2 a.m. thoughts of an emergency physician during the pandemic (infect, symptoms)
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It sounds like many people are relying solely on masks and distancing. An infected person can spread the virus by touching objects and surfaces with contaminated hands - while wearing a mask. Others come along and touch them and then touch their faces - eyes, nose, mouth - and become infected, even though they were wearing a mask.
There are constant reminders about wearing masks but practically no reminders to avoid touching your face, especially if you have been in public. Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer when you don't have access to water and soap. Everyone subconsciously touches their face making contact with mucous membranes several times an hour. It takes a conscious effort to stop doing it.
The cases are skyiocketing because people are not wearing masks. The data is in, masks do help prevent the spread.
I know it is hard for so many to grasp but you do not have to have symptoms to spread the virus. The single most important thing to know about this virus. You could be exposed, be positive and not ever feel sick. If you are not wearing a mask at this point you are going to spread the virus to everyone you come near.
There are many articles on wearing masks. Here is one.
I guess no one remembers the case of "Typhoid Mary"? Being an asymptomatic carrier is not a new thing to science - we've known for more than a CENTURY - people still don't get it.
According to Wikipedia: Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), also known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born cook believed to have infected 53 people with typhoid fever, three of whom died, and the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Because she persisted in working as a cook, by which she exposed others to the disease, she was twice forcibly quarantined by authorities, and died after a total of nearly three decades in isolation.
We wash our hands, wear masks inside businesses and practice distancing. We go about life almost normally. DH has worked at a store the whole time. We’ve dined in a few restaurants. We had guests from another state over Thanksgiving.
We are in our 70s. Even if we were to get it at our age there’s about a 95% chance we wouldn’t die. The fear is “overkill”.
Our daughter and grand daughter now have COVID. Our daughter's department has 50% plus employees out with COVID. She is a 911 dispatcher so the center had to be manned.
Sorry to hear it, but dispatch centers are said to be COVID hotbeds because dispatchers are not required to wear masks if their voices cannot be clearly understood while wearing one.
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So, dammit, wear your masks!!!!!!
Masks don't prevent you from contracting it and shouldn't be relied upon exclusively. Stop touching your face, and wash hands/sanitize in case you forget to avoid touching it.
My sister in Oklahoma and one of her sons are scrupulous mask-wearers. She isn't working at the moment, and he is in college online only, so they are both home almost all the time. They both got Covid about ten days ago with mild symptoms and are fully recovered. Her other son works at Trader Joe's (constantly in contact with the public) and he tested negative. Her husband is working in person at Boeing and he didn't get it either. Go figure.
The point is, the percentage of people who get Covid despite wearing masks is just a little (sarcasm) higher than the percentage of women who get pregnant while using three forms of birth control. And that we really haven't figured out yet where the rising case numbers are coming from. Everyone agrees that masks don't give 100% protection, but they clearly don't provide 95%, 90%, or maybe even 75% either. I'm not saying we shouldn't mask, every little bit helps, but I wouldn't go around blaming people who aren't wearing masks, and saying that if we all masked up every second, we wouldn't have a problem.
Exactly, I have seen numerous of cases like that the latest one is my owner daughter lived with a room mate he tested positive and she just tested negative couple days ago, another co-work her son and her husband tested positive and she tested negative, my wife best friend husband tested positive she tested positive but her son tested negative.
Something about this virus and at this point I think there is a no scientific answer for that.
How do you know? Please cite studies, give data, and explain why so many masked places in the world have had cases skyrocket.
"People aren't wearing them" is not an excuse, because in many places people are wearing them, yet cases are soaring.
How about this? Japan has a population of 126+ million as of last month, and yet they have had only 2,465 deaths. That means they have had only 20 deaths per million. There is no country in the world where its citizens rely on masks more than Japan, so wearing masks during this pandemic is a no-brainer for them.
In Japan, if someone gets the sniffles or has any other reason to suspect that they might be contagious, on goes their mask! It is ingrained in the Japanese from the time they were children to protect those around them.
The United States has had 298,903 deaths, which is 901 deaths per million!
Masks don't only prevent a lot of COVID-19 cases, but masks also reduce the viral load so that people who come down with COVID-19 have less severe cases and aren't as likely to die from it.
You can also compare "free-wheeling" Sweden, which tried to achieve herd immunity by letting everyone go about their daily lives and didn't mandate mask-wearing to their long-border neighbor Norway, which did:
Sweden deaths per million: 726
Norway deaths per million: 70
How about this? Japan has a population of 126+ million as of last month, and yet they have had only 2,465 deaths.
You can also compare "free-wheeling" Sweden, which tried to achieve herd immunity by letting everyone go about their daily lives and didn't mandate mask-wearing to their long-border neighbor Norway, which did:
Sweden deaths per million: 726
Norway deaths per million: 70
Denmark has even less mask-wearing than Sweden and their deaths per million stand at 158. Compare that to France, Spain, and Italy, which report very high use of masks by the population, at 871, 1012, and 1036 deaths per million, respectively.
Finland flat out told people not to wear masks all the way up until August, now they cautiously recommend it and their death count stands at 80 per million. Another comparison is Germany vs the UK, Germany reports less mask usage and has significantly less deaths per million. Canada reports less mask usage than the U.S. and clocks in at 346 deaths per million vs the U.S.'s 903.
Cherry-picking some Asian countries, who have a lot more leeway in locking down their population, in addition to having very low amounts of travelers and immigrants is quite dishonest. Experts in Asia also caution against overreliance on face masks according to this story. "a professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, instead credits a range of public health measures implemented in these countries. And Fukuda too cautioned against thinking of mask-wearing "as a magic X-factor"."Some places like Singapore have generally done very well without strongly emphasising masks," he noted." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-masks-asia.html
How would you explain all this if masks are the magical answer to our COVID prayers?
Our daughter and grand daughter now have COVID. Our daughter's department has 50% plus employees out with COVID. She is a 911 dispatcher so the center had to be manned.
So, dammit, wear your masks!!!!!!
Well, you can't terminate one employee who's using sick days and protected leave as indicated by the employee handbook, while not terminating others because they "got sick sooner when there wasn't yet a staffing crisis". So, no, she doesn't HAVE to be at work right now.
We wash our hands, wear masks inside businesses and practice distancing. We go about life almost normally. DH has worked at a store the whole time. We’ve dined in a few restaurants. We had guests from another state over Thanksgiving.
We are in our 70s. Even if we were to get it at our age there’s about a 95% chance we wouldn’t die. The fear is “overkill”.
The fear is not overkill. The fear needs to be there so people will comply. You are complying but many do not.
The doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists are overwhelmed physically and mentally. Loved ones are dying alone. Sure, the odds are good that you or I wont get it and if we do we will be okay. But maybe we wont.
We need to wear masks to keep others safe. Others need to wear masks to keep us safe. Does it suck? YES!!! It ****ing sucks, but losing a loved one or dying myself seems a whole lot worse.
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