CDC considering recommending general public wear face coverings in public
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
https://medium.com/@thejanellemj/please-join-me-in-wearing-a...
We have made a big stumble in the US by falsely claiming masks don’t work, seemingly for political reasons. If we can get mask production in place and made available to the public it will help us ease our lock down restrictions which is something we all want to do. We are starting from so far behind so I don’t know if that’s possible now, but we should all be honest and factual, so we can develop solutions and innovate.
moral "Your stealing them from healthcare" (lots of people have a couple old masks, or can make one from a t-shirt)
paternalistic "You'll go do stupid stuff if you have a mask" (Exactly why we shouldn't have people wash their hands)
ridiculous "You'll touch the mask and get it on your hands" (Is that worse than inhaling it? Plus it physically prevents you from touching you mouth or nose, which is the real danger.)
insulting "You can't possibly wear a mask correctly" (and why can't we figure that out? Plus it still helps both for protecting other people and ourselves. If something doesn't work perfectly then we shouldn't do anything at all?)
just false "it doesn't work" (except in asian countries and for healthcare workers, and in studies, and in common sense)
If you touch it, you touch a reservoir of virus particles.
And it probably doesn't protect you significantly from other people's droplets or airborne virus particles as they are too small for the holes in the fabric.
On the other hand even if it reduces the risk 20% it still helps to reduce the R0
Speaking in a 'might help' frame of mind; directing the force of the cough down towards the ground so the virus settles is probably a pretty decent mitigation. Virus on the foot is a lot less likely to infect someone vs virus coughed into their face.
We're not dealing with a parasite; viruses can't move unless we move them.
The alternative is to breathe or cough your virus particles in open-air? That doesn’t make sense.
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-special-lipkin/
timestamp: 33:30
It's irresponsibility on a massive scale.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-mas...
Obviously frontline workers need priority for PPE, but there is zero reason this should stop anyone from making something homemade.
One of the leading Epidemiologists, Ian Lipkin, admitted exactly this on the poscast This Week in Virology this week - https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-special-lipkin/ at timestamp ~33:30.
And you can reuse the masks by exposing them to 70C/158F heat for an hour.
A full face covering might help people with touching their face but too many people think it will filter out particles.
I would also recommend if you are following the procedure with a reused mask to immediately wash your hands afterwards since you will be touching a contaminated surface. Guides assume you are using a fresh mask, per health worker procedures.
The process is straightforward. I was shown a different technique than they provided, and am not a fan of having dirty gloves on or around my head and face as they show there.
I have been trained to usa a gloved hand and place it over the center of the mask, use your other hand to lift the straps over your head, and then pull away and discard the mask and gloves. The key is to prevent any contact between the exterior of the mask and your face, and certainly not to touch your face with the gloves.
Removing the mask incorrectly risks exposure to whatever was outside the mask in the first place. For the kind of exposure nonmedical personnel ought to experience, and for extended wear periods, I would think the mask would act to integrate whatever you've been surrounded by. In other words, you've collected 8 hours of crap on the front of it, so you'd want to be extra careful with the dirty part.
For what it's worth, the earlier steps include removing outer gloves, and disinfecting the inner gloves.
>the health department there does not recommend that people without illness wear a mask, both because the benefit is uncertain and because there’s a shortage of face masks for health-care workers.
Better to never write "respirator mask" nor "face mask". Those terms perpetuate the confusion.
Direct sneezes or coughs right in front of you are safer but you also need eye protection. That still leaves the ears open and microabrasians on your skin.
False confidence with the expectation they’re safe with an N95 mask is even worse than no mask at all. It’s like those kids in the news some years ago that held up a book to stop a bullet and killed someone.
If you wear the mask in a constrained area with a group of people, such as an elevator, you may as well not even have it on.
The only sure way to not get the virus is avoiding people.
It's possible it has fallen out of favor. I'm a tad on the old side.
I was under the impression that, effectively speaking, it only infects via the lungs.
ALL pathogens if they can penetrate the skin get access to a body and can cause infection. Simple as that.
All pathogens aim for is to harvest your cells. Bacteria and single-cell eucaryote will digest and eat your cells. Viruses will go inside your cells and reprogram cell produce new virus particles.
It is that simple and the easiest way to our bodies is through mucus membranes as they lack skin and are protected by a thin layer of mucus, in other word slime and snot. You have mucus membrane in your aerial pathways in your head as eyes, nose and mouth. Also, your lungs are the huge surface area of mucus membrane.
But if your skin for any reason is ruptured it opens access for any pathogen go in that way. Point is if a pathogen has access to your cells or not. Nothing else. Most infectious diseases first get inside of your body via mucus membranes.
Our skin is not only that last layer of the nonliving layer but consists about few inches of separate layers that in microbiological points are just layers of defense against anything that tries to invade the body. Blood vessels are thin, cell walls that allow white blood cells to move between layers. All layers have little living cells as possible and cell types that are hard to use as food.
So if the skin is only damaged it still gives a fairly difficult pathway to pathogen get on without ending with a good fight. If the skin is fully penetrated the situation is different. That's why all deep penetrations to tissues often cause so severe infections. As whatever pathogen with an arrow, knife blade or bullet get deep in a body where is easy to spread and defenses are low.
My posts have been downvoted into oblivion by a bunch of programmers, but ask a doctor if what I'm saying is correct or not. It is.
Viruses can penetrate mucous membranes (the inside of your ear). Mucous membranes are the top spot where most diseases enter to the body. From there they enter to blood stream and spread to tissues, where ever they can spread.
Other folks already corrected the mistaken belief on your ears. They are connected. That said, I'm not sure why you think that matters? It has no importance when we're talking about a pathogen entering the body.
Source?
I think if you use disposable masks or correctly sanitize[0] a homemade mask after each use, the mask will act to protect yourself and others.
There was an interesting article posted recently comparing the efficacy of surgical masks with household materials[1] - to give a rough idea of how effective a homemade mask might be.
You can also find an interesting comparison of N95 with surgical masks on the same site[2]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22680799
[1] https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-...
[2] https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/n95-mask-surgical-preven...
For example, a large box or auto dispensing machine for individually wrapped, single masks, in libraries, grocery stores, offices, classrooms, movie theaters, etc.
And might as well add motion activated hand sanitizer dispensers at the entrances too.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-31/coronavirus-singapore...
Also interesting, in a bad way: Strategies 1-4 are plainly beyond the ability of US to implement any time soon.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
See: Hawaii, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, much of California and a lot of the warmer south. Which are all seeing between extremely low and low localized per capita transmission levels and hospitalizations, despite the very lagged (and overall mediocre) US response.
The Las Vegas metro area will be 80 degrees on Wednesday. Take a look at their deaths and hospitalizations (despite having millions of people). With their international traffic, vast number of casinos and casino workers, slow speed at which they shut it all down and the initially lagged testing rates, they should be absolutely buried in Covid cases and deaths. They're anything but and they're seeing no big surge in cases.
These temps are the reason why the experts are hopefully anticipating the infection rates to rapidly bend down in the coming weeks, and perhaps peak in May or June. Even very informed people like Bill Gates have spoken publicly about being hopeful about this (see his recent Ted Connects talk, it's about an hour long and almost exclusively about this situation). It's the seasonal temperature increase (and to an extent humidity) factor.
edit: I understand why some people don't like these facts, I understand the emotional response. The numbers don't lie: hotter climates in the US are not seeing the surge in cases, they're not seeing the same hospitalization rates and as a consequence they're not seeing the deaths as in the other climates like NY, NJ, MA, IL, CT, MI.
Check out all the cities in Texas (huge population), their metro areas, and look at the per capita rates of infection, hospitalization and death. Then compare.
And yet Lousiana is getting pounded because of Mardi Gras.
And Florida is likely to follow due to Spring Break.
No state yet has evidence that they have turned their curve over from the standard R0. And, last I checked, practically every state was on the same trajectory past the 100th case.
Check out: Mobile & Birmingham & Montgomery Alabama, the Western handle of Florida, Jackson Mississippi, look at other cities in Louisiana that didn't hold Mardi Gras (and one assumes those cities still got a burst of their cases from the Mardi Gras spread event).
In my country, it is only possible to be tested if you say you were in direct contact with the current 4 confirmed cases (1 deceased), and they would have to confirm that too.
These places are not buried in dead people either. Their intensive care systems are not being flooded. Their hospitals are not being flooded by a million cases.
Mexico is not seeing what NY and other high-infection climates have. Given the poverty, poor healthcare system, poorly prepared healthcare system, high traffic and trade with the US via NAFTA and in general, it should have an enormous number of cases by now, and as a consequence a large number of daily deaths and intensive care cases hammering their healthcare systems in every major city. None of that is happening. It's not happening for the same reason it's not happening in Texas.
I've seen the media publish articles with titles like "coronavirus myths busted: warm weather stops the virus". Ironically, these attempts to combat misinformation are dubious themselves, as the truth is probably somewhere in the middle; that is, warm climates may not outright stop COVID-19, but they may certainly hinder it. The fact is, while we can't make definitive statements at the moment due to limited data and understanding of the virus's pathology, we can make educated guesses through observation.
Another contentious point (particularly here in Australia) is the sentiment that children are mostly immune to the virus. The Aus government is pushing this line very strongly as an excuse to keep schools open (i.e. economical reasons).
So yeah, I don't know why I wrote this comment. Probably to stress the fine line that exists between having a mindset which is open to observational theories, while also being critical of "facts" which are pushed to drive political agendas amidst the coronavirus outbreak.
https://brokeassstuart.com/2020/03/30/bay-area-curve-stays-f...
Show me the 500-2500 dead people in Texas per day, which is what should be happening if they were seeing the surge. Show me a massive explosion in positive cases and hospitalizations. The fact is, it's not happening.
34 deaths in Texas and zero big surge:
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/texas/#history
The testing information has been flawed as a resource in all locations except for a few around the world (eg South Korea, which has been a stellar example). You want to look at the deaths and hospitalizations, the flooding of ICUs in the states. The states I've listed are seeing none of the huge surge that the other high-infection rate climates have. The US isn't hiding tens of thousands of recent Covid deaths from the past week. Our testing has ramped up such that we're able to do near a million tests per week now. If Texas cities were seeing hundreds of daily Covid deaths, it would be everywhere in the news, on social media and so on (as it is in NYC).
Take a look at the SF local metro. Take a look at the infections, hospitalizations and deaths. The SF metro should be buried right now, and it's not at all. The Bay Area has 8 million people, where are the 50,000 cases, surging cases by the thousands per day, and hundreds dead per day? It's not happening. It should have been hit early and hard, and it hasn't been.
Los Angeles has a lot of poverty and healthcare problems, it should be an ideal explosion city. It has seen anything but that outcome despite all of its problems. Los Angeles isn't hiding many thousands of dead Covid patients and ICU cases from the past week.
Take a look at San Diego County. Same thing.
You might wonder: why am I bringing this up, why does it matter? We're misallocating healthcare resources based on an incorrect premise that all locations are equally susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 (which has also led to very flawed speculation, extrapolation, on expected national case numbers (eg: 70% will get infected, a million will die; headlines of: your city could be the next NYC)). Simple example: they sent the USNS Mercy navy ship to Los Angeles, it's needed off the coast of NYC to a dramatically greater degree - LA isn't going to see the same kind of surge (theirs will be far more mild). Conceptually we need Texas and Arizona manufacturing resources for the hard hit climates.
You also failed to mention Washington, which was the site of the first outbreak in the US, and is about as north as you can go and still remain in the union, excluding Alaska. Washington currently has the second-slowest death-count doubling-rate out of any state with at least 10 deaths. Their deaths double every 7 days. It used to be every 3 days. Can’t attribute that to the heat. You know what you can attribute it to? Washington’s response to the outbreak.
Florida’s deaths double every 3 days. Louisiana’s deaths double every 3 days.
Texas’s deaths double every 3 days.
Vermont, another northern state that borders New York state, has the slowest death count doubling rate, at every 12 days.
This is exponential growth. Please stop dealing with absolute numbers. Some states are later into their epidemics than others. Texas is relatively early into their outbreak at ~7 days since the 10th death, but their deaths are growing exponentially as well. The exponential growth curve should be what you’re observing, or else you will make the same mistake that everyone who thinks they’re exceptional makes.
There has been tons of rhetoric designed to discourage the public from buying masks that gives the impression that public wearing masks won't help. A lot of headlines to that effect that lack any nuance at all.
AFAIU, some populations are more likely to exhibit non-overweight, non-obese NAFLD. Likewise for type 2 diabetes.
Personally, I have been using these cheap masks for over a decade whenever I have to clean any dusty place like a garage. If I don't wear one, I am almost guaranteed a a bad allergic reaction. If I do wear one while cleaning, I might sneeze a bit but usually not need Benadryl and pass out for rest of the day.
I imagine same principle applies when it comes to COVID19.
What is the mechanism for this?
At first, I'd expect it to be the other way around--if I'm wearing a mask and cough the mask is going to bear the full force of my cough. All of the cough is hitting the mask, and the cough is moving at its fastest speed.
If I'm not wearing a mask and you are, my cough is going to be spread out some when it reaches you and slowed by air resistance, so your mask should only have to deal with a fraction of my cough and at lower velocity.
Thus, I'd expect your mask to have a much easier task than mine.
Is it that the drops of moisture (and phlegm and whatever else might be in a cough) are bigger at the point of emission and break apart as they disperse, and so they have a harder time going through a mask at my end than at your end?
If that is the case, I still have to wonder what happens on subsequent coughs. I cough, producing big drops that the mask stops. Still, the viruses in the drops have to go somewhere when the mask absorbs the droplets, right? Does my mask end up moistened with virus-contaminated water? Will my subsequent coughs as they blast air through the mask then be able to knock small virus laden droplets off my mask?
Certainly masks will help to some degree, as they will filter out some particles and protect you if someone directly coughs into the mask, but I don't think they are effective compared to things like hand washing.
I am not a doctor, not medical advice.
It's often helpful to evaluate conspiracy theories using Occam's Razor. What's the simplest explanation which fits the facts?
As masks are produced in massive volume then yes encourage everyone wear one as directed.
Where I live, we have a long way to go to perfectly implement social distancing. Given the severity of the pandemic, anything to help stop the spread should be considered and implemented.
Ultimately we need to change our nature, but that's most likely off topic here.
Not unusual in the US. The KKK liked hiding their faces.
The second is "the declaration of a disaster or state of emergency by the Governor in response to a public health emergency where the emergency declaration expressly waives this section, defines the mask appropriate for the emergency, and provides for the duration of the waiver"
Although the Governor issued an Executive Order, yesterday, telling people to stay at home, he did not include a declaration about masks.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/secti...
ii) is more useful here.
> engaged in ... other activities and wearing protective masks which are deemed necessary for the physical safety of the wearer or other persons
Not a single court on the planet right now would be so idiotic as to side with your interpretation of that law.
Section iv.) says "upon a) or b)". a) says "carrying on his person an affidavit from the physician"; b) says "the declaration of a disaster or state of emergency by the Governor in response to a public health emergency where the emergency declaration expressly waives this section, defines the mask appropriate for the emergency, and provides for the duration of the waiver"
It's quite clear. Section ii.) gives much more wiggle room; you could cite the NIH, CDC, etc. there. Section iv.) says only the Governor's declaration (with very specific requirements the current emergency declaration doesn't give) or an actual physical affidavit you're carrying with you count for its exemption.