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COVID-2019 in America, effect on politics and economy
I am hearing some news reports of examples of infection showing up in some populations in India & Pakistan. How prepared are those countries? Do you fear wide breakouts?
It will be handled just like in countries whose health system is presently overwhelmed. Those with mild infections will be given medicines and told to self isolate. They will have a stamp on their hand and be tracked. Those with severe infections or critical will be given something to ease their passing in a govt isolation ward should ventilators be in short supply.
We are ramping up testing right now, so expect spikes this month. Govt labs have a capacity of 10k tests per day but are only being used at a third of their capacity. The private sector hospitals have been green lighted to do tests as well.
For now they are only testing people with symptoms. As time goes on they will ramp up sentinel testing in various parts of the country and begin cordoning off clusters. Entire areas will be quarantined wholesale if necessary.
It remains to be seen whether the present country wide lockdown is maintained beyond Apr 15 and to what extent it will be eased. The lock down was imposed because people weren't adhering to social distancing. The first week was lenient, this second week is stricter because people weren't complying to the extent desired. So in my city they seized vehicles of people who did not have a good reason for being out. This is the new policy instead of caning people.
We're placed orders for PPE's for health workers as well as health kits. Defense contractors have been tapped to produce such equipment as well. Prisoners are making masks these days.
This is a country that has had to contain numerous outbreaks in the past. This will be a challenge for sure. But we will deal with it.
The problem in Pakistan is they cannot get the religious establishment to comply with halting Friday prayers. India has been somewhat more successful with persuading people to pray from home.
The media has been getting the message out for a few weeks already. Every phone call placed makes you listen to some recorded message before it connects. What to do, what symptoms to look out for etc. This is a very effective way of sending the message to everybody as most people have mobiles these days. My maid turned up the other day with a scarf. I was surprised. She's illiterate and even she was aware.
The govt has not made wearing masks mandatory AFAIK but it would be a good move. I think its people noticing others and deciding to voluntarily comply.
The key is social distancing. If we get compliance it breaks the chain of infection. Slows down the exponential runaway. There are hopes that with the place warming up that people's vitamin D level will be naturally boosted. If they've had BCG (anti TB vaccine) that helps too. As of now the situation is manageable in India. The bulk of infections have been imported. There is local transmission occurring so we're at Stage 2 presently. Once it spreads over a larger area we enter Stage 3. How close we are to Stage 3 is as yet unknown.
Responsibility of not getting infected and becoming a burden on the health system is in our hands. I don't know how well that message is getting through to the public.
^ How are you all (Americans) managing food (groceries, meat, veggies etc) in this lockdown? Stocked up or online ordering?
By going to the grocery store which I will do today after I leave my office. I'll get 2 gal. of milk, a cartoon of eggs, a 3lb. pack of ground turkey to make enough chili (using pantry dried pinto beans) for 6 weeks, some cans of diced tomatoes and assorted veggies. Simple. If one doesn't mind eggs, oatmeal, blueberries, tomato sauce, potatoes and chilli I can easily have 6 weeks of food based on that. My son may whine but to me food is food.
My only protection will be one of the few surgical masks from my office and a pair of my many examination gloves. I can keep distance in a store but one does touch many surfaces in a store.
I've held off on going to the store until I could get a mask to wear.
Perfect is the enemy of good. Think about why you would need a mask? To prevent heavy airborned droplets that can't stay in still in air for more than a minute to enter your nose and mouth. Now think about the most likely vectors that can happen from the air when you maintain 2 metres distance. If you sneeze into a hankerchief, how much droplets actually get through that to your hands? Now think about how much velocity those droplets from others actually have?
A good cloth bandena would suffice for 85% of your needs. Is it 100%? No but the absence of surgical masks should not you from increasing your own personal odds of preventing infection while needing to do survival shopping.
There have been two deaths in that age group in the US alone within the last week. A 6-week-old newborn and a 9-month-old infant. In China a 10-month-old infant with preexisting conditions died.
Other than that the youngest death whose age has been publicly released (because that's the decisive factor actually) was a 12-year-old girl in Belgium yesterday.
Perfect is the enemy of good. Think about why you would need a mask? To prevent heavy airborned droplets that can't stay in still in air for more than a minute to enter your nose and mouth. Now think about the most likely vectors that can happen from the air when you maintain 2 metres distance. If you sneeze into a hankerchief, how much droplets actually get through that to your hands? Now think about how much velocity those droplets from others actually have?
A good cloth bandena would suffice for 85% of your needs. Is it 100%? No but the absence of surgical masks should not you from increasing your own personal odds of preventing infection while needing to do survival shopping.
A surgical mask is indeed "good enough", in this case. I could probably re-purpose an old t-shirt into a bandanna but a surgical mask is easier to put on and take off quickly. Plus, I'm wearing it all day along anyway.
"Perfect" would be an N95 mask but I don't have access to those. Well, I do, but I'm not going to take away from colleagues who have direct contact with patients.
I'm not in need of survival goods, as it were. This is hurricane country, so I'm well-stocked with things like canned goods, bottled water, MRE's and toilet paper, year-round, just as a matter of course.
I merely need refilling on the perishable consumables, like fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, yogurt etc that I use for my daily lunches (3 birds with one stone: trying to eat more healthily, save money and stay away from the main hospital where the cafeteria is located here on campus.)
I'm personally in an extremely good place right now, more than able to weather this storm, at least for the time being. Truth be told, I'm 180 degrees away from where I was back in 2008. That was...difficult. :(
Apologies for the impromptu blog...Sometimes it's good to take stock of a situation and put things down on paper, as it were.
I hope every last one of you WABits are ok, healthy and the same is true of your families.
“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
I merely need refilling on the perishable consumables, like fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, yogurt etc that I use for my daily lunches (3 birds with one stone: trying to eat more healthily, save money and stay away from the main hospital where the cafeteria is located here on campus.)
You can make yoghurt yourself. Plain white that is. Flavoured requires more ingredients. I tend to have it with food so no flavouring with me.
Last time i bought yoghurt (or curds as we call it) was May last year. That was the starter culture.
My sick meal since forever is plain yoghurt, on rice with sliced tomatoes and some spicy pickle or chutney. This counts as a proper meal for millions in India. Curd rice.
By going to the grocery store which I will do today after I leave my office. I'll get 2 gal. of milk, a cartoon of eggs, a 3lb. pack of ground turkey to make enough chili (using pantry dried pinto beans) for 6 weeks, some cans of diced tomatoes and assorted veggies. Simple. If one doesn't mind eggs, oatmeal, blueberries, tomato sauce, potatoes and chilli I can easily have 6 weeks of food based on that. My son may whine but to me food is food.
Reminded me i've not made a chili in a long time. I don't know why that dish isn't more popular in India as all the ingredients are avaialble. So tasty as well. Proper meal.
My only protection will be one of the few surgical masks from my office and a pair of my many examination gloves. I can keep distance in a store but one does touch many surfaces in a store.
I have a box of several hundred of these but i've not bothered. The rule now is just wash hands after coming from outside.
You could dispose off them once you leave the store and save on sanitiser for hands. Which only ends up drying them up over time.
You can make yoghurt yourself. Plain white that is. Flavoured requires more ingredients. I tend to have it with food so no flavouring with me.
Last time i bought yoghurt (or curds as we call it) was May last year. That was the starter culture.
My sick meal since forever is plain yoghurt, on rice with sliced tomatoes and some spicy pickle or chutney. This counts as a proper meal for millions in India. Curd rice.
Seen me through many a sick day and hangover.
Reminded me i've not made a chili in a long time. I don't know why that dish isn't more popular in India as all the ingredients are avaialble. So tasty as well. Proper meal.
I have a box of several hundred of these but i've not bothered. The rule now is just wash hands after coming from outside.
You could dispose off them once you leave the store and save on sanitiser for hands. Which only ends up drying them up over time.
Those are all excellent suggestions, and I should probably learn some self-sufficiency skills....like cooking.
“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
So you want to put your Pater down? Because that is exactly what you're implying with Mad Cow about slaughtering the entire herd.
I think my Pater is quite safe now he has had his test and joined us. But yes I would 'put him down' if he were a threat to my small people and I think he would agree with it. He is old and they carry hope for all our future. Stay well is the first prerequisite in a pandemic short of culling your Pater.
Did you catch the bottom of the very last page which was another study on how long the influenza virus could remain viable on a mask? Obviously reusing is questionable.
The reuse of filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) after decontamination has been suggested as a strat-egy to conserve supplies during an influenza pan-demic. The feasibility of decontaminating FFRs has been investigated under laboratory conditions; how-ever, the need for decontamination of FFRs is not well characterized. In this study the potential for FFRs to act as fomites was examined using bacteriophage MS2. Virus was applied to FFR coupons as an aerosol or liquid drops and stored at 22°C and 30% relative hu-midity. Viability of the virus was monitored every 24 hours from 1 to 5 days with a final sampling occurring on day 10. At least 10% of the initial MS2 load was able to survive for 4 days on the FFR coupons regard-less of the deposition method. All coupons contained detectable levels of MS2 on the tenth day.
I think my Pater is quite safe now he has had his test and joined us. But yes I would 'put him down' if he were a threat to my small people and I think he would agree with it. He is old and they carry hope for all our future. Stay well is the first prerequisite in a pandemic short of culling your Pater.
Thank God you're not the decision maker and those of us who served would man the machine guns against your kind.
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