I see where “they” are going to take us using this crisis and others. And I’m up the road a little bit and I’m waiting for them. ?
“Happy Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor.”
Nick, as long as you have three masks you will be fine. Seems like the longest virus particles survive is 14 days. So get three masks and three ziplock bags. Label each mask and bag with “A, B, C”, matching bag to mask. First week, use mask A to go out. Come home, put mask in bag outside, then put mask on shelf. Date the bag. Next week use mask B. When you return do the same thing, bag the mask and date. Third week, use mask C. Do the same. Fourth week, open Mask A’s bag and use the now safe mask. Its been at least 14 days (more like 18-21). Continue the rotation as long as you need. Now I would probably toss a half cup of rice into each bag to control moisture, since your breath will soil the mask slightly and you don’t want things to be growing on the mask while its in a sealed container. You could even eat the rice after its been used though I’d cook it really well, lol. ADDED: Sorry, just saw you were discussing daily, my bad. The concept is still the same though you’d need a lot more mask. Unless you are in real need you could probably go to bi-weekly shopping trips. If short on masks, use heat sterilization (30 minutes at 170F).Thanks for the idea. I think daily trips would strain my sanity and resources; plus, I still am employed and would like to remain that way as long as possible. Weekly should suffice. I hope. I've spent the last five years building relationships with local farmers. We're going to be leaning more heavily on them in a few months when they start producing. I hope it's a good growing season.
I’m very sorry to hear about your friend.
I agree reliable data is the challenge, although I would also add reliable analysis. Also worth pointing out that even if I am correct and the CFR is not dissimilar to that of the regular 'flu, the fact that you are ten times as likely to catch this virus still means it’s ten times more dangerous than the 'flu even if it seems less scary than it would with a much higher CFR.
The biggest impact of me being correct would be the speed with which the epidemic would be over.
Rebel
State Department tells Americans: ‘Do not travel’ abroad, come home if overseas
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/coronavirus-state-department-tells-americans-do-not-travel-abroad-come-home-if-overseas/ar-BB11qg9e?ocid=spartanntp
Retired Doctor John Campbell has much interesting and good advice on NSAIDs, drugs to address fevers, background information on the virus and how it affects the body, etc. Well worth an investment of your time. He has a good teaching style.
Reducing fever, good or bad
Reducing fever, Part 2
Look for other of his videos in his channel.
Ok, better late than never.
https://peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/covid19-diy-mask-tutorial/
Uses MERV13 furnace filters and a pair of women’s tights. Cost is under a dollar a mask.
Here’s some very useful information on making your home decontamination station from Univ. of Colorado, Boulder professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
https://www.colorado.edu/mcdb/coronavirus-information/professor-sara-sawyers-decon-station-instructions
also why soap is the best to “kill” virus:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deadly-viruses-are-no-match-for-plain-old-soap-heres-the-science-behind-it-2020-03-08
I’m well aware of David, for many years. (Was at the lecture in Cleveland when he and Jesse Ventura had their blow-up–that was entertaining.) He’s striking pretty much the same nail he’s been pounding for decades.
You did catch the part where he basically repeated the meme of “the yearly flu is more deadly than this virus”? Also, you may recall it was pointed out weeks ago by Chris in a video that they’ve identified an original S as well as a branch L strain to the virus, which would account for the situations in Italy & Iran. It’s something that routinely happens in nature. It doesn’t require a conspiracy.
Unless we’re flawlessly accurate remote viewers, none of us truly can know what transpires within the halls of power. We can speculate, but in reality we will probably never know for sure exactly to what extent our lives are invisibly controlled. That would be the whole point of invisibility, wouldn’t it? Fish, for instance, are born in, move through, breathe, eat, bear offspring and die in the ocean. But can they see the ocean? Does anyone know?
Not just in the current situation, but in any event where we find ourselves in peril and at the mercy of forces larger than ourselves, I tend to see it as passengers on a run-away bus. The driver has the peddle to the floor, heading straight for a cliff. Is he an incompetent idiot who doesn’t really know how to drive, or is he a homicidal lunatic who wants everyone on the bus to die? Ultimately, what truly matters in that situation is that the bus is heading over a cliff. The motivation of the driver is of remotely secondary importance to that singular fact. And it kind of seems like that is where one’s attention should be focused–on what can be done about the dive off the cliff. Speculation about the intent of the driver is a indulgence better left to more leisurely times.
Please wear goggles. Dress for success like the S. Koreans.
We can use methylene blue to manage all kinds of oxidative stress-related diseases.
Good news from Dr. Halasa, CEO of Nitromedicine
His methylene blue photodynamic protocol is adapted by the Chinese. The preprint is available.
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-17718/v1
Preprints are preliminary reports that have not undergone peer review. They should not be considered conclusive, used to inform clinical practice, or referenced by the media as validated information.
General Biochemistry
Methylene blue photochemical treatment as a reliable SARS-CoV-2 plasma virus inactivation method for blood safety and convalescent plasma therapy for the COVID-19 outbreakChangzhong Jin, Bin Yu, Jie Zhang, Hao Wu, Xipeng Zhou, Hangping Yao, Fumin Liu, Xiangyun Lu, Linfang Cheng, Miao Jiang, Nanping Wu
DOI:
10.21203/rs.3.rs-17718/v1Abstract
Background With the outbreak of unknown pneumonia in Wuhan, China in December 2019, a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) attracted worldwide attention. Although coronaviruses typically infect the upper or lower respiratory tract, discovery of the virus in plasma is common. Therefore, the risk of transmitting coronavirus through transfusion of blood products remains. As more asymptomatic infections are found in COVID-19 cases, blood safety is shown to be particularly important, especially in endemic areas. Study Design and Methods BX-1, an ‘AIDS treatment instrument’ based on methylene blue (MB) photochemical technology, developed by Boxin (Beijing) Biotechnology Development LTD, has proven that inactivation of lipid-enveloped viruses such as HIV-1 in plasma has high efficiency, without damage to other components in the plasma, and proved safe and reliable in clinical trials of HIV treatment. In order to confirm the inactivation effect of BX-1 in SARS-CoV-2, we used the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain isolated from Zhejiang University for plasma virus inactivation studies. Results and Conclusion BX-1 can effectively eliminate SARS-CoV-2 within 2 mins, and the virus titer decline can reach 4.5 log10 TCID50/mL. Faced with the expanding epidemic, BX-1 is safe for blood transfusion and plasma transfusion therapy in recovery patients, and the inactivated vaccine preparation has great potential for treatment in the current outbreak.KEYWORDS
Methylene blue, Photochemical treatment, SARS-CoV-2, Plasma virus inactivation, Blood safety and convalescent plasma therapy, COVID-19 outbreak
Inactivation of three emerging viruses - severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus and Nipah virus - in platelet concentrates by ultraviolet C light and in plasma by methylene blue plus visible light. Eickmann M, Gravemann U, Handke W, Tolksdorf F, Reichenberg S, Müller TH, Seltsam A. Vox Sang. 2020 Jan 12. doi: 10.1111/vox.12888. [Epub ahead of print] PMID:31930543 Similar articles Select item 297325712. Inactivation of Ebola virus and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in platelet concentrates and plasma by ultraviolet C light and methylene blue plus visible light, respectively. Eickmann M, Gravemann U, Handke W, Tolksdorf F, Reichenberg S, Müller TH, Seltsam A. Transfusion. 2018 Sep;58(9):2202-2207. doi: 10.1111/trf.14652. Epub 2018 May 6. PMID: 29732571 Similar articles Methylene blue is starting to be used to treat: Degenerative diseases Autoimmune diseases Cancer Pain Dermatological diseases Inflammatory diseases Infectious diseases EtcFirst, Dr. Dale - so sorry to hear about your friend’s death. As I mentioned in a previous post, I expect to lose some people, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I doubt that any of us will get out of this unscathed.
The rest of this is a post for Granny Grit (or anyone else who is interested).
Let me begin this post by noting that anyone over the age of 65 who lives in California has been told to shelter in place. On Wednesday, I went down to do some legal stuff for my 92-year old stepmother, who just moved into assisted living. Between 10:00, when I arrived, and 1:30, shortly before I left, the facility locked down and now will not allow any visitors except family and only if the patient is dying. The two feet of snow we got Tuesday made things even more difficult for the patients of our clinic - not only locked down but snowed in.
At our clinic, we just got approval to start seeing patients in what we are calling televisits. We will get our usual fee from MediCal for a telephone visit as long as there is supporting documentation of the same sort we use for a face-to-face visit. So far Medicare hasn’t agreed to televisit payment, but we’re operating on the premise they will follow suit. That means a lot of fleet-footed revising of our usual visit process. For example, we complete various assessment forms, weigh and measure patients, take BP, pulse etc. Can’t do that with televisits. We use medical assistants as scribes to document all the findings from a visit and any orders for things like medications, X-rays and so forth. I’m thinking we’ll put the providers in their offices with the scribe, close the door to minimize distractions and have them turn on the phone microphone so both scribe and provider can hear what the patient says. Certain visits won’t lend themselves to televisits - hard to do a pelvic and pap, or perform vision and hearing tests for a well-child 
we’re still figuring those out - may wind up doing a lot more home visits.
RNs in California can perform certain tasks under what is called a standardized procedure - a document that has been formally approved by the medical director and administrative staff. The SP expands the scope of practice for an RN and allows us to order in-house lab tests or refill prescriptions as long as the patient meets certain criteria. The way it’s written, if the patient has not had a visit within a certain interval, or hasn’t gotten lab or screening (like a mammogram) done, we can only refill for 30 days. We rammed through an overnight change in the policy (the process usually takes a couple of months) to allow us to renew for 90 days even if the criteria aren’t met. This will be in effect for the duration of the pandemic. Decreases patients coming through the doors in a potentially infectious situation and cuts down on trips to the pharmacy.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The two feet of snow we got Tuesday shut us down and snowed in a lot of our patients. So today in huddle (first day open since the snowstorm) we developed plans to call, beginning with the older people and the ones of any age we know are most vulnerable. We want to see who needs medication refills and/or food, find out whether they had adequate heat and check on those who are dependent on oxygen. The planning was interrupted by the news that the county backhoe clearing the road into the clinic had broken our water main (which was admittedly invisible under the great berm of snow that had already been piled up). To add insult to injury, the backhoe then drove over the water line from the water main to the clinic. So the minute huddle was over, we sent staff to the Dollar General across the street to buy enough water for staff to drink and so we could flush toilets, while we started calling off the scheduled patients. And since we were closed, we had to notify various agencies, like state licensing. We can’t reopen until we have water - probably (we hope) Monday. Even then, we’ll have to shut off water valves in the exam rooms because we can’t use the water for anything except flushing toilets until we finish testing for coliform bacteria - think E. coli - which means staff can only use hand sanitizer rather than washing their hands between patients.
My second RN made it in to work today (she had been snowed in since last Friday). I was delighted to see her, as it meant I could deal with multiple snow/water/coronavirus/procedure issues instead of taking triage calls and doing prescription refills. My back office supervisor and right hand woman came in walking very oddly because the previous day she, her husband, sons and two of her cousins had been shoveling snow off the walks and away from the walls to prevent melting snow from causing a flood inside the clinic (as happened to us in February 2019). Our HR/compliance person (who is also our resident disaster prep expert) is out with pneumonia, and I’m her disaster back-up. Then the RN who usually relieves me sent an email from her IPhone that she was in the emergency room of a local hospital with chest pain and dizziness.
I finally managed to eat breakfast about 1100. I ate my lunch after I got home around 6. Our staff pulled off a tremendous amount of work despite our trials and tribulations. As I told them in huddle; “I said we’d let you know when it was time to panic. Well, here’s the deal - we aren’t going to panic. Our patients need us.” I was so proud of them.
We did have several light spots during the day (we laugh a lot in our clinic), but the best was when my newly-returned RN came in with a rather odd expression on her face and said she needed to go home a little early. In response to my raised brow, she confided that her husband had apparently taken the dog out for a quick walk on their isolated property. However, he forgot his keys and managed to lock the door behind himself. No big deal, except it seems he was only wearing his skivvies at the time. This with several feet of snow and temps around 4o-42. I don’t know if he’ll ever live this one down…
With the equation, any way to calculate the odds of getting infected right now if one must make a trip to Costco or grocery store?
Beth, welcome to the club my dear you certainly have “grit”. Wow, obstacles and challenges and you and your team dig in and take care of people. Your the hero on the front line!!
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I know what it’s like to get a lot of snow. As a matter of fact it’s snowing as I type this.
It sounds like your clinic is facing some challenges and and not just from snow but from social distancing and operational changes. I can only imagine the frustrations and obstacles you and your team are experiencing. You sound resourceful Beth, hang in there and I am so glad you have a sense of humor!
Beth you have been a member for a long time but haven’t posted much. I, and am sure others, would find what is going on in your clinic and your thoughts interesting. Please update us.
Stay healthy and take care of yourself.
AKGrannyWGrit
I’m trying to calculate what would be the likelihood of someone getting infected if he/she steps outside of the house for a trip to Costco or grocery store right now… would love to hear if my thinking is right.
I’m picking Austin, TX area as example here…
2017 Austin population: 1,774,000
03/20 officially announced # of cases: 50
03/19 officially announced # of cases: 27
Change in a day: 23
Then I assume the test kits are pitifully lacking, and to be conservative, I hypothesize the real # of infections is 1000 times higher. So
03/20 guestimate # of cases: 50,000
03/19 guestimate# of cases: 27,000
Change in a day: 23,000
Using the formula above: E•p = (23000/27000) = 0.852
This number is pretty high, the video linked which explains the formula in depths mentioned as of its recording that E•p = 0.15.
But going with the higher number nonetheless, it means 85.2% of uninfected people with which infected people (27,000) encountered turned into new infections.
i.e. If on average, 27,000 infected people each encountered one uninfected person in a day (E = 1), then all together they encountered 27,000, and 85.2% of those (23,000) got infected.
As individuals this means, unknowingly encountering an infected person would translates to 85.2% chance of getting infected oneself.
I can’t say though with current isolation mandates how out and about are those who are infected…
But a disturbing thought would be if all together they encountered less than 27,000 people in a day (E < 1), then p would be even higher than 85.2%. Then encountering an infected person pretty much guarantees oneself getting infected too.
On the flip side, p decreases as E increases. Suppose each infected person on average encounter 12 uninfected people in a day (E=12)*, then p goes down to 0.071. So in this case, each encounter with a infected person translates to 7.1% chance of oneself getting infected . Much much lower than the first two scenarios.
The question is just on average how many people are the infected people encountering each day to figure out the real p?
(Also how to take into account that the new infections may have nothing to do with the infections from previous day since those new infections were probably infected days and weeks ago?)
I can’t figure that out…but what I do know is there’s 23,000 additional infections in a day. So I thought maybe one can just calculate the odds of someone becoming one of the 23,000?
So I calculated with 23,000/(1,774,000-27,000)=0.0132 or 1.32%.
And even if infection is guaranteed at 100% after one encounter, the chance of running into an infected person is
38,500/1774000= 0.217 = 2.17%
(38,500 is the average # of infected people in 2 days:
(50,000+27,000)/2=38,500
This is to take into consideration that # of infections is increasing through the day. So the basis of calculating probability of the day is likely to be more than 27,000, but less than 50,000)
From today to tomorrow though, the probability will approximately double… Assuming still that E•p = 0.852, then
3/20 guestimate # of cases: 50,000
3/21 guestimate# of cases: 92,600
Change in a day = 42,600
The chance of being one of the 42,600 new infections is
42,600/(1,774,000-50,000)= 2.47%,
And the chance of encountering an infected person is
((50,000+92,000)/2)/1,774,000= 4%
From these numbers**, is it correct to conclude that it’s still fairly safe within the next few days (I want to say 3 days max) to go out and get supplies at Costco and/or grocery store that one didn’t act fast enough to get awhile ago?
Sorry for the long post… hopefully it’s not useless…feedbacks welcomed!
*picked 12 according to a random article discussing average daily human contacts prior to this pandemic, and assuming people just aren’t taking social distancing seriously.
**I’m not considering the officially announced # of cases at all because it’s just improbably low… If anything, it only indicates what the healthcare system is capable of detecting per day.
Learn how work from home during coronavirus will not affect the productivity of companies. These tips could go a long way in ensuring work from home experience in
I am going to run out of masks pretty quickly. Should we be looking into curbside delivery? Something else?I am using mask rotation, but additionally sterilizing masks between use. I have a UV sterilizer, but you can apparently sterilize a mask by baking it at 170f for 30 minutes (dtrammel posted research on this a few days ago), without doing damage to the mask. I also sterilize other stuff I take outside with me, but I’m quickly learning that I don’t need to take as much stuff with me.
Sunshine is important, but moderation is important also. If my wife did what you suggest, she would die of skin cancer.
We do so love to megadose on things we believe are healthy. It’s why so many supplements are orders of magnitude higher than RDA. What happens when you megadose? One thing that may happen is that your body’s receptors are all clogged by the megadose, blocking other important nutrients from being absorbed.
When you are praying, are you listening?
I can imagine a scene where someone is fervently praying while God is saying, “if you’d shut the heck up, you could hear what I’m saying,” but the person praying can’t hear because they are too wrapped up in prayer.
You guessed it. I’m a fan of meditation, prayer, not so much.