This is the most up to date information I have acquired as of 5/4/20.
The original draft was for my family. I posted a version as a comment to
www.dailykos.com/... and it was suggested I create a diary of my comment.
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I would like this version to get to vulnerable populations.
That is the purpose of this latest draft.
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Do people where you live get the flu?
What leads you to believe you are safe from COVID-19?
COVID-19 is MANY times more contagious than the flu and MANY times more deadly.
Flu shots significantly reduce the number of people who get the flu each year.
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ONLY YOUR BEHAVIOR AND THE BEHAVIOR OF YOUR NEIGHBORS PREVENTS COVID-19
There is no treatment.
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Avoid COVID-19. Whatever it takes.
Surviving COVID-19, even surviving it without symptoms, may not be without severe consequences. COVID-19 doesn't just attack the lungs it attacks every organ in the body.
The following are other very serious health issues that have been seen associated with this virus in somepatients:
* Strokes in 30 and 40 year olds normally seen only in much older
folks, even after mild or no symptom bout with COVID-19
* Blood clotting issues
* Frostbite like skin issues
* Long term infection (more than 2 months) testing positive and cannot seem to rid themselves of it
* Kidney damage
* Heart damage
* Nervous system involvement
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Whether or not surviving COVID-19 makes you immune, and if so for how long, is still an open question.
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How to survive COVID-19:
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#1 Do everything possible to avoid being put on a ventilator.
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Do what you can to stay healthy: Enough sleep. Keep stress levels low. Regular exercise, fresh air, and sunshine while social distancing. Eat well: lots of fruits and vegetables (canned and frozen and dried are fine especially if no sugar added). If you can buy Vitamin C and D do so and take large quantities of both (do not take more than 5000 IU D per day because at higher doses VitD is toxic). There is some anecdotal evidence these help prevent and/or help fight off COVID-19. These suggestions will not harm you.
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***Cough medicines might harm you if you have COVID-19. Do not take them. ***
At least one study indicates cough medicine could make COVID-19 worse.
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Make sure you CAREFULLY follow all the procedures in #2 "How to keep COVID-19 out of your house and out of you."
If you do not, things can RAPIDLY progress to #5..... Ventiilator
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YOU MUST NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO GET TO 5
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#2 Keep COVID-95 out of you and out of your house.
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N-95 and the reusable N-97 masks are hard as unicorns to come by, but some sort of mask is necessary. You will need at least two cloth masks: one you are wearing and the one you are washing. If things you are doing are causing your mask to get wet, you will have to have enough masks to be able to swap out wet masks for dry masks.
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If someone has to work around people outside the home, they should wear a cloth mask at home to protect other family members. The home mask does not have to be N95 quality, just good enough to protect your family.
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Outside the home use a mask that will protect you. Directions for making a mask that is approximately N95 (hospital quality) are below. Again, you will need at least two: one you are wearing and the one you are washing.
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I made one tiny error, and I am writing this.
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Please be careful.
Do not make mistakes with your COVID prevention procedures.
Think of your home as an operating room, and do what Dr. Gray would do.
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When you go to the store imagine everything you bring back is covered with some disgusting stranger's poop (yes treat everything like it is that disgusting) including the things you brought back with you, your mask, clothes, shoes, hair, everything. Do not make any mistakes.
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Put your clothes in the washer. Take a shower. If you don't have a washer at home, take your clothes into the shower with you get them soapy, rinse them, hang them up. Have two sets of work clothes and switch off: wearing it, drying it.
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No excuses.
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DO NOT WEAR SANDALS. WEAR SHOES AND SOCKS.
Shoes have been found to be a COVID vector. Leave them out of the home, or take them off as you step into your home, do not step in sock feet where you have stepped with shoes, and sterilize your shoes or put them in a special bag until going out again. Do not let the shoes touch your inside space.
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Masks save others. This mask design might save you:
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6' is supposed to be safe. 25' if someone is exercising or breathing hard for any reason.
Do you know when someone is going to sneeze? How far away can you smell cigarette smoke? What if COVID was mixed in with that smoke? Science:
https://www.facebook.com/pbs/videos/518265738868977/
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I have an N97 mask that might save me. A piece of sock over the exhaust vent will save others if I am infected.
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THESE MASK MATERIALS ARE APPROXIMATELY = N95 and are breathable.
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To protect you, a mask must fit tightly over your face and nose, no air leaks around the edges. I prefer the designs that use string to hold them on compared to the behind the ears masks. A 48" (4 feet) string or cloth or shoe string size rope will loop behind your head and the ends are pulled tight to secure the mask to your face. Different size masks fit different size heads. My first homemade mask did not fit correctly. The second, smaller version, worked properly. This is a good mask design:
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If you need to, add pipe cleaners or coffee bag closures to bend and hold the mask tightly to your nose. They can be glued on or sew a pocked for them to slide into. The mask MUST fit tightly to your face all the way around. No leaks if it is meant to keep you safe.
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#3 This could save your life:
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If you are coming down with something try this. It worked for me when
I felt feverish with chills and a cough, and was worried I had COVID.
Before antibiotics pneumonia was a death sentence, it was essential to
keep a sick person from getting pneumonia. COVID-19 is like a pre
antibiotic pneumonia when it gets into the lungs. Don’t let it. It was
learned bringing on a fever with heat, especially moist heat was
preventative.
Current science about COVID-19 is that dry environments like the 20% humidity of homes in winter, are worse, and moist environments help the body ward off COVID-19.
**** Do not make your fever above 103*F ****
In my small bathroom I closed the door, turned my electric heater on
full blast, filled the tub with hot water, had lots of liquid to
drink. I spent 3 hour sessions twice a day, and a shorter session
before bed, until I was feeling better.
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#4 If you have COVID you must fight!!!
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Fight to breath.
Fight to exercise doing the exercises that help you breath. Fight to move instead of lie still.
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Learn from Chris Cuomo, and the Pulmonary Specialist who advised him:
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Also this from a London urgent care doc:
"Once you have an active infection you need to be getting a good amount
of air into the base of your lungs," the doctor says. "I want you guys
to start doing this if you have the infection right from the beginning.
If you want to do it before you have an infection, good idea."
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Here's his simple, three-step breathing technique.
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1. Take five deep breaths in, each time holding the breath for five seconds.
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2. On the sixth deep breath, take it in and do a big cough (cover your mouth, of course).
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3. Do two cycles of the above and then lay flat on your front (on a bed, ideally) taking slightly deeper "normal" breaths for the next 10 minutes.
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IMPORTANT: ***** With COVID-19 your blood can have a very low oxygen count but you may not feel out of breath. ******
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#5 If you, or your family member gets to the point of needing hospitalization, make sure the medical staff knows about "Proning".
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Use proning until you can't anymore. The technique called “Proning,” or having patients lie on their stomachs or sides while breathing oxygen in less-invasive ways (than a ventilator), will be studied. But in the short term, doctors say the results are promising. It was tried because ventilators were not having the expected results with COVID-19 patients and too many patients were dying.
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Attempt to get your oxygen levels up with an oxygen feed and lying on your stomach. Breath as if your life depends upon it because it does. Force yourself to breath deep. Ignore the pain of breathing. Make yourself breath deeply. Fight for your life. Need motivation to fight?
I am not kidding when I tell you to talk to your family before you are put on a ventilator. It is likely your last chance to talk to them.
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Lying on your stomach increases your lung capacity because most of your lung capacity is at your back, not your chest.
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Also ask medical staff if they are able to do Vitamin C IV drip. There is anecdotal evidence it helps and it cannot harm you.
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Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C; re-administered three or four times a day.
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