The Centers for Disease Control website has now posted revised guidelines for the public non-medical use of face masks.
CDC continues to study the spread and effects of the novel coronavirus across the United States. We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms. This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity—for example, speaking, coughing, or sneezing—even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms. In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.
It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus. CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.
The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators. Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.
There is no shortage of DIY facemask videos out there.
There’s a little bit more that I have to say but first...here’s who we are and what we do.
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Generally speaking, I suppose that I am doing OK while I am under the stay-at home orders here in Illinois. Today was actually a gorgeous spring day but I only went out to the corner store and returned back home.
I can’t lie, though: everyday that this pandemic rages and especially considering the current Occupant of the Oval Office, things seem a little more...bleak, stressed, dark; as if this is something that we’ll never be over.
And the truth is: we never will be over it even when the worst of this pandemic subsides.
So many lives lost or ruined; yes, the United States of America will change in a very profound way after the COVID-19 pandemic eases.
Living in these times is both exhilerating, in a way. But also terrifying.
Finally tonight...the music of Bill Withers, who passed today at the age of 81, was part of the soundtrack of my boyhood growing up on Detroit’s east side. My ears would always perk up when I would hear his songs on the radio...first the music and then that smooth baritone voice that could hold those notes (some say that Withers still has the record for the longest note ever held on a Billboard Top 40 song). Now, I kinda figured out that many of his songs were about adult man-woman relationship but I did not make that connection to my favorite Withers song, I don’t think, until I was a teenager. I simply always thought that the idea of having a lovely day was just...a great thought to have. And it is a great thought to have.
Still.
Even nowadays.
Comments below the fold.
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From belinda ridgewood:
In Greg Dworkin's APR today, thurayya brought a pair of comments presenting the very funny results of the Washington Post's annual neologism contest.
From aitchdee:
The administration's deeds are becoming so breathtakingly heinous it would seem even our best wordsmiths are nearly at a loss--and who can blame them?--but this comment from AZValkyrie [from Aldous J Pennyfarthing’s recommended post about Jared Kushner’s breathtaking lack of self-awareness] struck me as a pithy and nicely acerbic summation, I suspect, of most people's general sentiments right about now.
Thank you for having a look.
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