The world for many of us has got strange lately – terrorism, climate change, and now a pandemic. It seems to be some great big never ending slog.
Terrorism – a word brought into the Western consiousness from the 2001 911 attack in the United States of America, was showing ever increasing issues with places like Syria, the New Zealand attack on the Mosque, the rise of white Right Wing extremists, fascism and nazis.
Climate change recently showed devastating effects here in Australia, with droughts, floods, hail and bush fires. Mega bush fires.
Unprecedented and unpredictable, our politicians told us. Well, the climate effects were predicted back in 2007, but the politicians didn’t listen and act on it.
And now a pandemic. COVID-19, Part 2 – the SARS strikes back. Again, unprecedented and unpredictable, our politicians tell us. But again we have precedents – any student of history can point to The Plague – the bubonic plague the kept Isac Newton secluded in his home to study Pi and gravity, and affected William Shakespear back in 1966. Or more recently the Spanish Flu, which was first medically recorded in a military base in Kentucky, of 1918. When our politicians say unprecedented, they mean recently. Except does anyone remember the avian flu, or the swine flu or SARS or MERS?
And again our scientists have been warning us about the upcoming pandemic. They didn’t know what it would be, or where it would start, but there cycle of humanity showed that we were due one soon. The World Health Organisation was started in 1948 to help coordinate world health in just such a scenario.
So again, our politicians didn’t listen to the experts, didn’t prepare and keep making political choices.
And there is nothing we citizens of the world can do about it. I can’t stop the COVID-19 virus, and nor can you. We can’t change what our politicians are doing. We can only hope.
There are teams of scientists all around the world currently working on this problem. It is estimated that one of the potential vaccinations will bear fruit in about 18 months. There is no quick miracle cure, so please be very skeptical if someone says they have one. Wait for the medical science to verify any speculative quick solutions.
It all seems so…. Powerless and awful.
And it is awful.
People are dying. People who were alive yesterday are not alive today.
People we love are at risk. Everyone of you who watches this is at risk.
While the vast majority of people who die from this pandemic are people in the high risk category – aged, lung conditions and heart conditions – young and healthy people are also dying.
Most people who present to hospital with severe symptoms and can make it to ICU recover. That is a good thing – our medical science can keep most people alive until they naturally heal (with a whole boatload of medical stabilisation). Because we don’t have a specific treatment that just fixes it.
The risk to people comes in the form of the ICU beds being full, and you can’t get in. This is what flattening the curve is all about. The height of this curve that the scientists and mathematicians are talking about, is how many people per day are becoming sick. A fairly constant percentage of those need help at ICU, so in another way of looking at it, the height of the curve is how many people need intensive support to have a chance of living. We want that number to be equal to or lower than the available ICU beds.
How we can do that is following the medical scientists advice.
Put simply, that is washing your hands, learning not to touch your face and practice physical distancing.
Knowledge brings understanding, and with that we understand what our options are. We regain power from this.
So what do we know about the COVID-19 virus?
The type of virus is called a corona virus, because the two dimensional drawing looks like a circle with bits sticking out – a bit like a crown. Those bits that stick out are the spikes on a ball. This virus gives similar symptoms to the influenza viruses, but is very different to the influenza virus family.
This version of the coronavirus is novel. That is, it is a brand new form we haven’t seen before. It is related to a coronavirus that often gives us cold like symptoms – you know when you get a cold? 20% of the time that is a coronavirus, and our immune systems are pretty good at defeating it. This version is different and our bodies usual methods for killing viruses are mostly not working.
We know that of 100 people who are infected, about 50 of them won’t know they are ill. 30 of them will show mild symptoms and think they have a cold or the flu. 20 of them will need to go to hospital because they are that sick.
Of those 20 who go to hospital, 5 will need intensive support. If they get it, 4 will leave hospital with damaged lungs and or heart that might recover, and 1 will probably die. These numbers vary a bit from country to country, as what I am presenting here is the world average.
Here is the worrying part – if enough people get sick that the ICU beds are full, then those 5 people who need intensive care won’t get it and they will die.
That’s nasty. That is terrifying. People who could have got help and mostly survived will die because there just isn’t enough help.
So it is really important to delay getting infected.
Recall those roughly 50 people who don’t know they are sick? They are contagious for about 10 days. Again, these numbers vary a bit from population to population, from country to country.
We know that the virus survives for a surprisingly long time on surfaces. It gets there mostly by people coughing. A cough will hang in the air for about 30 minutes, slowly spreading up to 1.5 m (5 feet) from the cough and settling to a surface. Some studies have shown that in ideal conditions the cough can linger in the air for 4 hours – however most coughs are not that aerosolised or in a condition that promotes it being suspended in the air for that long.
It is not airborne as defined by virologists. This is because the droplets of water that you cough up settle to surfaces, instead of being lifted up into the air and moving great distances.
COVID-19 likes moisture. A moist surface keeps the virus “alive” for longer. COVID-19 also likes smooth surfaces like plastic and steel. In ideal circumstances it has been measured to survive for 48 hours. I have heard a few reports of 72 hours, but am yet to get good confirmation of this. On most surfaces other than plastic and metal, it lasts for between 4 and 24 hours.
Another means of transmission is peoples hands. We touch our faces a lot. I mean it – a huge amount. On average 23 times an hour in one study.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25637115
When you touch your face, virus particles will be transferred from your moist places – nose, mouth and eyes – to your hands. You then touch something and transfer it to that. Imagine really thin but long lasting wet paint, or the bane of the crafting world – glitter.
Someone else then touches that surface and now the virus is on their hands. They touch their face, and the virus invades you via your mouth, nose and eyes. It can’t get through your hands. It is all about the face transfer.
So three admonitions to keep in mind:
- Pretend you have it but don’t know – try not to contaminate other people
- Pretend the people outside your house have it but don’t know – try not to get it
- Pretend everything is covered in wet paint or a thin veneer of manure – try not to get it on anything that goes in you
Some more things we know about COVID-19. It is the type of virus that is protected by a lipid layer. That is science talk for an oily surface that resists water. How do we get rid of oil? Soap, bleach and alcohol.
The World Health Organisation has an excellent guide for washing your hands. Use soap and water. Cover all of your hands and wrists with a nice lather (so that you can see bubbles) rubbing your skin, and clean under your nails. It should take about 20-30 seconds. Then rinse it off with fresh running water where possible. Soap kills the virus, funning water after rubbing washes it away.
An aside: Did you know that the chorus to Risk Astley’s famous Never Gonna Give You Up song lasts for 20 seconds? It’s a good timer. I’m sure there are some others.
That’s great for your hands. What about the rest of you? Every surface that you have bumped and everything that you bring into your house could have COVID-19 on it.
To do a home decontamination is fairly simple once we use what we have learned.
When you come home, try not to touch anything you don’t have to. Remember what you do touch. You are going to need to go back and sanitise that later.
If you bring something into the house, does it need to go into the fridge or freezer? If so, wash it with soap and water, for about 20 seconds, rubbing as many surfaces as you can. Then rinse off with fresh running water. Using a cloth you can use soap and water on packaging, even cardboard. It might be damp afterwards, but that is ok. Fridge goods, leave out to dry. Freezer goods, towel dry and then put in the freezer. Everything else, leave it in a box for 2 days – remember, the virus can’t survive for more than 48 hours out of animals – or you can wash it.
Once you’ve cleaned what you have brought into the house, put your clothes straight into the laundry, or a bag to go to the laundry if you have a communal service – two days in the bag will kill COVID-19.
Now go and take a shower. Remember, soap and running water – rub for 20 seconds. Never gonna give you up!
Ok, now go and disinfect the surfaces that you touched before you were clean, or have someone else do it for you while you are having that shower.
Bleach is good for these hard surfaces, but not good for soft like cloth and couches.
To avoid infecting other people when you are out of the house, keep some physical distance from them whenever possible. Avoid touch when you can. I use contactless payments whenever I can, I avoid receipts when I can. I keep my car key separate from my house keys to minimise having to get the lot out when I am outside. I wipe them down with hand sanitizer before I get in the car and also my hands – it needs to be at least 60% proof.
Wash all these things, including your mobile phone, when you get home.
Remember people, it is physical distance, not social isolation. That means that we humans, being social creatures, need to keep in contact with those who are important to us. Even people who identify as introverts need to keep in contact. Social contact. That means using our technology to stay in contact with others.
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That is what you can do as a citizen of any country. Flatten that curve.
If you are a politician – look around at other countries. Learn from the ones that are not doing well, don’t repeat their mistakes. Learn from the countries that are doing well – follow their examples. Most importantly, put peoples lives ahead of economics and listen to your medical scientists.
[Pause]
It is ok to not be doing ok. People are sick. People are dying. There will be more of this. Grieving is ok.
We are used to surviving short term stress, but not very good at long term stress. We can often feel overwhelmed because this just keeps on going on. It is okay that we don’t know what this will look like in 6 months time and that this terrifies you. It terrifies me.
There are going to be days when it seems too much, too hard. And that is ok. Just have a break for a bit and get back to living later.
Make lists of what you want to achieve today, and do a few of them. Because of the safety around leaving the house, anything outside like work, shopping and so on is going to take extra time because of extra precautions. Factor that in. It isn’t that something is wrong with you, it is wrong with the world.
Look after your mental health. In Australia, the government has enabled telehealth services – the ability to contact your GP and counsellors via phone or video. You can get 10 government subsidised counselling sessions per year. If you need to talk to someone, call your GP and get it set up.
Exercise. There are many videos on Youtube and many websites about how to exercise at home. For those who can go to parks and bushlands, take that walk.
Get sunlight. We get feel very depressed if we don’t get enough vitamin D.
Avoid looking for miracle cures. People are going to try to con you into trying all sorts of stupid things, sometimes because it is funny for them, sometimes they are trying to con you out of money, sometimes they genuinely believe the hype of one of these other two. Think about it – if there was one of these quick fixes or miracle cures, one of the governments of the world would be using it right now rather than crashing their economy. They aren’t, because there is no quick fix.
Stay safe people.