Tag: masks

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pandemic

A Collection of Covid Links

I have been lax in writing lately. Maybe my posts about mental health have given you a small clue about why? Not so subtle hint… In the background, I’m still reading some news and research, but most of the links I find interesting just end up in a notes file loosely titled “pandemic.” Today, I decided that I could at least go back and share the stories I’ve found interesting enough to save over the last month. Some might be a little out of date, but I know you’ll excuse me.

Double Masking

Most recently, the CDC annouced some shocking news (to me!) about masking. According to this NPR article, “Double Masking Offers More Protection,” with the most common combo being a cloth mask over a disposable (paper) surgical mask. This apparently helps the masks fit tightly and seal any holes that might exist to keep out any stray aerosols. When both people in an “exposure” during research wore their mask according to newly recommended CDC standards, transmissions of covid was reduced by 95%. This is AS EFFECTIVE AS THE VACCINE.

New CDC mask fitting guidelines issued as of Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

So, wear a mask, or even better TWO MASKS!

A Covid Cure?

Monday, January 25, a group of scientists from UCSF announced promising research into the cancer drug Aplidin, currently only approved in Australian to treat multiple myeloma, but currently on limited trial in Spain for covid19. The anti-viral drug is 30 times more potent that the current standard treatment remdesivir. Aplidin, generic name plitidepsin, was discovered in a sea squirt called Aplidium albicans off the coast of Ibiza, Spain but is not commercially available in most of the world.

Read more about the research at “The UCSF-led team racing to find a COVID cure may have found a promising candidate“

Will Covid End Homelessness?

This is the question Emma Gray Ellis asks for Wired Magazine in the article “The Lasting Impact of Covid-19 on Homelessness in the US.” She explores programs like California’s Project Roomkey, which utilized unused hotel rooms to house homeless people to curb the spread of covid among the homeless population by simply getting them off the street. And then the how the plan has transitioned to Project Homekey, which is attempting to turn these places into permanent housing for the homeless. Will attempts across the country to prevent widespread covid in the homeless population actually result in long-lasting change and housing? I really hope so, and some signs point to yes.

January in Santa Clara County ICUs

Its only February and yet January seems years away. It was a horrible post-holiday surge, and in the Bay Area, Santa Clara County was one of the hardest hit–as it was at the very beginning of the pandemic as well. This article about what it’s like inside the ICUs during the surge is fascinating reading, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Categories
pandemic

The Struggle for N95s

Think about the N95 mask. Our lifeline in the fight against covid. At once something so simple and so complicated. Would you ever imagine that the inventor of this absolutely invaluable mask is a man of only 68, who just retired two years ago? That the N95 was only invented in 1995. Invented. In 1995. Holy moly.

I guess I’m showing my age, but that doesn’t seem long enough ago for a mask that protects so many people from so many things… before covid, it was (and still is) used for those who care for patients with tuberculosis, novel flu strains such as H1N1 back in 2009, hemorrhagic viruses such as Ebola, and construction workers use it to filter airborne particles many of which can cause permanent lung damage as well.

A world without N95s seems like a very dangerous place.

So, the shortage that occurred during our covid surges throughout America and the world are a major failure. The lack of ability for even healthcare providers to have adequate personal protective equipment (ppe) is a sign of how broken our healthcare system and our government really is.

The continued dedication of healthcare professionals however–those who go to work anyways, even if they have to reuse masks for way too long or wear homemade masks and gowns–is a testament to the goodness of people, to the bravery that can be found even in the face of mortality.

I have been going to work knowing that if I get covid, I could die. But I go anyways. And I always would.

That is why I so appreciate the story if Dr. Peter Tsai, the inventor of the N95. He has come out of retirement to help companies change manufacturing plants in order to meet the needs of our healthcare system. And he does this for nothing. He feels it is his calling… read more about him in this feature in the Washington Post.

Categories
pandemic

The twindemic is unfortunately real for the Bay Area

We have our first case of a patient infected with both covid and the flu!

Get your flu shots!!! Wear your masks & wash your hands! This is not the time to get lazy about stuff. Yes, we want to have family holidays and go out and socialize but y’all! Everywhere I go people are not masked except the service workers (you know “essential”). They deign to put on a mask to enter a store, but the certainly won’t give you six feet. I’m looking at you Marin County. San Francisco’s Marina District. Out here in the East Bay (NOT the Berkeley part), where all the essential workers live, we wear masks outside to talk to our neighbors. Like people who value human life and don’t want to kill each other.

Well, that escalated quickly.

Here’s a link t0 the twindemic / co-infection new article: https://abc7news.com/health/1st-case-of-flu-covid-19-co-infection-confirmed-in-solano-co/7457101/