Coronavirus ~ COVID-19

[theoddz]

For folks who might be looking for masks that might offer some sort of protection from COVID-19, I have a couple of web sites that offer medical (PPE) masks to the general public in smaller batches (25-50 disposable masks). Compared to some of the price gouging I've seen from some sellers, these 2 sites don't seem to be too bad, costwise.

www.Banggood.com

and

www.masksbywhizley.com/


A word about these masks, though. Keep in mind that I've been a Registered Respiratory Therapist (now retired) for nearly 30 years, and my specialty has always been in the field of Adult Critical Care (ICU). It's from this perspective that I'm going to say a couple of things about these masks.

In the hospital environment, for "general"/Universal Precautions personal protection equipment, we use the thin, paperlike (usually they are a light blue in color, but can also be white or a pale yellow color) masks with the slim elastic ear loops. Sometimes these masks come with an attached plastic face mask, and sometimes not, but they are suitable for protecting against simple splashes and the like. They don't really do a whole lot for small particle (less than 3 microns in size, which is SMALL), as in bacterial or viral, protection. Sometimes, these masks are offered in health care environments, doctors' offices and the like, to patients who have an active cough, for the purpose of protecting others who might be around them.

Now, that being said, the masks that we use for what we've always called "Respiratory Isolation" or "Droplet/Airborne Isolation" (this would be COVID-19), we use what is called an N95, or NP95 Protective Mask. These masks are made much more durably, consisting of a thicker structure and a higher degree of protection, effectively blocking the inhalation of particles/virus/bacteria that are less than 3 microns in size. The important thing that you need to consider here before one goes rushing out to try to buy one or more of these N(P)95 masks is this: In order for these masks to guarantee that they will work effectively and perform to the standards that they are designed for, they must first be FIT TESTED, to ensure that they will fit the wearer correctly. These masks are disposable, and tend to be much more expensive and, in these days and times, harder to find. These are the masks that the authorities were first urging people NOT to buy, to ensure that there would be enough of them available for health professionals. I'm not telling anyone to either buy or not buy these masks. That's up to you. I'm not your conscience, nor am I your moral compass. If you want to buy one of these N95 masks, in particular, buy one, but be aware of what you're getting, what it's intended for and who it is intended for. In the hospital, we have special Infection Control teams who are constantly and periodically fit testing us, in order to ensure that we are protected by these masks.

There are also masks being sold on Amazon and Etsy that are made of various materials and are not considered to be "medical grade". These can be hand made and consist of any number of fabrics and materials. I've seen a few neoprene masks that are suitable for sports activities and some that are designed to protect against dust and pollution. I'm not thinking that these would be very effective, in reality, but I guess they'd be better than nothing, if nothing else were available. They are inexpensive and I've heard that, for someone with any kind of sewing ability, relatively easy to make.

Either way, I hope this information might serve to provide information to the folks who'd like to know this sort of thing. I hope everyone is staying safe, washing your hands and practicing the advised social distancing.

~Theo~

[Kätzchen]

I don't know if anyone has posted about complications to ones health by improperly using disinfectants but as a former hairdresser and because of built in knowledge about chemicals (in general), I wonder if people realize that another consequence or health liability is the over use of disinfectants or the mishandling of disinfectants or improper mixing of disinfectants.

For example, how many people actually put on gloves first before using a Clorox disinfectant wipe? I see people readily pulling out sheet after sheet of those cleaning wipes with no gloves over their hands to protect them from being over-exposed to common place disinfection methods.

I think it's wise to put on a pair of gloves because anything your unprotected body touches, even if it is only for a brief time or for extended time periods, your body absorbs the disinfectant which could lead to other unintended consequences (health wise).

If anyone is interested in reading an article about it, I will include a worth while read in the title of the scientific article below.

Health Problems and Disinfectant Product Exposure at a Large Multi-specialty Hospital
(American Journal of Infection Control; Vol. 45, Issue 10, published October 1st, 2017, pp. 1133=1138. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc.).

[Jedi]

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavi...tjBuQczeroxXbw

I found this in my travels on the interwebs and it's what I have been saying all along. I really think the fucking CEOs and the damn 1% need to fucking suck it up. I'm not killing myself for your comfort. What have you done for me? What are you doing now for your fellow man? Not a damn thing. True colors right there.

[Gemme]

I don't know if someone's mentioned this already but animals are now showing up with COVID-19. Dogs and cats in the US and Hong Kong plus lions and tigers at the Bronx Zoo have tested positive.

[Orema]

Originally Posted by Gemme

I don't know if someone's mentioned this already but animals are now showing up with COVID-19. Dogs and cats in the US and Hong Kong plus lions and tigers at the Bronx Zoo have tested positive.

And with people going to the beach makes me wonder how this can or will affect sea life.

[~ocean]

Originally Posted by Orema

And with people going to the beach makes me wonder how this can or will affect sea life.

good point Orema ~ pray that won't happen ~ I know from where I live in a city close by they have detected the Covid-19 in the sewerage .

[Kätzchen]

Sociology and Epidemiology studies can be very helpful in mapping how COVID 19 is transmitted via various other host processes (for example: water waste management processes, and the possibility that water resources can be compromised).


Here's a news article I found which was published a few weeks ago at the top of April (link provided below):

New research examines wastewater to detect community spread of Covid-19

[nycfem]

While COVID-19 is trending down in NY, we still have 370,000 cases reported (and keep in mind at least 80% don't get reported) and we have 30K deaths in NY. The affect of the protests, which I'm in no way dissing, which are very active in liberal NYC also would seem to have an obvious impact on opportunities for contracting COVID. I still NEVER go outside (each of us have gone out one time in the past few months). I still sanitize everything to the Nth degree, do everything with tedious care. Just this week I had 3 friends with COVID. And the symptoms are just horrible. Last night I called a messenger to deliver my oximeter (I ordered a new one) to my friend on the other side of Central Park, living alone, who has COVID. He said his chest feels like it's filled with broken glass and that it's so painful to breathe, that breathing in and out feels like breathing through shards of glass. He also has aches, pains, fever, no smell/taste, and extreme back pain making it hard to walk. He went to the hospital, had a very painful test that still hurts, and was told to go home and to come back if he starts to have true difficulty with breathing, not just painful breathing. I gave him the oximeter to monitor for silent hypoxia. I find myself in such a chronic state of anxiety. NYC will open on June 8th but I think a lot of people will still stay inside given how prevalent it is here. It can't be ignored when so many of the people who one knows locally have it. I think NYC is opening because our economy is falling completely apart, and it is thought this will help (Presumably, of course, it will.). I just wanted to check in again and say thanks, everyone, for the community here and the caring between all of us. It is a horrendous time in the world.

[Vincent]

Originally Posted by nycfem

While COVID-19 is trending down in NY, we still have 370,000 cases reported (and keep in mind at least 80% don't get reported) and we have 30K deaths in NY. The affect of the protests, which I'm in no way dissing, which are very active in liberal NYC also would seem to have an obvious impact on opportunities for contracting COVID. I still NEVER go outside (each of us have gone out one time in the past few months). I still sanitize everything to the Nth degree, do everything with tedious care. Just this week I had 3 friends with COVID. And the symptoms are just horrible. Last night I called a messenger to deliver my oximeter (I ordered a new one) to my friend on the other side of Central Park, living alone, who has COVID. He said his chest feels like it's filled with broken glass and that it's so painful to breathe, that breathing in and out feels like breathing through shards of glass. He also has aches, pains, fever, no smell/taste, and extreme back pain making it hard to walk. He went to the hospital, had a very painful test that still hurts, and was told to go home and to come back if he starts to have true difficulty with breathing, not just painful breathing. I gave him the oximeter to monitor for silent hypoxia. I find myself in such a chronic state of anxiety. NYC will open on June 8th but I think a lot of people will still stay inside given how prevalent it is here. It can't be ignored when so many of the people who one knows locally have it. I think NYC is opening because our economy is falling completely apart, and it is thought this will help (Presumably, of course, it will.). I just wanted to check in again and say thanks, everyone, for the community here and the caring between all of us. It is a horrendous time in the world.

I'm so sad to read this,from here it does seem sureal,but know that,some of us care about our comrades/brothes and sisters in the USA.
in solidarity from Aust.xxxx

[Kätzchen]

So, not sure if any of you know about some of the things going on in my own metro area of Oregon. Last week, after nearly two months of people who desperately needed unemployment benefits, our governor was presented with enough evidence by two Democratic senators, who represent big districts of voters in our metro area, to force the governor to fire the chief honcho who used to run the Unemployment/Employment department. Many people in our state have not received unemployment covid benefits to this date. Two and a half months later, still no one has received any monetary assistance. My sister-in-law is in that group of people who are in dire financial straits. I would be in that situation too, had I still been an independent contractor and in the same industry she is in. Thank heavens I am not, but wow, imagine how bad it is for people who are still not receiving any compensation from being laid off their jobs, due to the ongoing spread of COVID 19.

Which, btw, the largest county in our metro area is planning to open up to the 1st phase of opening up the county. Not nary a word in the news about up-ticks in new covid cases, which there are new cases being reported each day since last week or the week before. But we hear about it via OPB news snippets during the first airing of news on the radio as we drive to work.

Each day that goes by, particularly this coming week, highways will be jam-packed with frenzied drivers hurrying to work, which will make getting to work a long an arduous commute. Even public transit still has limited service and limits the amount of riders allowed on buses or trains. It is going to be a nightmare, once next week gets under way.

Today? I went out and bought more toilet paper, face tissues, and restocked OTC meds I have run out of, since things disappeared from stores weeks ago. We still can't find cleaning products like we used to be able to buy, before this all went haywire in early March.

But I've found replacement supplies at natural grocer types of stores. I've had to pay a higher price to get it, but at least I have what I need on hand here at home, in case we come to a screeching halt again. It's hard to find clean fresh uncompromised food sources. I am super careful where I buy my produce, because in recent local news, several produce suppliers and local produce farms were found to have their work crews who tested positive for COVID. So that is very concerning news. It makes finding uncompromised food super difficult.

At work? This past week, plexiguard barriers were installed everywhere on campus. Laminated signs are on nearly every window, door, hallway, in the elevators, bathrooms and no lobby furnishings have returned -- so people can't sit in the lobby or meander around doing nothing or claim that no one told them they can't stand around invading each other's space. The six foot rule will be enforced and it will all be on CCTV so people can't lie their way out of not knowing the rules and/or the new standards for conduct & decorum (pinch of sarcasm alert).

I'm worried. I am very concerned. COVID is not over with and now it's going to be super serious if new waves of illness take off due to people not changing their behaviors.

That's all I got for now. I hope we all survive and that safety is not compromised over the coming weeks and months ahead.

[C0LLETTE]

CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

What a coincidence that the companies that own the largest grocery chains in Canada all decided – some within hours of each other – that the danger posed by COVID-19 no longer merits forking over a couple of extra bucks for each employee. Surely the timing is just happenstance; these companies would never collude on something so untoward.

With the exception of Walmart, which ended its program on May 31, all the other major grocers – Loblaw, Metro and Empire (which owns Sobeys and Safeway) – decided last week to end their “hero pay” programs, which saw employees earn an extra couple of dollars an hour in exchange for working during a global pandemic. The companies cited the end of acute-crisis conditions and the establishment of a “new normal” as justification for returning to regular wages.

Now, perhaps these grocery chief executives know something about contracting COVID-19 that the rest of us do not, because according to ... well, virtually everyone else, the pandemic in Canada is anything but over.

Grocery-store employees are currently working in what is probably the highest-traffic workplace outside of hospitals (and hospital staff, it should be noted, are actually trained to work under pandemic conditions). That regions are slowly reopening doesn’t mean the risk to individuals is gone; it means that the outbreak has been controlled to the extent that hospitals, testing and contact-tracing can theoretically keep pace with continuing infections. In Ontario, the number of new daily infections is roughly where it was in late March, back when these companies first introduced their pandemic pay bumps.

So while these grocers might feel confident in their carefully crafted messages about normalcy returning to their stores, the reality is that in many regions, grocery-store workers will still continue to get sick. The difference is, they will now get sick while back on minimum wage.

It’s true that the pandemic pay bump, which saw Loblaw, Walmart and Metro employees paid an extra $2 an hour and Empire workers earn an extra $50 a week plus $2 extra for every hour over 20 hours, was always supposed to be temporary. It was introduced amid an initial panic that stores wouldn’t have enough staff to maintain essential operations during those uncertain first few weeks. But the health risk to front-line grocery workers hasn’t changed all that much between then and now. Plexiglass shields and physical-distancing practices were implemented around the same time as the pay bumps, not materially after.

What has changed since the end of March, rather, is the business case for a $2-an-hour premium. Grocery stores operate on relatively thin margins, where wages constitute the largest proportion of operating expenses. Now that Canadian cities are starting to reopen, resumed restaurant operations threaten to cut into the revenue and profit surges these stores have enjoyed over the past few months. And the looming expiration of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (although the federal government announced Tuesday it will extend the program by eight weeks) means more people may soon start looking for work.

Taken together, these are good reasons for a profit-minded company to scrap a bonus-pay program. It has absolutely nothing to do with employees suddenly being safer at work.

But then, we all knew that. These companies’ responsibilities are ultimately to their shareholders – not to the people stocking cans of tuna for $14 an hour, hoping they don’t bring the virus home to their families. Loblaw spokesperson Catherine Thomas essentially said as much in an e-mail to the Toronto Star, where she noted that “the company is no longer benefitting financially from COVID-19.” Alas, if only the rest of us could understand the angst of watching an enormous, unexpected profit reared from a wildly destructive disease slowly start to dissipate.

There is, perhaps, a good reason for government to get involved, especially considering the curious “coincidence” of the companies’ announcements and past subsidies the government has handed out to the industry. But on a matter like this, when corporate interests appear to have strayed so far from the basic principles of human decency, customers’ voices tend to wield more power than a government summons ever could achieve.

In normal times, callous, profit-centric corporate behaviour is not particularly remarkable. But one effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to amplify our society’s ugliest tendencies in a way that’s difficult to ignore. Clawing back an extra couple of dollars from grocery staff during a pandemic, while spuriously implying the risk is no longer there, transcends conventional ugliness to become distinctly grotesque. Deep down, the people behind the corporate decisions at Loblaw, Walmart, Metro and Empire surely know better.

[homoe]

On Friday night, like nearly every other weekend for the past month, the bars and nightclubs in downtown Scottsdale were packed. Dance floors were jammed. Lines to get in stretched for blocks. And almost nobody wore masks or gloves. When Gov. Doug Ducey lifted Arizona's stay-at-home order May 15, giving the green light for much of the state's economy to restart, he said residents had the right and responsibility to gauge the risks posed by the novel coronavirus and to act accordingly. “What an Arizonan decides to do is up to them,” he said.

"When I see packed nightclubs, I'm deeply concerned," said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, who is one of a growing number of local officials in the state calling on Ducey to better regulate the industry. "It sends this message that we're through this — that we've defeated it."

The state recorded 7,121 new cases between May 31 and June 6 — a 54% increase over the previous week and the largest week-to-week increase since the pandemic began. Arizona has also seen a spike in hospitalizations, with 1,400 people hospitalized on Friday, up from 755 a month earlier. ICU capacity in the state has passed 80%, according to the Department of Health Services.

Arizona is one of 22 states that have seen the number of new daily cases rise — which health experts say is likely a result of the end of stay-at-home orders.