When I see smart people not wearing masks and/or standing 3-4 feet from each other I wonder if they have avoided learning both about how contagious this virus is. Do they know that in addition to being fatal in a low percentage of the people who contract it how bad it can be for those who manage to survive?
Yesterday I saw someone without a mask talking to someone wearing a mask. They were not maintaining the six foot social distance which reports indicate has saved my state of Oregon 70,000 cases. ( I previously wrote deaths which should have been obviously incorrect to me)
I wonder how many people think to themselves "the less I know the less anxious I'll feel?" This is the classic ostrich with its head in the sand paradigm (which is really a legend partially based on fact).
It is hard for me, and no doubt for anyone reading this, to believe there are smart people who haven’t been following updated reports about contagion, that haven’t seen videos from the laser-sneeze and cough studies on MSNBC. We read articles like this and have taken prudent precautions.
Excerpt:
A single person with COVID-19 may be more likely to infect up to 5 or 6 other people, rather than 2 or 3, suggests a new study of Chinese data from the CDC. It’s not clear if this higher number applies only to the cases in China or if it will be similar in other countries.
If the higher number does remain true elsewhere, it means that more people in a population need to be immune from the disease—either from having already had it or from a vaccine—to stop it from circulating.
The new study, published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, shifts the R0 for COVID-19 from about 2.2 to about 5.7. With the lower number, only 55% of a population needs to be immune from COVID-19 to stop its spread through herd immunity. Herd immunity refers to enough of a population being immune to a disease that the disease cannot travel through it.
As the article from Salon (bottom of page) shows, scientists still have many questions about whether and/or how contracting and surviving Covid-19 actually confers immunity.
Some advice (I am a retired psychotherapist):
There are effective ways to deal with anxiety from meditation and yoga which I suggest trying if you haven’t already. Here are 18 YouTube yoga videos and 10 guided mediation videos. Now many therapists and counselors have shifted their practices to FaceTime and Zoom therapy. You can find them by a simple internet search but be aware that some of the “best of” sites require a fee to be listed so check out any therapists credentials.
If you get overwhelmed there’s always Valium, Xanax, and other tranquilizers. Your family physician will probably prescribe them after a phone consultation especially if you start having panic attacks. If you have never experienced on before it is frequently terrifying.
Of course these times can lead to people feeling depressed. There are basically four kinds. Here’s a good article about them.
I also counsel anyone who finds themselves drinking. more than usual that alcohol is easily abused and can become a chronic problem when used to cope with any life stress.
Unfortunately, there's no pill for Covid-19.
Covid-19 needs to be likened to metastasized cancer because of all the organ systems it can attack. Maybe if people understood this they wouldn’t be as sanguine about taking their chances with catching the virus or infecting someone else.
And as we learn more, it’s clear that COVID-19 can be more than just a respiratory disease. It’s joined the ranks of other “great imitators” -- diseases that can look like almost any condition.
Though COVID-19 mainly affects the lungs, the virus can make it harder for your heart to function as it should.
It can be a gastrointestinal disease causing only diarrhea and abdominal pain. It can cause symptoms that may be confused with a cold or the flu. It can cause pinkeye, a runny nose, loss of taste and smell, muscle aches, fatigue, diarrhea, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, whole-body rashes, and areas of swelling and redness in just a few spots.
In a more severe disease, doctors have also reported people having heart rhythm problems, heart failure, kidney damage, confusion, headaches, seizures, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and fainting spells, along with new sugar control problems.
It’s not just a fever and coughing, leading to shortness of breath, like everyone thought at first.
This makes it incredibly difficult to diagnose and even harder to treat. Read article
There are many people who have been brainwashed not to trust science when it comes to climate change, but now are hanging their hopes on science to save them. Unfortunately they aren’t likely to read articles like this in Salon, and if they did they probably wouldn’t understand what it means. It does not inspire hope!
Emphasis added
"Cross-reactivity of antibody to other common coronavirus proteins may also occur, so a positive serology may either reflect infection with SARS-CoV-2 or past infection with other human coronaviruses," he added.
Researchers said it was too early to determine what it actually means to have antibodies to the virus.
"I'm very ambivalent about these tests, because we don't really know yet through the science what it means to have an antibody," Dr. Joan Cangiarella, a pathologist at New York University's Langone Health, told The New York Times. "We are hoping these antibodies mean you will be immune for some time. But I don't think the data is fully out there to understand if that means that you're actually immune. And if these antibodies start to decline, what's that time frame? Does it decline in a year from now?"
Dr. James Crawford, who oversees the laboratory network at New York's Northwell Health system, added that there was a "pressing need to have both parts of the equation — who has the virus and who has mounted an immune response."
"To use it as a fulcrum for when someone can travel or work," he cautioned, "I think we have to be extremely careful as a society in doing that.” Read article
There are ways effective ways to deal with anxiety from meditation and yoga to Valium and Xanax, but there's no pill to treat for Covid-19 or vaccine to prevent it. The best way to deal with it that we are sure is effective is social distancing and wearing masks. I am not saying that everyone has to approximate the level of protection that I sometimes do which not only protects others but may also protect me. It would seem that taking the simple step of using any kind of facial covering from a homemade mask to a commercial one, and learning how far six feet is, wouldn’t be too difficult.
Related story:
Poll from above story showing that 80% of Daily Kos readers are very conscientious about protecting others from the virus.