I haven’t written about this because others have been dealing with it well and pandemics aren’t something I know a great deal about.
It does look, now, like the Coronavirus stands a good chance of turning into a pandemic, and I think we should discuss preparation a bit.
Our world produces most goods in a highly fragile, just-in-time production chain. There may be multiple inputs to a finished good, but the parts are made in a very few places. Most countries do not produce everything they need, there are not many sources of key goods and warehouses do not keep large inventories; production tends to run just ahead of need. This is efficient, but it also means that any serious disruption to production can produce shortages almost immediately.
China is a lynchpin producer of a great number of goods, including medicines. Korea, which is starting to get hit, produces many goods as well. It’s hard to say who exactly produces what unless you’re an expert, for example, after Puerto Rico got hit by a hurricane the US experienced shortages of IV bags. Who knew that the primary IV bag supplier for the US was in Puerto Rico?
So in most cases I don’t think it’s worth spending a lot of time tracking specific dependencies, especially if you’re dealing with a complex chain with many inputs–hit it in one place and you can take out the entire production.
Because fighting a pandemic is mostly about isolating people, production hits are inevitable: You can’t let people go to work.
So, if there are things you need, stock up now so you can shelter in place for a couple months if you have to.
In particular, I want to emphasize looking at your health needs. Many, many drugs are made in China. If you are on something you need to stay alive, or you are on something with ugly withdrawal symptoms, like most SSRIs, drugs which affect GABA, etc, etc., go see your doctor and convince him to give you an extra prescription or two (2) months’ supply – then go fill it.
Yeah, I know this is hard, because doctors can be stubborn and stupid, and I know it may be hard for financial reasons, but if you can, do it.
I can’t guarantee you’ll need it, of course. I can guarantee that if you need it and you don’t have it, you’ll regret it.
Remember that the United States, among developed nations, is going to be uniquely shitty at public health because a lot of people won’t go to hospitals and so on because of money issues.
As for the rest: Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, etc. Remember that this is a particularly difficult bug: It’s too small for masks to work well, it doesn’t show symptoms for 5-24 days (reports differ), it lives on surfaces for days, etc. It is a fast mutating bug, and the theory is that that’s good, because it is more likely to mutate to be LESS dangerous over time–but that also means you may catch it more than once.
This bug is likely to highlight both the stupidity of and the weaknesses in how we’ve ordered production through the world. Anything that is important, any reasonably large nation should produce for itself–if can manage it at all. “Efficiency” gains or profit gains are not worth catastrophic failure vulnerability, or the political choice weakness which comes from dependence (not to mention how globalization has been deliberately used to crush labor).
Anyway, check your meds and make sure you’re not going to be undergoing involuntary withdrawal from something you need, or something with horrific withdrawal symptoms.
The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.
Tom
We’re already in a Pandemic. This second wave of flu you hear of in the US is most certainly Covid-19, but Hospitals can’t test and diagnose due to CDC rules and Trump’s own orders.
Things will have to get worse before it’s too big to cover up anymore in the US. South Korea has already independently confirmed human to animal and animal to human spread. My family has locked down in our farming community. But I am needed on the front till it’s no longer viable.
There is no more to say, survive as best you can.
Zachary Smith
I’m going to start by highlighting the only weak part of this little essay.
** “Anyway, check your meds and make sure you’re not going to be undergoing involuntary withdrawal from something you need, or something with horrific withdrawal symptoms.” **
For most people this just isn’t possible. They either won’t have a cooperative doctor, or they won’t be able to pay for the extra supply of prescription medications. In the unlikely event your cousin is an MD, and you have enough extra money, the “just in time” supply lines of US Big Pharma would cause the drug stores to quickly run out of their day-to-day stocks if more than a handful of folks did this. In ‘ordinary’ times I’ve had the druggist tell me he is out of some routine script I wanted to fill!
** “I haven’t written about this because others have been dealing with it well and pandemics aren’t something I know a great deal about.” **
This is true for almost everybody in the world. All we can do is to look at historical accounts and listen to the handful of people who happen to have some expeience. I’d suggest making a search for the output of Laurie Garrett. In my library are two fat books by this woman, and she has continued to research disease “hot spots” around the world. The link offers up a number of coronavirus suggestions by this author.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/25/wuhan-coronavirus-safety-china/
I think her remarks about masks are a little off the mark – the fact she has surived without them may be due to a healthy bit of good luck. One issue neglected by most authors and speakers is the prospect you might have to care for a very ill person or persons. Unless you manage to stay healthy, everybody involved is going to be in a world of hurt. It may not be kosher, but in a pandemic I would “launder” my just-removed mask. Slosh the N-95/N100 around in a disinfectant bath for a few minutes, then air dry it overnight under a clean cloth. Am I any worse off doing this than going without a mask in a sickroom situation? I don’t think so. Get a few of these masks if you can find and afford them. Garrett’s suggestion to wear cloth gloves seems to be really sensible.
Disinfectants. Buy some peroxide and 70% alcohol while you can still get them. Isopropyl or denatured ethanol – I doubt if it matters. Invest in a few liters of cheap vodka if nothing else is available – you can always drink the stuff if any is left over after the dust settles. Pine oil is another oldie. (Not easy to find the real McCoy these days.) Even in normal times I keep a spray bottle full of isopropyl to spray down handles and door knobs – and also certain items straight from the grocery. (how many people wash the tops of aluminum soda cans before putting their mouths to them?)
I saw a headline earlier today saying a big soup company’s stocks are soaring. Canned soup keeps well, but doesn’t have many calories. I’d plan to cook some pasta or rice, and then stir in the soup as a flavor agent.
Cooking! You’ll need some kind of heater in case the electricity goes out – or if nothing comes from the natural gas line. Propane is great, but the shelves holding camp stoves and the little tanks would empty quickly. Youtube has shows demonstrating many kinds of “rocket stoves” which can be quickly and inexpensively assembled. Heck, it’s possible to cook over a large candle if you’re set up for it, and have some patience.
Water. The stove will boil any you catch from the downspouts or bail out of some nasty pool. Don’t forget a porta-potty (retail or youtube and other internet) as well as plenty of TP.
Check the survival sites. They’re mostly malarky and right-wing BS, but sometimes you’ll run into some really clever suggestions. Use your God-given gray matter to sort the gems from the crazy stuff.
Ian Welsh
I agree Zachary. But the withdrawal symptoms for some legal drugs are beyond scary. So, yeah, it’s hard, but give it a try.
One of my friends is a shrink and one thing he’s angry about is other shrinks giving short duration pyschotropics to their patients, when the supply chain is so fragile and the withdrawal symptoms are so nasty.
Stormcrow
Tom wrote …
What data leads you to conclude either one of these statements?
Ten Bears
Yes, please, the data set please. So far what I’ve seen of the batflu isn’t any worse than the birdflu that was gonna’ kill us fifteen years ago (and that was just a marketing ploy to sell Tamiflu©).
Nobody ever went broke underestimating American’s gullibility.
Dan
Ten Bears is the voice of reason on this.
Alan Coovert
I’m not doing anything or going anywhere because, personally, I don’t care. Every morning I wake up in the most hated, evil, dangerous country in the Global Capitalist Empire and I say today is the day we burn this motherfucker to the ground. If a global pandemic is upon us then so be it. We are a bunch of stupid naked killer apes who do not deserve this beautiful blue planet that we live on. Kill your TV, get rid of your car and stop breeding.
Stirling S Newberry
The manufactures and the elites want business as usual. There are going to be scores of deaths that did not need to happen. It goes back to the war problem at its root,
Krystyn Podgajski
Please make sure you make sure you are getting enough zinc and lowering your copper. And when if the flu gets you, suck on a constant stream of zinc lozenges.
Search for coromavirus and zinc and you will see what I mean. The Zinc will lower your neutrophils so you do not suffer from the cytokine storm and end up battling pneumonia.
And thanks Ian for your writing. Long time lurker, first time commentor,
Z
If COVID-19 hits the U.S. hard we’re going to heavily pay and collectively pay for our social problems, in particular our lack of an universal healthcare system and our inhumane housing policies.
COVID-19 will hit the homeless the hardest, they have worse nutrition so they’ll have less resistance to it, and they often live close with one another and share meals, cigarettes, and drinks so it will spread quicker through them. They also use our public transportation systems heavily in the cities to get around and get some temporary shelter so they’ll be COVID-19 disease vectors.
Z
bruce wilder
I live in Los Angeles and it scarcely seems credible to think an outbreak is not already underway, given the size of the local Chinese community and its active ties to China.
The panic has started. Thoughts like mine above will fuel the spread of the panic. And, various other thoughts will compound the panic: thoughts about the trustworthiness of the public health establishment, the competence of Trump, the shortages that are inevitable as hoarding takes place.I
You are going to need to cope with the panic before COVID-19 arrives in force (which may well not be for months, as the pandemic may well follow the flu season pattern — so the pandemic if it comes will be a Winter 2021 thing). Public health authorities will be acting with the twin intentions of postponing the pandemic to Winter 2021 (to buy time) and to dampen panic.
It is not possible to do both well and the effort to dampen panic will result in a lot of bad advice and the generation of suspicion.
The news has entertainment value. People like panic in a certain way, emotionally. It promises to relieve the malaise of routine. People like to see the state acting dramatically and decisively. Some like to rebel against cooperation with the diktat that comes down. Others like to observe the stupidity and roll their eyes. The content of the news in our neoliberal era will be driven by its entertainment value. This will be confusing for many, as they cannot distinguish their own hunger for stimulation from their need to understand and develop practical responses.
ihateneoliberals
FFS, it is only twice as deadly as the normal flu with 2% fatality rate, probably far less for healthy adults. It\’s not a big deal. 400K people die of flu every year, and as Ian points out it gets weaker as time goes on. Stop freaking out, this is not the Spanish flu.
StewartM
As there is no real testing done, it may have already hit us. I went to Asia (but not mainland China) in November, and went through several upper respiratory infections after coming back, the first two mild, until I was hit by something Christmas that knocked me down and out for like 10 days. Then a relative–considerably younger than me–I was staying with got hit with something about a week later, and was hospitalized with pneumonia (but recovered). His doctors found out I had been in Asia and were very interested in what I had, so I went back to my doctors, but they didn’t do any bloodwork but just did a chest x-ray to say “no pneumonia”.
Now I wonder if his doctors already knew something was afoot. But even if my doctors had done any bloodwork, seems due to our current mess they still wouldn’t have known.
Zachary Smith
https://www.ianwelsh.net/preparing-for-the-coronavirus/#comment-110361
I saw the words “ugly withdrawal symptoms” and mentally translated them into something else entirely. Yes, that’s a special case.
We really have to fix the medical drug situation. Even if it means setting up “Socialized” government owned and operated factories to supply the US. Stockpiles of essentials in giant freezer buildings located around the country wouldn’t hurt, either.
Zachary Smith
https://www.ianwelsh.net/preparing-for-the-coronavirus/#comment-110376
I can’t recall the last time a doctor gave me a blood test to determine what type of germ was causing my trouble. It has always been a snap judgement followed by a prescription for a common antibiotic.
Could it be the insurance companies refuse to pay for routine blood tests?
450.org
What was the era before the “neoliberal ear” and what was the news driven by then? What year or years marked/mark the transformation.
zacharius
we are already in a pandemic in the technical sense, which was a very low bar anyway. the point is, we\’re seeing widespread out of control infections on multiple continents. the doubling time for cases is probably now less than a day, the death rate is probably between 1-3% under currently prevailing conditions, and between 40-70% of the world will get it over the next couple years. you do the math. the WHO is already admitting that around 2/3 the cases coming out of china went undetected, which is why we\’re seeing what we are now, where pockets are exploding out of nowhere with unexpectedly high death rates. this is it. the horse has left the barn. get ready to shut yourself in sometime between now and a month from now, and maybe for a while.
the only reason this is not being said widely already has already been alluded to by Ian: a major hit here is going to be economic, and they want to make sure the economic side of the panic is evenly dispersed, so the world doesn\’t go into major power upheaval when this is over and done with. like in the movie, the attitude is that nobody should know until everyone knows. that may even be the right decision. the last thing we need is a world war on top of everything else.
450.org
Trump and his admin will be doing everything in their power to hide a possible pandemic from the American public. This is the last thing Trump wants. He can ill afford it in an election year. The stock market will collapse if it’s announced it’s a national emergency pandemic. Insurance companies will go bankrupt if forced to pay what they should pay. There will be massive calls for universal healthcare. Bernie will sweep into the White House on a wave of panic predicating radical change in order to meet the existential challenge. Trump is the worst possible person to be at the helm should this truly blossom into a pandemic. Pompeo is no doubt ejaculating non-stop and foaming at the mouth in joy. The Rapture is finally upon us.
450.org
All I ask is that if I should contract this and it kills me, I get the same send-off Kobe Bryant got yesterday from our betters — the entertainers. Jimmy Kimmel was really crying. Really, he was. I know all of you feel the same. Everyday, everywhere amidst this pandemic, the likes of Kobe Bryant, or the remembrance of them and the glorification of them, will fill all the stadiums everywhere across this great land in celebration of their specialness and their incredible contributions to humanity as the hospital wards are stuffed to overflowing with the dead and dying. Bank must be made to the very end. Everything must be maximally exploited, even mass death and extinction of the species itself. God, or the deity that created all of this if one did, would have it no other way.
StewartM
@Zachary Smith
I have had bloodwork for that, for mycoplasma, though it’s not terribly accurate (it gives false positives months after you’ve recovered). So such diagnostics do exist; probably relative cost determines their usage.
Although doctors also tell me that they go by their local experience–typically, people come into their clinics in waves, and very often it’s the same bug that gets addressed by the same treatment. So if you find a treatment that works, you give it to everyone who comes in. Over the holidays when I came it the clinic was packed; I’d never seen it so full, so what I had was apparently common.
Willy
Coronavirus hits the elderly worst, especially the bedridden Fox News watcher. Trump is gonna lose a lot of voters. Limbaugh claims it’s either just a version of the common cold, or something which has been weaponized by the fake news media to be used against Trump.
Some believe it’s a holy virus sent by God to punish the gays since it’ll take a while for global warming to get the gay killing hurricanes up to full strength.
But the economic impacts could be bad. If Trump doesn’t get cracking this thing could contradict his MAGA message empowering Communist Bernie Bros in their mission to plaster gigantic cult of personality posters all over Manhattan.
Or Trump could do what he always does and and scapegoat the closest thing at hand as has been suggested by Limbaugh.
450.org
I was going to joke about this and didn’t bother. You can’t joke about these people. It’s redundant. They are the joke. Reality is now a satire that renders satire moot. It writes itself. The Larry Davids of the world need not apply.
Think of all the lawsuits. The judicial system will collapse amidst the weight of it. It’s already overly burdened with frivolous lawsuits. A pandemic would crush it.
Limbaugh is one of those who is at-risk of dying from Covid-19. Considering the severity of his cancer, his immune system is greatly compromised. Those who have it in for him should pay Chinese immigrants and fellow travelers to travel to Palm Beach Florida to meet him and hug him and get his autograph. I don’t believe in Karma, so I don’t expect Karma will get him. If there was such a thing as Karma, the likes of Limbaugh would have died in their cribs from SIDS.
450.org
Trump, on the other hand, is indestructible. He could swim every day in an olympic-size swimming pool packed with Covid-19 and still be fit as an oversized fiddle. He’s like Hitler in this respect. He’s protected. By the deity, perhaps. He’s here to fulfill a mission. The final destruction of the human race. The true final solution. Trump, like Hitler, has an all-powerful guardian angel, an angel of death, protecting him until it’s mission accomplished.
Ten Bears
The “three body problem” Stir? Civilization requires growth, resources are finite.
(does not translate well)
NR
zacharius: If the virus is already as widespread as you’re suggesting (which it may or may not be, I don’t know), shutting yourself in won’t really do any good. You’ll either already have been exposed, or you won’t be able to shut yourself in for long enough and you’ll be exposed at some point in the future.
If it’s already out there to this degree, quarantines are largely pointless. We’ll just have to deal with it until we have a vaccine.
Krake
I second alan’s sentiments. We don’t deserve redemption. We have earned annihilation. And our first species-wide mature act should be to embrace it.
different clue
Some of the people reading these threads will be in a position to spend “more” money on quality nutri-food by spending “less” money on various non-food diversions. Not all, but surely some.
Those “some” might start working now on rehabilitating and upgrading their immune-system function. They might start eating all relevant vitamineral and other supplements. And they might start deleting the toxicorporate shitfood from their diet and increase their intake of non-toxic shinola food . . . highly nutri-dense if possible.
If the corona virus takes its sweet time getting around to the people who are doing that, some of them might be immune-function upgraded enough to be able to survive a corona virus infection which they currently now would not be.
Dan
This seems like a reasonable view of the situation:
https://virologydownunder.com/so-you-think-youve-about-to-be-in-a-pandemic/
Don’t worry. Be happy.
Tom
@Ten Bears
This is not the flu. If it were a new flu strain, we could easily treat it and if we had Universal Healthcare in the US, no one would die from it as they could go straight to the Doctor and get aggressive treatment earlier and not spread it wider by avoiding the doctor and going to work or school. We also all have partial immunity to Flu.
SARS-CoV-2 (the actual virus), which causes COVID-19 (the actual disease), is novel. We don’t have partial immunity to it and we’re flying blind in how to treat it as different drugs give different results in different patients. We don’t even have a reliable way to diagnose it yet short of throwing blood under powerful electron microscopes which few labs have.
We have confirmed airborne, droplet, waterborne, bodily fluids, and fecal transmissions. Animal to human and human to animal transmission has been confirmed. Asymptomatic Shedding has occurred and what was thought to be re-infections is turning out to be remissions, indicating this is a chronic disease.
I wish this were the Flu. I can fight the Flu, it doesn’t scare me. This virus, someone sneezes and doesn’t cover their mouth will spread it across 200 feet cone, 6 feet if they cover their nose and cause deflection. They go to the bathroom and flush without the cover down, a toilet plume causes aerosolized microscopic amounts of feces to fly about for 200 feet (assuming open space), and the feces and infected urine get into the sewage system. Washing their hands puts more infectious material in the sewage. If they blow dry their hands, they blow off more viruses onto surfaces. The low death rate means this virus is perfectly contagious and can spread wide without burning itself out like SARS and MERS did. We can’t contain this virus.
So quit with, “Its just the Flu.” Its not, it is a civilization ender that can crash governments. South Korea’s Covid-19 response head committed suicide, China’s Doctors and Nurses are dropping like flies and Italy and South Korea are seeing their medical personnel drop. USFK has confirmed a soldier and Military Dependent have contracted Covid-19. Japan utterly botched the Diamond Princess Quarantine just as they did Fukushima and now the virus is spreading in Japan. Iran’s Deputy Health Minister is infected and the Government Speaker as well.
So this is practically the end of the old system and CDC is still not allowing us to do tests and has only tested 425 out of 5,789 people who were in China and returned. The rest were told to self monitor and most weren’t even Quarantined. Compare with Singapore and South Korea who are testing everyone and being aggressive about it. EU by contrast has dropped the ball and only Free Healthcare is getting people to go to their doctors when sick and not attend work.
450.org
Once again, because this can’t be reiterated enough, Caitlin Johnstone and Consortium News, Bernhard and MoA and Yves and Naked Capitalism have assured me and you that Donald Trump is a competent leader and his only fault is he lacks the requisite decorum but that being crude doesn’t mean you’re not an effective leader. Indeed, the three just mentioned and more are as much responsible for the ascension of Donald Trump as is neoliberalism and the Dem establishment. Donald Trump has assured us that Covid-19 (he doesn’t even know this is what it’s called) is all hype by the deep state and the Dem establishment to tank the stock market and make him look bad so he loses the election to Bernie even though he also believes the Dem establishment is cheating Bernie out of the Dem nomination. You’re morally bankrupt if for the past four years you’ve provided apologia and cover for Trump and Putin while directing all of your criticism at Hillary and the Dem establishment and the deep state and then now cry for help, and wring your hands, about a potential pandemic when the crumb bum you’ve protected and provided soft apologia and cover for all these years is saying there is nothing to worry about.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
It’s noteworthy that while the braindead buffoons, arrogant venal shitbirds that they are, in the mainstream news pressed Bernie about his comments related to the Cuban revolution, none of the above was even mentioned. The debates are less than worthless. They’re destructive because they serve to obfuscate and misdirect rather than elucidate.
Ten Bears
No, DC, sadly. I mentioned elsewhere that as with everything diet and exercise are probably your best defense, and was of course mocked. It’s not the difficult, don’t eat shit you won’t smell like shit and will be less likely to get sick; an hour a day of moderate cardiovascular exercise not only tightens up the muscles and tones down the fat but strengthens the immunal system, leaving you the more likely to ward off a bug, a flu, or a virus. But that’s too fucking much trouble, Muirkkkans are far too busy, far too important sitting on their fat asses mocking those who know better than to exercise, or eat food. Fat asses with weak immune systems dying off in a novel pandemic sounds a lot like natural selection to me. The only cure for stupid, and rightfully so.
Ten Bears
Addendum: with Trump having in a fit of cuckold penis envy gutted Federal pandemic planning, leaving this country unprepared to combat a pandemic, and as we are seeing now, the Trump administration’s response varies somewhere between ad hoc and wishful thinking, I propose we call the disease by a more fitting term: The Trump Flu.
StewartM
Well, in the course of these musings you learn something at times. I had thought the estimated 2 %-ish death rate for Covid-19 was ‘not that bad’ (compared to the 10 % death rate for SERS and 35 % for MERS) but then again I was surprised to hear figures of ~2 % for the great 1919 flu pandemic. So ~2 %-ish is on par with that.
That being said, all our numbers are fuzzy now, because we don’t have routine testing in the US and much elsewhere. If it’s already spread here, for instance, as we don’t test a lot of people may have gotten it as a bad bug and recovered and including those cases would drive the true death rate down. On the other hand, if we don’t have good data from the developing world, then deaths due to Covid-19 could not be listed as such and the true death rate could be higher.
There is an analogy here with the original HIV estimates, at first the number of those infected were sky-high (like 5 million Americans or more) and I thought “nah, can’t be”–my reasoning being that as HIV wasn’t actually terribly contagious (save by blood infusions or needles; even with unprotected receptive anal sex, the most risky sexual route, the rate of infection was later determined to be about ~1 % per occurrence) plus given that a review of the literature was finding cases popping up at far back as 1969 and even further (1950s) I thought “if it has been among us that long, it can’t be that contagious, else it would be VERY widespread”. And it turned out my reasoning was true, every revision dropped the # of infected– to 2 million, to 1.5 million, and now down to 1.1 million. The original fuzzy HIV numbers were estimated from the % of infected gay men seeking treatment, and then those men were considered a representative sample of all US gay men, and they extrapolated the numbers thusly. Of course, that assumption was not true; it was a subset of gay men who engaged in very risky behaviors.
NR
It’s also possible that the coronavirus death rate could be a lot LOWER than 2%, because we don’t know how many people actually have the virus. It’s possible that there are a lot of people out there who have the virus, but have no symptoms or only mild symptoms. The pool of infected people could be much larger than we think it is, which would make the death rate, as a percentage, much lower.
The bottom line is, we don’t know for certain.
Dan
I thought “if it has been among us that long, it can’t be that contagious, else it would be VERY widespread”. And it turned out my reasoning was true, every revision dropped the # of infected– to 2 million, to 1.5 million, and now down to 1.1 million. The original fuzzy HIV numbers were estimated from the % of infected gay men seeking treatment, and then those men were considered a representative sample of all US gay men, and they extrapolated the numbers thusly. Of course, that assumption was not true; it was a subset of gay men who engaged in very risky behaviors.
Peter Duesberg argued this point for years. He was ostracized to no end.
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/whistleblowers.htm
http://reference.rethinkingaids.com/VALENCIA_english.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsT4GrimfLQ
The mainstream narrative around HIV/AIDS is all about money, not science. But then what else is new.
bruce wilder
Where does the denominator come from for death rate? Is it dead/recovered?
Jack Parsons
For those of you who want to mask your way through this- surgical masks were designed to prevent outgo, not intake.
In an operating room you’ve got 10 people circled around someone who’s been cut up, and you don’t want those 10 healthy people dumping their germs into the patient’s gizzard. That’s what those masks were designed for.
450.org
It’s increasingly looking like this will be the pretext to forcefully remove Trump from office. He is ill-equipped to be at the helm amidst what could become a dire national emergency.
Zachary Smith
https://www.ianwelsh.net/preparing-for-the-coronavirus/#comment-110416
Good point with the surgical masks. IMO for anything except surgery, they’re fairly useless. By way of contrast, most N-95 and N-100 masks have an exhaust valve allowing the wearer’s exhaled breath to be effortless. Obviously these protect only the person wearing the mask because there is zero outward filtration.
Inexpensive rigid dust masks I’ve used seldom fit well, and are strictly for short term use. They invariably leak around the top of the nose causing glasses to fog badly. A person has to strain with both breathing in and breathing out. I might consider using these as a last resort in a brief “germ” situation, but would attempt to tape down the edges to my face to limit leakage.
Zachary Smith
https://www.ianwelsh.net/preparing-for-the-coronavirus/#comment-110417
Pelosi and her gang of dopes blew it with their part of the Impeachment. The Senate Republicans were too afraid of the Orange POTUS to do their share.
I’m afraid we’re stuck with Trump for the duration. Notice his first substantial move to ‘manage’ any crisis:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/02/problem-solved-2
We’ve had experience with Mr. Pence here in Indiana. Pray that this “coronavirus” thing turns out to be something really mild.
At the end of the link is the news Trump plans to get the money for his “emergency response” by stealing from a poor-people home heating program. It just wouldn’t be right to tap into the wonderful F-35 program. Or for Air Force One to be mostly grounded for the duration.
metamars
This is mostly O/T, though I’ve read and/or heard some things about coronavirus related youtubes being censored.
I’ll also make a preamble, and that regards disqus.com. I think disqus may be the most dangerous tool of online censorship there is. A recent comment of mine on breitbart (which implicitly mocked the economic ‘miracle’ of the Trump Administration ) was completely swallowed up, without so much as a tombstone type notice. I noticed for years that clicking on one of my own comment links often leads to and error page. This has persisted for so many years that it can’t be a technical glitch.
Anyway, below is a verbatim copy of a comment i posted in my vanity sub-reddit, the_donald_GoodAndBad, @
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald_GoodAndBad/comments/fa62w9/trump_related_reddit_accused_of_censoring_rthe/
It was removed by somebody or something, even after I explicitly approved it:
(TRUMP RELATED) reddit accused of censoring /r/the_donald
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/reddits-ministry-of-truth-has-removed-mods-from-r-the_donald-and-is-attempting-to-infiltrate-the-mod-team-with-a-list-of-vetted-and-approved-applicants/
Apparently, the principals have set up an un-censor-able shadow site @ https://www.thedonald.win/
Trump and his Administration truly stink at PR and educating the general public. How much executirve (sic) authority Trump has to correct the widespread censorship and suppression of conservatives going on, I don’t know. But what I do know is that Trump is not driving up general awareness of the problem. This speaks to a stunning level of fundamental political incompetence.
On a related note, see https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald_GoodAndBad/comments/dt1lb3/bad_trump_trumps_caving_on_presidential/
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald_GoodAndBad/comments/e1g3mu/suggestion_box_trump_trump_should_give_a_national/
someofparts
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1232071637475975169
I am still such a fool that I thought there were limits to how ghastly these people could be.
The link is to a twitter copy of Rush Limbaugh’s remarks telling everyone the corona virus is a hoax. Really.
Tom
On Masks:
The virus is .13 microns. Unless you have military grade NBC gear or a Hazmat Suit, an N95 or N100 is useless. It can infect through the eyes which means you need a military gasmask or a Hazmat Suit.
Any event, California did an end run around CDC. They confirmed community spread of the virus in California.
This is it. As for my area, we finally managed to get a damn representative from the State Health Department to come over and examine our suspected case and allow us to declare a health emergency so we can prep for confirmed cases and get them into proper isolation while safely quarantining suspected cases. Our Ambulance Company has already outfitted our backup rigs for isolation.
Tom
Addenum:
South Korea is now seeing people just drop in the middle of streets as well as Iran. This was seen in China, but now is being independently confirmed by South Korea and Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oKV5MK2bdw
Ten Bears
I drew the conclusion about a year ago, metamars, that disqus are the trolls. Not all of them, but enough to be obvious they were trolling comments to drive traffic. Deleted my account. Sad, I walked away from several communities I had been a part of from the start.
Bears repeating: discus is not our friend, they engage in censorship and disruption.
someofparts
Tom – Thanks for all the really useful information.
The disaster capitalists who own this place see this virus as a chance to make big money.
https://twitter.com/mmcauliff/status/1232784696792297472
Chipper
One big difference in mortality (according to what I’ve read so far) between this and the 1918 influenza pandemic is that this is killing mostly older people, while the flu killed many younger adults due to cytokine storms, which are worse in people in their 20s and 30s because they have stronger immune systems. I haven’t seen anything that has said that cytokine storms are being triggered by this virus. Given the ages of the elected leaders in the US and of the current crop of Presidential candidates, the virus could have an effect there, but it would be hard to predict what.
Even if the overall mortality rate is the same 2-3% (and who knows at this point), the distribution may be different. The mortality rate can also vary among populations (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Around_the_globe), and we don’t yet know what the mortality rate will be outside of China. I don’t mean for this to be either reassuring nor panic-inducing, and I hope it comes off as neutral informational.
I suspect the truth for how bad this is going to be is somewhere in between “like an ordinary flu” and “the end of civilization.” I don’t expect the end of civilization as we know it for another 20 years or so.
Lex
The .3 microns for 95 and 100 rated respirators is what they’re certified by NIOSH to. They’re actually more effective than that because the filter media is not a simple pore size filter. So, no Tom, something that’s .13 microns doesn’t just pass through unimpeded. And a virus is rarely encountered not being carried by some larger particle, like saliva. The “N” is a pointless indicator for this situation as it stands for not being rated for oil most environments where as “P” is rated. You’ll generally see “P100” on half-face silicon masks with the magenta cartridges. In both cases, the protection factor is assigned as 10, which means concentrations are 10 times lower inside the mask than out (if it’s fit properly). However, actual protection factors may be much higher and that’s not uncommon when determined by a quantitative fit test.
For god’s sake, don’t “wash” them. They’re essentially useless once you get them soaked. For reference, a 100 rated respirator cartridge is a HEPA filter. And if you have facial hair, don’t bother with a respirator. There’s nothing dumber than someone with a beard (or even stubble) in a respirator. The whole point is to seal tightly to your face. You can believe me or you can believe conspiracy websites. I, however, regularly enter dangerous environments and rely on PPE including IDLH atmospheres that would turn my lungs to jelly in a minute and burn my skin off just as fast.
Lastly, while this is a novel strain, the common cold and all forms of the flu are in the corona virus family. This is not some brand new virus. Given that 19,000 Americans have died from the non-corona 19 variety of the flu so far this year and we average as many as 56K flu deaths a year in the US, maybe it’s time to start with a serious discussion on understanding risk.
bruce wilder
The most common pathway to infection is most probably to pick up the virus from surfaces. A person touches a contaminated surface and then touches her own face, mouth, eyes. The virus gets on surfaces primarily from droplets emitted by infected people while coughing.
A mask is not protecting the wearer and a higher grade mask is just going to be uncomfortable.
The point of wearing a mask is to protect others, by preventing or reducing the contamination of surfaces by people who are coughing. For this purpose, a simple paper or washable cotton mask is reasonably effective in reducing contamination of surfaces.
As a norm, I think wearing masks may well be quite helpful. I would not discourage it. Quite the contrary. It is surely a lot less costly than shutting down a city of 10 million people.
metamars
@Ten Bears
Trolling is bad enough, but I tend to just ignore trolls. It’s the capability to censor, and especially to do so transparently, which is more seriously anti-democratic. The latter has greatly curtailed my online commenting, moreso than the former.
I believe that both disqus, itself, as well as particular websites that employ disqus can perpetrate shadow-banning, and the like.
BTW, I wrote a diary called “Improving Blog Mechanics, to Cut Down on Trolling and Irrationality” which is still up – ironically at dailykos, which banned me, though I give them credit for not deleting all my diaries, along with my privileges. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2010/04/14/857146/-Improving-Blog-Mechanics,-to-Cut-Down-on-Trolling-and-Irrationality?via=search
metamars
I’m going out, now, to buy some food grade hydrogen peroxide (35%). You can add distilled water, and put in a cool mist dehumidifier.
Not sure it’ll help, but it can’t hurt.
I’ve also read some intriguing comments about cinnamon.
For addressing flu type viruses, please note that archived versions of lifeextension.com have actual recommended dosages in their protocol sections. (No longer the case, I presume for legal reasons).
Here is a late vintage cold protocol:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160812151049/http:/www.lifeextension.com:80/Protocols/Infections/Common-Cold/Page-les
Zinc Lozenges: Completely dissolve in mouth one lozenge containing 18.75 mg of zinc acetate every two waking hours. Do not exceed 8 lozenges daily, and do not use for more than three consecutive days.
Vitamin D: If you don’t already maintain a blood level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D over 50 ng/mL, then take 50 000 IU of vitamin D the first day and continue for three more days and slowly reduce the dose to around 5000 IU of vitamin D each day. If you already take around 5000 IU of vitamin D every day, then you probably don’t need to increase your intake.
Vitamin C: 5000 – 20 000 mg daily
Beta-glucan: 100 mg daily (increase up to 600 mg as needed)
Andrographis paniculata extract: 25 mg daily (increase up to 150 mg as needed)
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA): 200 – 400 mg early in the day
Melatonin: 3 – 50 mg at bedtime
Astragalus membranaceus (std. to 0.4% [1.8 mg] 4′-hydroxy-3′-methoxyisoflavone 7): 450 mg daily
Elderberry: 2400 – 4800 mg daily or 1 – 4 tablespoons daily
High-Allicin garlic: 9000 – 18 000 mg daily
Aged garlic extract: 3600 mg daily
Lactoferrin: 1200 mg daily
Probiotics: Per label instructions
Echinacea (std. to 3.84% echinacosides [9.6 mg]): 250 – 500 mg daily
N-acetyl cysteine: at least 600 mg with each dose of acetaminophen
Over-The-Counter Drug Support
Cimetidine: 800 – 1200 mg daily
Their influenza protocol (same date) is here. It’s similar: https://web.archive.org/web/20161009175757/http://www.lifeextension.com/Protocols/Infections/Influenza/Page-les
Life Extension has both a scientific and medical advisory board, and they REFERENCE extensively.
Tom
@Lex
I am Hazmat Certified and also fully trained in Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical disasters. The N95 is useless. The virus is airborne, waterborne, and transferable via bodily fluids. It even infects through the eyes and open sores.
Chinese Medical Staff who already lack proper PPE have to put on layers and layers of clothing and masks, goggles, and face shields just to work in the Isolation Wards and large numbers are still falling sick and several dozen have died with several of the dead being in their 20s and 30s. We even have reports/videos of children dying in large numbers from the virus and being hidden by CCP. Its only a matter of time before South Korea confirms it independently along with Iran which already has large numbers of children being recorded as infected.
CCP is simply not trustworthy and we are now looking at South Korea which is independently confirming what gets past CCP’s firewalls and Italy as well is starting to see what China and South Korea has seen. Japan is just towering incompetence and its Government needs to be voted out.
different clue
@ Ten Bears,
Since this coronavirus has pneumonia type symptoms when it reaches the bad stage, perhaps we could call it the Trump Flumonia if that’s not getting too fancy.
Zachary Smith
I have what amounts to a small gallery of N-95 masks. Back when George “codpiece commander” Bush would do something stupid and scary, I made a mask order. Because he did this more than once, and was followed in office by a smooth-talking dark-skinned guy who also did stupid and scary things, my little collection has some rather different examples. I’ve never actually used the things except for the times when I was doing some woodworking which threw up a lot of dust, or was mulching dry leaves with the big lawnmower. Pulling off the mask to blow my nose or to get a drink didn’t involve any kind of risk with those jobs.
In a dresser drawer I found one of the oldest ones – it was all neat and clean in a zip-lock bag. I put it on my face, set the oven timer, and went back to the internet. Pretty quickly I found I had to suppress the urge to scratch the places under the mask which had developed an itch. LOTS OF PLACES. “Do that and you might die!” After an hour I removed the mask and did a post-mortem. This mask didn’t have any kind of face ‘gasket’ at all – the rough edges of the molded material had left deep marks on my face. Upon inspecting other models, I found my N-100s have a full smooth gasket which now looks mighty good. Some of the other N-95s had a partial cushion at the top where the mask meets different shapes of noses. If I ever have to use the test model of mask, I’ll wrap paper surgical tape around that top edge where it presses against my nose. (a trial run with the tape made it much more comfortable to wear!) Moral of the story – don’t buy a low-end mask unless nothing else is available. My excuse is that I didn’t know any better in the beginning.
Some have claimed breathing through an N-95 is an awful strain. That wasn’t my experience at all. The itching and the fact I couldn’t drink anything were my problems. The mask got an isopropyl spray on both sides, and will go back into the plastic bag. That’s because years ago I put one away without disinfecting it, and when I used it months later I gave myself the same bad head cold I’d had while wearing it on the previous small job.
metamars
I’m confused.
I heard President Trump talk about coronavirus, and he cited a Johns Hopkins study that showed the US having a leading position having to do with ability to deal with an infectious outbreak (or something like that).
OTOH, 450.org posted a rather damning quote from foreignpolicy.com, that suggest the opposite.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
Does anybody have any insight into this contradiction? (I haven’t looked into either.)
someofparts
I wonder if I haven’t already met a case. A month ago my best friend got some terrible, worse than usual flu that it took her a month to get through. Her sister got it from her and also spent a long hard month fighting it off.
Thanks to everyone on the thread with advice about how to protect ourselves. I’m going to trek out to Aldi and Walgreen this weekend to stock up on everything.
Ten Bears – I am a bystander who got winged by that salvo you fired at Alan. Maybe the men in comments are less self-conscious about it, but when you tell me that if I don’t have children I am no stakeholder in the future and should shut up and leave I can only thank you for being honest enough to say it out loud.
It seems ironic to me that now with a pandemic underway, living in isolation because I don’t matter to people with families could save my life. That is just the kind of odd plot twist that makes life interesting I think.
Zachary Smith
https://www.ianwelsh.net/preparing-for-the-coronavirus/#comment-110459
Sir:
Johns Hopkins is supposedly a top-tier medical institution, and when they say something which Favors Your Position, this is something to brag about. Frankly, I know next to nothing about the place – except for a very ugly story from a few years ago. They sheltered a hack medico who did the bidding of Big Coal, and a lot of people suffered because of that.
https://publicintegrity.org/environment/johns-hopkins-medical-unit-rarely-finds-black-lung-helping-coal-industry-defeat-miners-claims/
The study Trump was waving around reminds me of the “Rankings” of colleges I’m always seeing. That may not be fair, but that’s how I see it. The title of my next link may present a better way of looking at this new claim of how the US is Number One, so don’t worry!
*** “Trump held up a map showing the US is the best prepared country in the world for a pandemic, but only for the rich, influential, and fully insured” ***
The Orange POTUS has definitely gutted the CDC and other agencies tasked with handling mass disease outbreaks. Rebuilding expertise is not an easy thing to do, and when he appoints science-hating Pence to handle the coronavirus situation, this tells me Trump is far more interested in covering his fat ass than doing anything actually helpful.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-us-ranked-top-epidemic-preparedness-but-only-for-rich-2020-2
metamars
@Zachary Smith
Unfortunately, I suspect you’re right about the John Hopkins study, which I still haven’t read.
Alas, moonofalabama.org had a summary which I find extremely credible, and damning of our current response, regardless of what preceded it. See “Coronavirus – Its Time To Press Your Government To React Faster” @ https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/coronavirus-its-time-to-press-your-government-to-react-faster.html
It’s not long, at all, and worth reading from top to bottom. I have, however, given money quotes on my vanity sub-reddit : “(BAD TRUMP) (SUGGESTION BOX TRUMP) Trump is Either Delusional, or Else Lying Through His Teeth, About US Preparedness for Coronavirus” @ http://tinyurl.com/tou296a
The bright light is in South Korea’s extremely rapid response. In our case, we are not even protecting our medical workers, sufficiently, so a collapse of the hospital system seems almost inevitable, if this thing is spreading as rapidly as it appears.
Ché Pasa
Ms. Ché and her travelmate are now pondering whether to drive to San Antonio tomorrow or no as many people have withdrawn from the writers’ convention they’re supposed to go to thanks to the state of emergency declared by the city because a patient with a “weak positive” corona virus test was released from quarantine to go shopping at the mall and such before returning to quarantine. I think I read there were at one time 144 people in quarantine in the San Antonio area.
But the real issue is that people are coming from all over the country and the world. How many could conceivably be carriers unbeknownst to them? And what are the chances of spreading at the convention? How much risk is one prepared for? Is it worth it?
These sorts of questions are being asked about all sorts of gatherings these days. We’ll see what happens.