Creatures Of Habit,
It's time to be an early-adopter of the new habits which will be the new normal.
Adopting for cognitive reasons instead of abject terror is the preferred course of action today.
This virus has a huge invisible leading edge of asymptomatic spread, so when you see it, it's already too late.
People shed it for days before they feel sick at all.
Young people and teens and kids can spread it for weeks and never get sick.
My son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter near Dallas, have a housemate, who got sent home from work because a coworker's daughter got diagnosed with coronavirus. (We suspect not confirmed yet).
This is the kind of way this pops up.
This virus spreads by droplet nuclei in coughs and sneezes, and those can persist on surfaces for days when deposited by aerosol or touched by a hand.
The next hand can pick them up and take them to a mouth or nose, the viral public-transit-system.
I have no symptoms. I wipe my nose. I grab a door handle.
You come behind me, You eat a snack. You are infected.
Repeat-without-rinsing...
Washing hands before and after touching public things is hard. I wash before and after seeing patients and alcohol-swab my stethoscope.
How do I touch the knob on the sink?
I grab a paper towel first, unless the dispenser is not working right, which is often the case.
Then I touch the dispenser. OUCH!
I have found that a sturdy pen or highlighter will pull a lot of doors open if deftly manipulated.
I have been studying this, and you should, too. Study your hands, and everything they touch, and study each thing, and consider other touches it gets, and ponder work-arounds.
Share insights at meetings at work. This will be well received.
At People's Clinic we hand out pens and clipboards with paper questionnaires.
Oh, my those pens and clipboards get a lot of touches!
What to do, now? Working on best solution...
Give away all the pens and don't give clipboards? What about the sheets of paper?
We have to review all risks and benefits in new-pandemic-world.
New habits will need to persist for at least 2 years while this virus methodically infects 60-70% of all the local populations in every human community, everywhere.
Slowing the spread of infection down to a steady drip is the best we can do.
A lot of infections at once destroys a working community in a couple of weeks.
Then the biggest wave of sickness hits without a support system.
They closed a couple of schools for coronavirus cases in New York today, but it's just the Bronx.
Wall Street should be completely safe.
Caitlin Johnstone says:
The Great Repatterning Continues. Make Sure You Take Advantage Of It!
This is a level of disruption that the world hasn’t seen in generations. Normal things that had been a routine part of people’s entire lives are just not there for them now, whether it’s normal socializing, watching the basketball game, or buying toilet paper at the store.
This is a really good and extensive primer on the public health measures that each of us must institute and explain to friends and family and coworkers today. Good graphics of how social distancing works to reduce cases in real time.
Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now
A truly bombshell and unprecedented accusation, underscoring that if Sino-US relations amid the broader crisis weren't already bad enough, they're about to crash much, much lower: China's Foreign Ministry spokesman tweets "it might be the US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan" — the widely acknowledged epicenter and origin point of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Swabbing Battle-Station
John, your efforts are heroic. I was unfamiliar with the concept and phrase "viral shedding", but after reading your blog I did some research.
ReplyDeleteBasic understanding like that gives me a better chance of following through on the behavior changes.
People are freaking out over "hand sanitizers", but after reading about the lipids in the viral cell it seems soap might be a better alternative.
I know from experience that a quarter teaspoon of Dawn in the "de- skunking" solution helps break up the fatty stinky cells so they can be washed away. A similar concept?
Jim
Yes, I always choose the soap squirter, not the hand sanitizer squirter by the clinic sinks.
DeleteI practiced with my sterile gloves and face mask. At the first store, Dollar General I learned I can no longer carry my purse. After shopping & touching a lot of it's others have recently handled, I then had to dig out my wallet, open my wallet, slip out my debit card, touch the 'hotbox' that card reading machine all while wearing the gloves, do epic fail on exercise one. That Corona virus likely jumped off into my comfort object I call a purse which is really a filthy black hole. No more purses! Next we went to an open air produce market. I only carried my phone and my debit card. It was a good experience except I was shadowed by a shopper who saw me there with gloves & mask and coughed behind me quite awhile and I just grabbed and left her in my wake. Good produce haul though. I made it home with 15 lbs of oranges, leafy greens, jalepenos, fresh ginger. Hmmm. Honey. The third trip was, you guessed it, Walmart. So, mask, gloves, onward grab basket I did not wipe down. Found a lot of good deals on pet food. I bought the jumbo bags in case this is going to go on a long time. Got some decaf, stevia, canned nuts, tuna was gone and toilet paper was gone but I've been hoarding toilet paper for years. I laughed & laughed at all the memes. I bought another bucket for rain water. It had a lid. I noticed other shoppers turning their heads and not looking at me like normal shoppers. This happened so often I think it was everyone. No one else I went had shoppers wearing protection. Weird. Anyway, your clerk will then touch everything you bought and she touched everything all her customers bought before she got to you AND then at Walmart the receipt checker who touched everyone's receipt before you will hold your receipt and in my case struggle to get a very tight lid off the bucket I just bought and she literally rotated it the full 360 touching the entire time with her bare hand but the glove wouldn't help with in this situation. I've been home ever since. We did fill all our gas cans while we were out. Linda
ReplyDeleteDon't let it out that you have all that toilet paper.
ReplyDeleteJust go sell it at 8:00 AM at the HEB parking lot, all of it, then get out of there quickly!
You might need an armed guard, though, but you are bound to have some dog food to trade for use of a big dog with a menacing growl.