Category: COVID-19

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Seat Belts, Face Masks, Shirts, Shoes, and Service

From John Gruber:

I'm old enough to recall when wearing seat belts became mandatory. Roughly speaking, these laws spread quickly from state to state, starting with New York in 1984 and becoming the rule rather than the exception within a decade. ("Live free or die" New Hampshire is the only remaining state that doesn't require adults to wear a seat belt.)

I recall a similar sort of opposition to these laws as we see now with mandatory face masks. Opposition to compulsory seat belt laws always seemed crazy to me, because the evidence was so overwhelming that seat belts save lives and greatly reduce injuries that it was clearly worth making an exception to the principle, widely held in America, that the government generally shouldn't tell people what to do. But crazy or not, opposition there was. "Fuck you, I don't want to wear one, it's a free country." Word for word, the same sentiment then about seat belts as now about face masks.

One of the arguments against compulsory seat-belt-wearing was that sometimes wearing a seat belt makes things worse. "What if I'm in an accident and my seat belt gets jammed, trapping me in a burning car?" "I read about a guy who wasn't wearing a seatbelt and he walked away from a terrible accident because he was thrown out of the car before it was totaled."

I don't agree with it, but to some degree I get it: What right does a government that sells you lottery tickets have to tell you that your odds are better if you're wearing a seat belt?

But there's a fundamental difference between wearing a seat belt in a car and wearing a face mask in a store. A seat belt really only protects the wearer. There are tangential arguments that society as a whole benefits from fewer car crash deaths and injuries, but the primary reason we have laws requiring you to wear a seat belt is to protect you from harm. Face mask requirements aren't like that. They're more like laws banning smoking in restaurants and making drunk driving a serious crime — they protect us all from harm.

From earlier in my childhood, I recall ubiquitous signs at the entrances of stores and restaurants: "No shirt, no shoes, no service." There were variants, but that exact phrasing was common. I always considered those signs so strange, as I couldn't imagine why anyone would even want to go into a store or restaurant without a shirt or shoes, let alone need a sign telling them that doing so was not permitted, but I figured it must have been a problem with hippies or something. (There were a lot of old people complaining about hippies long after there were any hippies left to complain about.)

Basically, other than poolside or at a beach, anyone who wants to go into a public establishment barefoot or shirtless is an asshole. It seems pretty clear that the people today angrily objecting to mandatory face masks aren't really concerned with the epidemiological efficacy of masks. They're concerned with asserting their perceived entitlement to be an asshole. You don't need to hang a "No assholes allowed" sign to enforce it as a rule.

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No Apology from Pastor of Butte County Church Where 180 Were Exposed to COVID-19

No apology from pastor of Butte County church where 180 were exposed to COVID-19

This is the reason you are not supposed to be gathering in groups. But don't listen to science you fucking idiots, listen to the raging orange moron in the White House. Because when the fuck has he ever been right about one fucking thing?

So many outbreaks have started in churches and a lot of our elders go to those churches.

And while we're witnessing Charles Darwin in action, be vigilant. Listen to your own self-preservation instinct. Regardless of what may be open, STAY THE FUCK HOME and WEAR A GODDAMNED MASK WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO OUT.

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This is Not the Flu, Goddammit!

Written by a nurse who works with ventilators:

For people who don't understand what it means to be on a ventilator but want to take the chance of going back to work….

For starters, it's NOT an oxygen mask put over the mouth while the patient is comfortably lying down and reading magazines.

Ventilation for Covid-19 is a painful intubation that goes down your throat and stays there until you live or you die. It is done under anesthesia for 2 to 3 weeks without moving, often upside down, with a tube inserted from the mouth up to the trachea and allows you to breathe to the rhythm of the lung machine.

The patient can't talk or eat, or do anything naturally – the machine keeps you alive. The discomfort and pain they feel from this means medical experts have to administer sedatives and painkillers to ensure tube tolerance for as long as the machine is needed. It's like being in an artificial coma.

After 20 days from this treatment, a young patient loses 40% muscle mass, and gets mouth or vocal cords trauma, as well as possible pulmonary or heart complications.

It is for this reason that old or already weak people can't withstand the treatment and die. Many of us are in this boat … so stay safe unless you want to take the chance of ending up here. This is NOT the flu.

Add a tube into your stomach, either through your nose or skin for liquid food, a sticky bag around your butt to collect the diarrhea, a foley to collect urine, an IV for fluids and meds, an A-line f to monitor your BP that is completely dependent upon finely calculated med doses, teams of nurses, CRNA's and MA's to reposition your limbs every two hours and lying on a mat that circulates ice cold fluid to help bring down your 104 degree temp.

Anyone want to try all that out? Stay home. Stay safe and well!

Source.

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This Photo Set My Blood Boiling

Large crowds at the bar last night in Columbus, Ohio. No one social distancing. Not a single mask in the crowd. In fact, the scene was so disturbing police received dozens of emergency calls with people frightened by what they were seeing. [Source]
I'm really starting to believe that what we're going through is the Earth's way of thinning the human herd, using the virus as a catalyst and leveraging our own hubris and stupidity to do the rest.

And I'm okay with that.

It was written a couple thousand years ago that "The meek shall inherit the earth." If you think about it, who are the meek ones? The scientists, the "brainiacs" who sat quietly at the back of the class yet aced every test they were give. The smart ones; not the gun-toting, statehouse-storming Neanderthals wasting oxygen to throw their tantrums.

All the rest of us can do is try and protect ourselves as much as possible, continue to wear masks, practice social distancing and avoid the type of demonstrably selfish, stupid crowds of people like the photo above when we have to be outside of our homes.

Look, I want to sit in a Starbucks, actually eat in a restaurant, and visit with my friends in person. But I also want to see the Republican party utterly and completely destroyed and that orange shit stain on humanity dragged from the White House in January and thrown into prison or strung up, whichever comes first—not to mention see the beginning of the new world we will grow from the rubble left in his wake, and the only way that's going to happen is if I stay safe.

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Some Thoughts on Getting Tested

Several people I know (including both coworkers and friends) have somehow managed to get tested for COVID-19. The tests have uniformly* come back negative for antibodies, indicting that they were all still quite susceptible to getting infected.

In the early days of the AIDS crisis, I lulled myself into a possibly false sense of security by telling myself the disease was so rare at the time that anyone who got sick in Arizona was going to have their name splashed all over the news…and I knew I'd never be that famous.

As the years passed with no cure in sight, and after seeing so many of my friends and lovers die—some quickly, some excruciatingly slowly—when testing for HIV started becoming readily available I made the conscious decision not to get tested. If I was going to be stricken with this horrific disease, I wanted to be diagnosed and be gone within a matter of days or weeks afterward.

I took some solace in knowing that my own sexual preferences in combination with adhering to safer sex recommendations when I strayed outside that comfort zone were probably keeping me safe, but let's be honest here…there were occasional slip-ups along the way that introduced enough doubt in my mind that when therapies started becoming available and the SF AIDS Foundation finally came out in favor of testing everyone, I marched my ass down to the Health Center and had my blood drawn.

While I'm sure pure dumb luck played a factor in it as much anything else, it was only when my HIV test came back negative that I could finally breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that what I'd been doing (or rather not doing) all those years to protect myself had actually paid off.

Although direct comparisons can't be drawn between AIDS and COVID-19, other than the US Government—under Republican leadership (surprise, surprise)—ignored the problem for far too long, there are similarities. I'm not rushing out to get tested because honestly, with no cure or vaccine available before the end of the year at the earliest, what difference will knowing actually make? Will it change my current behavior in any way? If I don't have antibodies, I'm still susceptible. If I do, at some point I was exposed, asymptomatic, and got over it. Would that mean that I could go back to my normal existence? Oh hell no. Unlike what happens with most infections, no one can yet say with any certainty that if you have the antibodies to the Corona virus you're immune to reinfection.

I mentioned all this to my colleagues yesterday during a discussion of how and when returning to work will be implemented, and added, "So if we're forced to return to the office prematurely, y'all will have to forgive me because I'm going to continue to mask and glove up until there's a tested vaccine fully in place."

Not surprisingly, everyone was in agreement.

We get it. Why doesn't the government?

*UPDATE 5/15: I learned today from one of my friends—who I just found out was very symptomatic last week—was tested this week and came back positive.

 

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Selfish, ignorant people are going to make this worse. Don't be one of them.

From Wil Wheaton:

A gentle reminder: when we are out in the world, it's incredibly important to maintain a six foot distance from each other. This virus doesn't go away and stop being dangerous, because we walked into a building.

Most of us who are able to quarantine have been doing that, and it's working to flatten the infection curve, to give our doctors and researchers time to find a vaccine and a treatment to reduce the mortality rate of this virus. Most of us aren't sick, and we aren't carriers. That doesn't mean we should act like it when we are in public.

When we're in public, it's our responsibility to behave as if we are infected and we don't want to spread Covid-19 to anyone else.

This means that we keep our distance from each other, even though it feels weird. This means we wear a cloth mask in public, even if it's uncomfortable or whatever bullshit reason selfish people are using right now to justify their choice to ignore a simple and effective way to keep us safe. It means we respect one-way aisles in grocery stores, and we wait in those aisles, six feet apart, instead of pushing past our fellow humans who are shopping.

If the worst thing we have to deal with in a given day is the inconvenience of actively maintaining six feet from our fellow humans, to protect them and ourselves, there's just no real excuse to ignore that, other than laziness and selfishness.

Let's remember that we are in this together, and let's make an effort to care for ourselves and for each other by making the deliberate choice to stay six feet away from each other, wash our hands frequently, wear our cloth masks in public, and never forget that all of us are going through this at the same time, together.

I know you aren't lazy or selfish, but I know there are people in our lives who need a gentle reminder.

This is for them.

This whole thing we are living through is a lot, and it's really understandable to want to get back to normal. The thing is, science and virology don't care about your timetable, and until science and virology have a vaccine for Covid19, this is our reality. Wishing it would go away, and acting accordingly, is only going to make this worse. Refusing to follow medical guidelines, because you're pissed off and frustrated is only going to make this worse. Ignoring medical advice because you're bored and want to go to the beach is only going to make this worse.

Selfish, ignorant people are going to make this worse. Don't be one of them.

Please, please, please be mindful and self-aware. I get that you're stressed and frustrated and low-key scared all the time, and not just about getting sick. So am I. You're worried about our terrible leadership, you're worried about our cratering economy that our terrible leadership is making worse. So am I. You're worried about this pandemic that we can't control at all. Me too. You just want to get in and out of the store or wherever, the faster, the better.

So do I. So do all of us. But let's remember that we are in this together, and let's make an effort to care for ourselves and for each other by making the deliberate choice to stay six feet away from each other, wash our hands frequently, wear our cloth masks in public, and never forget that all of us are going through this at the same time, together. We can choose to be patient and make the best of a terrible situation, or we can selfishly make it worse for everyone, including ourselves.

Please choose to be kind. Please choose to be patient. Please do not be selfish.

Thanks for listening.

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Reopening Dispute in 1350

"The plague ain't worse than spotted fever."

"Why are the stonemasons allowed to open, but not the blacksmiths?"

"Witch burnings can also take place without spectators."

"Taverns are also systemically important."

"Many of the sick people above age 30 would have died soon anyway."