. You won’t even have to go outside to stock up because you’ve already done it.

Health experts haven’t definitively said how much food you should stow away, but the CDC says a typical bout of flu lasts one to two weeks. The current quarantine measures for COVID-19 is two weeks, too, based on the longest incubation period of similar coronaviruses. Given that information, having one to two weeks of food stockpiled and ready to go in case of an emergency is likely your best bet.

You may be tempted to lock your doors and have all your food delivered. That has seemed to work in Wuhan, China, where COVID-19 originated, Perlman says, but doing so before widespread outbreaks have occurred is premature. If you are sick, though, and receive deliveries, make sure you don’t have face-to-face contact with your delivery people—and keep in mind that your food is likely being prepared and delivered by people who can’t afford to take off of work when sick, so stick to groceries instead of takeout.

Make sure you have the medicine you need and keep it in once place

You probably already have over-the-counter medicines like ibuprofen somewhere in your house, but if you or a family member has a prescription for other drugs, you should make sure you have enough to get you through a lengthy home stay. If you can’t keep enough on hand, and can’t leave your house, enlist a friend or family member who doesn’t live with you to pick up any necessary medications.

Once you’ve gathered your medicine, hand soap, hand sanitizer, tissues, and other health supplies, store them all in one place. It doesn’t matter whether that’s a cabinet, a bag, or a drawer. Having a set location that everyone in the house knows about and can be easily described to any visitors will ensure anyone who needs anything gets it as fast as possible.

Make an emergency plan

Diseases, whether they’re pandemics or not, can really mess up your day-to-day life. That’s why it’s important to have a plan in place that will help you adapt to whatever our germ-filled world throws at us. Once you make one, make sure everyone in your household, family, or community knows what it is and what they have to do.

If you have kids, that could mean developing a child care plan for when you or another caregiver gets sick, or making arrangements for how to handle school closures. If your children end up stuck at home, try to keep their routines as normal as possible and make sure they’re busy with activities, exercises, and educational materials, the CDC says. Through it all, watch their health carefully.

And if you’re charged with taking care of a sick family member, devise a way to do so that minimizes the chance of you getting sick. If someone in your house is sick, stay home if you can. Set up a separate room, and possibly, a separate bathroom, for them until they’re better. Clean the rooms they use daily with soap and water, a bleach and water solution, or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved household products, the CDC says.

On a community level, the CDC recommends talking to your neighbors about emergency planning and identifying local organizations that can help out if you or others don’t have access to information, health care, or other resources. You should also keep an emergency contact list on hand and make plans to check up on people who live alone, especially if they’re elderly or have other health problems that may make them more susceptible to disease. If you’re someone who lives alone, find people who will regularly check up on you.

The tips listed here won’t guarantee you don’t get sick, or even that you’re 100 percent equipped to ride out a pandemic, as every disease is different. But by keeping this advice in mind and staying informed about potential health risks, you should be able to ensure that viruses, as much as they want to come hang out, stay the heck away.

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scootoaster · 4 years

Text

How to prepare for a viral outbreak like COVID-19

It's good to have your supplies in one easy-to-find location. (milan degraeve via Unsplash/)

“One should be aware of one’s surroundings, be aware of the situation, but not be fearful,” says Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa.

Most importantly: wash your hands

Get a flu shot

Don’t stock up on face masks

Plus, hoarding masks for yourself may keep them out of the hands (and off the faces) of medical professionals who actually need them as part of their protective suite while they treat the sick.

Stock up on food, but like, not all at once

Make sure you have the medicine you need and keep it in once place

Make an emergency plan

0 notes