There's no meaningful preparations for avoiding what is essentially a really dangerous variant of the common cold at an individual level.
Now governments and the medical field should be preparing for it. But most of that is logistical problems (e.g. number of hospital beds, preparing quarantine plans, test kits, etc).
You can order a bunch of masks if it makes you feel better, but countries with common mask usage are still seeing a large scale spread so YMMV.
The CDC recommends that sick people wear masks to keep droplets in, and that people who directly interact with sick people wear masks while interacting with the sick person (to stop projectile droplets I presume). The CDC does not recommend masks be worn generally.
Masks help remind you not to touch your face, but you can just put tape on your fingers or something for the same effect (this is just my personal idea).
(This is more of a PSA than a direct reply to your comment.)
https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2020/02/26/news/coronavir...
The economic theory on this is rock-solid and yet it seems impossible to educate the general public or government officials regarding the consequences of price controls.
For example, the large increase in price creates perverse incentives to reduce the available supply and make it available at a higher price (eg. buying all the masks at $n and reselling them at a price greater than n).
A higher price also encourages counterfeiting; making fake masks that sell for $1 isn't that profitable, but if they sell for $50, there's definitely more of an incentive to do so.
Once you have many, and if they don't talk together (which would be forbidden), masks would sell lower than what you think
Wear gloves instead, to avoid touching your face.
Yet I wonder: Viruses live longer on a "clean-looking" doorknob than they do in a towel, for example. This was very counter-intuitive to me. So when it comes to a virus, would they live longer on skin or on a bandage or piece of tape?
The issue is that the adhesive from tape is a form of glue. It attracts and keeps hold of germs. Plus, it is extremely hard to get fully off in terms of disinfection purposes.
I had a central line (dialysis catheter) in my chest for 4 months for a procedure called plasma exchange. You cannot take a shower with an exposed central line. A single drop of water on your line, or even the moisture/condensation from the shower can literally cause sepsis, as water has a lot of bacteria in it. This happens no matter how well the line is cleaned.
Anyways, I tried taking a shower by covering the line with a Ziploc bag and putting tape around it. I also cut the fingers off of gloves and /sealed the fingers of the glove onto the line with tape/. I literally put glue on the central line, which runs straight to my heart.
I never ended up with sepsis, due to the line only being in me shortly (4 months), but I did get chewed out by the sterility nurse.
Trust me, it is not a good idea.
For example, in the 90s, roll tape (versus now: single use sterile IV tape) was sometimes used to secure IV lines. Here is a study on IV lines (not central lines):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1496597/
I was phenomenally stupid and also phenomenally lucky not to go in to sepsis for this move.
I do know. Even though I am currently in pharmaceutical remission, I have cheated death a few times as an adult, and I am more aware of medical risks. You would be surprised to know that I am doing well and prospering, especially if you knew my health situation.
As someone who is in the midst of a difficult medical situation right now (and who cheated death myself 2 years ago during the episode that sent me to ICU and gifted me with yet another chronic condition), I'm very happy for you and hope I can join you in your wellness in the coming months.
Some 15 years ago, I almost fully recovered from a serious medical condition that left me partially paralyzed, in severe pain, and out of work for many months. This time around it's a lot harder, and is taking years instead of months.
Aging sucks.
I think that not recommending masks for everyone is very myopic considering that the virus tends to spread asymptotically.
[1] - https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/paper-non-symptomati...
That said, I'd urge everyone to get a few P95 [1] masks for themselves and their family members, in the event that you have to accompany them to a hospital, or even to wear in public if you live in an urban environment.
1. P95 have same filtering capacity as N95, but last for much longer.
Right, but you can prepare for potential societal disruption(s) caused by the disease. Even if you don't get sick yourself, you could be impacted.
A saner advice is to wash your hands frequently and to avoid touching your face when in public. Because you can get this virus by touching infected surfaces and then touching your face. It doesn't seem to be an airborn virus, but it does survive on surfaces.
I cary a hand sanitizer for those moments in public when I feel the need to scratch my face :-)
I just read this last night, and from this I had the impression that it is an airborne virus, and that surface spreading is not the main vector:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission...
No amount of gentle reminder -> passive aggressive suggestion -> explicit suggestion had lasting effects on their behavior. All I could do is be vigilant and recluse myself from their company whenever one's clearly showing symptoms.
Airborne transmission doesn't require any other medium than the air itself, even dust is optional.
So if droplets containing viruses penetrate beneath the surface of the mask, sterilization with light will not be able to reach them.
I wouldn't use a urinal either (I never do anyway, as a former licensed plumber, thosef'n things are NASTY imo). I also flush twice with my back turned before using a public toilet.. not ideal but better than not I think.
I work in hospital
Flushing toilets leads to aerosolized water droplets from the toilet spreading around the room and contaminating nearby surfaces[1].
Stuff like this: https://www.ibtimes.sg/wuhan-virus-italy-supermarkets-are-ru...
The freaking panic is already starting in my country too. People buying up food in 10x the quantities than the usual shopping visit, etc..
I've gone shopping yesterday, when the virus was found in the country next to mine, to buy enough food for a week, just to avoid the inevitable initial panic that's starting today, when the first case appeared in my country.
Is it panicking? Dunno, maybe she's just setting up a flour shop, or has 50 hungry necks to feed. But it was certainly unusual.
Full cart is a bit much though if it's like 50kg+
This Walgreens is in Mountain View, a few miles from the main Google campus in California.
>I've gone shopping yesterday, when the virus was found in the country next to mine
What's the old saying? "You're not sitting in traffic, you are the traffic." :)
Investing in a little bit of equipment, like barbells or maybe a pull-up bar, can let you do even more exercise at home.
I'd even recommend to not worry so much about timing your workouts as this causes too much stress, just focus on the exercises themselves in the beginning to make sure you do them properly.
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...
Zinc supplementation may of course help if you are deficient, but the study can't really tell if 'healthy' Zn2+ concentrations contribute anything to the inhibition of viral replication.
It can be normal, over-active, under-active, and likely both. "working or not" is too simplistic for this discussion.
> A 'boosted' / over-active immune system results in auto-immune diseases like Crohn's (which is what I have).
Yes, but that doesn't mean that a temporary boost couldn't potentially help in certain situations.
Along those lines, I bet if you really needed a specific live vaccine your doctor would have you suspend that drug for a little bit.
Lots of people only wash their hands when they use the bathroom, if even that. They touch their faces and mouths a lot more often than they think. If they can learn to change their habits, wash their hands regularly if they go in public, and work from home more often if allowed by their employer, I'd say those are meaningful preparations.
It's wrong, but the question was about what people are doing and thinking.
I think it's important to see what people think and people shouldn't be down voted for being honest.
But I have to be OT and say "a really dangerous variant of the common cold" - It's killing 14% of people over 80 who get it at last estimates. And permanently hurting a lot of people over 80 as well.
And we don't really do flu season as well as we could, as a society we need to step up a bit in general. We could all prepare for even the flu season more than we do. Common cold, perhaps meh.
I am not without, but my suppliers have rationed some things I buy.
I very much dont think that is the way this plays out in the western world.
In China, they welded the doors shut on entire residential buildings leaving the people in there to either die or survive on their own. They bagged and gagged people with elevated temperature and force quarantined them. They had crematoriums working over time.
China has complete military control of their population, this is going to go very differently in the West.
China's process was very effective and probably greatly reduced the rate of infection but there is no way people in other countries are just going to sit silently while the same actions are carried out.
The virus doesn't care whether you believe in governments, and it's just now hitting these regions - Pakistan, Africa, North Korea, etc.
- they've changed their reporting standards multiple times
- they don't seem to be testing enough people because of test kit shortages, because many people seem to have given up going to hospitals when they're sick because they know they won't get in or because they're barricaded in to their homes or forbidden from leaving
- their media censorship makes it difficult to independently verify the numbers they are reporting