When is it time to panic

ProDarwin said:

Saw this posted elsewhere.  Its interesting and relevant to the safe return to work discussion we were having earlier.

 

https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-06-17/an-analysis-of-three-covid-19-outbreaks-how-they-happened-and-how-they-can-be-avoided.html?prm=enviar_email

Good info!

In reply to ProDarwin :

Very interesting, in addition to masks we've begun leaving windows and hatches open on the buses to try and get more fresh air in and out them and and are looking at different filters and UV lights for the HVAC systems. .  

aircooled said:

I am sure Manhattan is different from the boroughs which are very different from upstate.

 

Manhattan was different from the other boros in regards to spread because it is practically empty.  Without offices open and tourists coming in there was no one on the streets for about two months.  It was extremely eerie, many days I would go through Times Square and not see another person.  It was one of the few times we were able cut our service significantly and send some of our buses to help reduce crowding in other parts of the city.  We were able to add enough buses in most heavy areas that we could give customers adequate space and give our operators a few extra days off to reduce they're exposure and limit crowding in our facilities where they report and take meal breaks.  Meals and bathroom breaks became a problem because with so many businesses closed the many of the places we normally go were closed or not letting anyone in.  

The rest of the state is very much different from the NYC area.  Long Island has a large commuter population so they were also hit hard and are only about two weeks ahead of NYC with seeing restrictions lifted.  Where I live about 90 miles north of NYC we are about four weeks ahead. Our indoor dining reopened the beginning of July and the only places still closed are movie theaters, gyms, and other entertainment venues. They are still closed statewide.  Further upstate and western NY are far less densely populated and we mostly spared of any large outbreaks. They were still locked down in march with everyone else but began to open back up sooner, with the same restrictions as us and have not seen any noticeable bump in infections.  Outside of NYC some Students with learning difficulties that need in person instruction have been allowed to return to school, though there are significant changes in how those classes operate with regards to masks, cleaning, distancing,etc.  My brother is teaching high school on Long Island this summer and it is a challenge to say the least. Districts are working on plans to get everyone safely back at some point though its looking unlikely for the usual first day of school in most places. Most places have done well getting distance learning sorted out so at least we have that for now.  

does anyone have a link to which homemade masks work the best ,

and the material and a pattern , 

Since this like it is going on for a long time I would like to get something better than the surgical masks I have been using , 

I would like something wider since I have a beard ,  

plus I will sew some 1  inch wide elastic so it goes over my head and not  on my ears , 

thanks for your help

In reply to californiamilleghia :

My post in this thread has a link to the free PDF pattern I used. I started out using fabric from old slacks that I don't wear any more, but switched to using old shirts because it's easier to breathe in them. For the liner inside I used an old polo shirt since it was really soft. With fabric stores opening back up now you likely can just buy what you need and they may have recommendations too. Also, you definitely don't need 1" wide elastic, plain old 1/4" wide will work just fine. I found that a length of about 22" worked well, with a 1" overlap where it joins together. Not too tight, not too loose. Might want to play around with it using a safety pin to join it until you get a comfortable length. 

Some good news for a change: https://reason.com/2020/07/17/good-news-covid-19-vaccines-stimulate-the-production-of-both-antibodies-and-t-cells/

The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by researchers at Oxford University and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca reportedly stimulates the body's immune system in early trials to produce both antibodies and killer T-cells. Antibodies protect against infections by binding to pathogens in order to prevent them from entering or damaging cells, and by coating pathogens to attract white blood cells to engulf and digest them. Longer-lasting killer T-cells work by finding and destroying infected cells in the body that have been turned into virus-making factories.

If this pans out, it's great news. Recent studies have shown that protective antibodies decline steeply in a large proportion of people who have recovered from COVID-19 infections. Swiftly waning levels of antibodies might mean that people could be reinfected and that the vaccines that are being rushed through testing and production would only offer transitory protection against the novel coronavirus. But if the vaccines provoke the immune system to produce T-cells, they could still offer some longer-term protection against coronavirus infections.

While more research needs to be done, some preliminary data suggest that the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Moderna may also elicit the production of T-cells that react to the coronavirus.

The idea that T-cells could offer protection against the COVID-19 coronavirus is bolstered by new study in Nature. It reports finding T-cell immunity in people who recovered from both COVID-19 and SARS coronavirus infections. The researchers also identified T-cells that react to both coronaviruses in about 50 percent of healthy study subjects who had never been infected by either virus. "This could be due to cross-reactive immunity obtained from exposure to other coronaviruses, such as those causing the common cold, or presently unknown animal coronaviruses. It is important to understand if this could explain why some individuals are able to better control the infection," said study co-author Antonio Bertoletti in a press release from the Duke-National University of Singapore (Duke-NUS) Emerging Infectious Diseases program.

Earlier studies by Swedish and German researchers have also found that a substantial number of subjects who had never had COVID-19 produced a T-cell immune reaction to the virus. It's still speculative, but it looks increasingly likely that a good portion of humanity may already have developed some T-cell immune protection against the novel coronavirus. Nevertheless, the Swedish researchers caution, "It remains to be determined if a robust memory T cell response in the absence of detectable circulating antibodies can protect against" the virus.

"While there have been many studies about the [COVID-19 coronavirus], there is still a lot we don't understand about the virus yet," said Duke-NUS researcher Jenny Low in the aforementioned press release. "What we do know is that T cells play an important role in the immune response against viral infections and should be assessed for their role in combating the [COVID-19 coronavirus], which has affected many people worldwide. Hopefully, our discovery will bring us a step closer to creating an effective vaccine."

Even as COVID-19 vaccines are being tested in clinical trials to determine their safety and efficacy, production for several is being revved up in order to deliver them (if they work) as early as this fall. AstraZeneca announced in June that it planned to manufacture 2 billion doses of its vaccine, with 300 million slated for delivery to the United States and the United Kingdom by the end of this year. Moderna plans to deliver about 500 million doses per year, and potentially up to 1 billion annual doses starting in 2021. An effective vaccine against this scourge cannot come too soon.

I heard something about this and was looking for the info, thanks for finding it.

I am curious what the process will be once an effective vaccine is available.  I suspect it will be a bit like the testing, mass inoculation sites you show up to (oh boy... the conspiracy theories that will result from that...)

In reply to aircooled :

how'd we do it with polio?

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to aircooled :

how'd we do it with polio?

There were fewer 9/11 truthers getting all factual information from Facebook then.

In reply to aircooled :

In BC many the large chain supermarkets have pharmacies and pharmacists can give flu vaccines. Every year they set up a table by the front door and you can stop in and get a flu vaccine.

I've made one mask and was hoping to make a couple more this weekend just to swap out and have one both in the car and at home.  First one I made out of a Crown Royal bag and have gotten lots of thumbs up.  If you have some the surgical ones, just the elastic from it. My wife has one that has the flat elastic and mind (from a surgical mask) has a smaller round elastic.  The round seems to be more comfortable.

I have no issues wearing a mask, but I find that I'm a little more depressed going out because I can't smile at people.  I've always tried to be that guy that smiles at others and tries to get others to smile.  Or saying hi and smiling real big to little kids and stuff.  Can't do that anymore.  :(

-Rob

In reply to rob_lewis :

I hear you on the last part.  My job generally involves dealing with people in crisis and most interactions end up being negative.  I'm neither an optimist nor an extrovert, but I make a concerted effort to be friendly in public, otherwise 95% of my interactions with non-family members are negative.  It's been A LOT harder to do.  I'm not sure if it's entirely the masks, though.  I think people are generally more on edge and less receptive to friendliness than at any time I can recall. 

rob_lewis said:

I've made one mask and was hoping to make a couple more this weekend just to swap out and have one both in the car and at home.  First one I made out of a Crown Royal bag and have gotten lots of thumbs up.  If you have some the surgical ones, just the elastic from it. My wife has one that has the flat elastic and mind (from a surgical mask) has a smaller round elastic.  The round seems to be more comfortable.

I have no issues wearing a mask, but I find that I'm a little more depressed going out because I can't smile at people.  I've always tried to be that guy that smiles at others and tries to get others to smile.  Or saying hi and smiling real big to little kids and stuff.  Can't do that anymore.  :(

-Rob

I find myself nodding like crazy!

as for elastic, my wife uses a strip of that cheap Walmart fleece blanket, cut in the direction of the stretchiness. Cut it under an inch wide, and pull it out so it sort of unravels. It becomes slightly stretchy yarn basically. Super comfy and she's made and sold like 200 masks, so it must be good!

tuna55 said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to aircooled :

how'd we do it with polio?

There were fewer 9/11 truthers getting all factual information from Facebook then.

fair enough, but I still don't know what we did.. my parents talked about how well this worked. but can't remeber the details. 

joey48442 said:

 

as for elastic, my wife uses a strip of that cheap Walmart fleece blanket, cut in the direction of the stretchiness. Cut it under an inch wide, and pull it out so it sort of unravels. It becomes slightly stretchy yarn basically. Super comfy and she's made and sold like 200 masks, so it must be good!

Hair scrunchies are useful for that also.  Probably not as comfy as what you are describing though.

tuna55 said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to aircooled :

how'd we do it with polio?

There were fewer 9/11 truthers getting all factual information from Facebook then.

Yes the earth was an oblate spheroid back in those days.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to aircooled :

how'd we do it with polio?

We went to the local school and swallowed sugar cubes with the vaccine in it.  It may have been a 2 dose vaccine.  
 

Don't forget we had the whole Sabin v Salk controversy back then.  

Also, something interesting going in Sweden.  As I am sure most are aware they have been "open" the whole time and it appears as if they are taking a serious down trend recently (deaths are on a down trend also).  I am curious if this has some association with what is going on in the NY area.  Maybe they reaching some sort of preliminary saturation quazi-herd immunity point.

Just trying to be hopeful of what might be coming for some areas of the US that are spiking.

(obligatory semi-crap data note)

Fueled by Caffeine said:

tuna55 said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to aircooled :

how'd we do it with polio?

There were fewer 9/11 truthers getting all factual information from Facebook then.

fair enough, but I still don't know what we did.. my parents talked about how well this worked. but can't remeber the details. 

I don't know the specific mechanics of it and the planning behind it, but... It was basically mass vaccination sites, similar to testing as I remember my uncle telling me: 

It also helped that you had a President that was crippled by the disease pushing hard for a vaccine in Roosevelt, then Truman was pushing for the same, and Ike followed suit to get it distributed as fast as possible when Salk's vaccine was proven safe: 

"I believe very greatly in the power that can be developed by the humanitarian agencies of this country when they work together in cooperation. And if they have the direction which is to be given them through the Advisory Committee set up in Mrs. Hobby's Department [the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare], I believe that we will get the most rapid possible distribution of this vaccine.

Now, the reason I opposed originally at least--any compulsory role for the Federal Government, I believe it would slow it up. By the time you established more bureaus and all of the rest of the stuff, I believe you would be in trouble.

I believe it is going just as fast as it can. I get the reports--I think by August first, as I recall, they believe a hundred percent of the children from 1 to 9 will be vaccinated. And by November first, I think, a hundred percent of those up to 19. There will be six companies producing this. They will put it into a pool, and this Advisory Committee will lay out the priorities in which it is to go out, and I suppose with a careful eye--I know with a careful eye for any threatened emergency or anything of that sort. We will certainly do the best we can.

I would not hesitate to use any power of government, if necessary. I just believe that others can do it better."

 

Throw in Elvis' endorsement of it (I want to say it was live on the Ed Sullivan Show, but if it wasn't it was very public), and the public followed suit.

Think if we could get Kanye West, Kim K, Trump, Biden, Lebron, and Taylor Swift to get the vaccine (when it is proven safe and effective, assuming it is) on live TV/facebook/instagram, how influential it would be.

I'm donating blood in a few days. They include an antibody test then.. will be interesting to see the results.

Huan said:

In reply to aircooled :

I think most of us already have immunity to corona, cos it's often can be without any symptoms 

Disinformation from somebody who has never posted here before. Imagine that. 

Snowdoggie said:

Huan said:

In reply to aircooled :

I think most of us already have immunity to corona, cos it's often can be without any symptoms 

Disinformation from somebody who has never posted here before. Imagine that. 

Yes, but "cos it's often can be without any symptoms"  gives it the instant credibility of 1000 posts. 

Snowdoggie said:

Huan said:

In reply to aircooled :

I think most of us already have immunity to corona, cos it's often can be without any symptoms 

Disinformation from somebody who has never posted here before. Imagine that. 

Not nearly as convincing as the more common disinformation from people who regularly post here

kazoospec said:

Snowdoggie said:

Huan said:

In reply to aircooled :

I think most of us already have immunity to corona, cos it's often can be without any symptoms 

Disinformation from somebody who has never posted here before. Imagine that. 

Yes, but "cos it's often can be without any symptoms"  gives it the instant credibility of 1000 posts. 

Why isn't the Jaguar vs. Chevy thread getting any trolls? Do we need to add more BBC?