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Apr 2020
10:46am, 25 Apr 2020
6,753 posts
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Helegant
My concern is a practical one. When I'm at the bedside of a terminally ill patient with COVID and they are coughing; even though I'm wearing a medical mask (and may or may not be in scrubs or my own clothes and only sometimes have eye protection) I have background anxiety about the risks. It's my supposition that despite correct removal of gloves and apron and mask and despite my best handwashing and face washing and arm washing etc. I'm coming into contact with small doses of the virus.
Given that an anecdotally large number of frontline medics where I work have already been off sick with the virus there are apparent gaps between best equipment and practice and the contagion level of the virus that gets past those measures. I don't have a medical degree, but I find that knowledge displaces fear so am a hoover for facts right now.
On a separate note, a local family shared the virus between themselves at a large social event. Six members subsequently found themselves in hospital hospital, three of whom died. Proximity seems to be the biggest risk but without a proper tracing system we can't get a realistic measure of the risk or an answer to the quesition, is it one metre for 15 minutes or is it more, or less? Are there any plans for setting up a tracing service?
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Apr 2020
11:02am, 25 Apr 2020
6,339 posts
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Northern Exile
H - yes there are definite plans, the goverment has put out a tender to recruit up to 10,000 personnel to staff a tracing service.
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Apr 2020
11:02am, 25 Apr 2020
1,002 posts
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Grast_girl
I'm hoping this will work...
Looks like RNA should be present for a while, but it would depend on how well they are taking the swabs and if there's a high risk of false-negatives.
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Apr 2020
11:20am, 25 Apr 2020
7,180 posts
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jda
That's a nasty story about strokes. I wonder what the statistics are. Seeing many many more than usual might still be rather few, at least I hope that's the case.
I'm sure that a significant proportion of people will end up WFH in the longer term. It makes a lot of sense for those who can do it. Maybe not every day, maybe not even most days. But for many office-based job, it's a bit of a no-brainer to do it at least some of the time. It makes it a little more awkward to arrange meetings but OTOH most meetings are bullshit anyway and videoconferencing technology is good enough these days that it should be the norm.
I've got a big scientific conference coming up in a couple of weeks, going to be all virtual of course. Looking forward to seeing how it goes - some of us have been pushing for years for them to enable remote participation. It's a shame it took this to make the organisers do it but if it turns out well it could become much more normalised for the future, at least as possibility. Turning up in person will still be attractive for a number of reasons, but it's expensive, environmentally unfriendly, time-consuming...
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Apr 2020
11:40am, 25 Apr 2020
6,754 posts
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Helegant
A FB freind has provided a polite response to Trump's ideas relating to light and disinfectant, "Ne supra crepidatn sutor iudicaret," courtesy of Pliny.
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Apr 2020
11:45am, 25 Apr 2020
9,967 posts
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geordiegirl
I have tried for years to make wfh more acceptable, as someone who has had a lot of time off with illness it made sense to be able to still work even if I couldn’t get in to the office. But it was still looked down on by many.
Some colleagues are struggling and even me who works more efficiently at home I’ve found it harder I presume because everything is different t and maybe that it’s not choice.
The story of the family is awful Helengent but I suspect not a one off this is 100% the message to get people to listen and believe the risk is real.
One of my colleagues brother is A&E nurse. A colleague of his tested positive and he then had symptoms at first mild and he isolated at hone (lives alone too) Fit healthy person he became very ill and in ICU with double pneumonia and clots on his lungs he is thankfully better and back hone recovering. The message that this isn’t just pneumonia and not just vulnerable is key to getting this understood. Frightening on the stroke risk too.
Has anyone heard about the alleged testing in France that nicotine seems to help fight the disease based on minimal number of smokers contracting and dying from it? A friend was talking about it as they’d seen some news on it - I’ve not heard this?
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Apr 2020
11:58am, 25 Apr 2020
6,755 posts
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Helegant
I heard it a couple of days ago and didn't know what to believe. Is it the nicotine that helps, or are smokers lungs so damaged that the virus connectors are deformed, or what? And is it even true that smokers are less affected?
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Apr 2020
11:59am, 25 Apr 2020
17,403 posts
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Serendippily
I had seen a twitter response to smoking but not the original science. Helegant I wish I could offer better evidence. I don’t think talk about whether 1m is necessary and coughs are infectious when out walking is the point when you’re dealing with the hospitalised who are stationery and have confirmed COVID and still have symptoms and you’re in a limited space with them. The question is: are they still infectious? And: if they are, how effective is the PPE? Does anyone know this?
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Apr 2020
12:09pm, 25 Apr 2020
6,756 posts
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Helegant
^^^ There's an advertisement for house insurance that has become an earworm for me right now. It includes the phrase, "I don't know. Nobody knows". I'm guessing the experts are all learning as more evidence becomes available.
I'm trying to keep light use of resources, not just PPE but the time and patience of the experts, so I'm not stopping busy people to ask my questions because they need my support more than I need theirs. Sorry if that means I pop up on here more!
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Apr 2020
12:16pm, 25 Apr 2020
33,967 posts
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DocM
if they are in hospital with Covid and symptomatic I would think it is likely they are shedding virus to some degree. there is no real definitive answer, but your safety is very important so assume they are infectious.
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