Masks – how NOT to fog up

Yes, I admit it, I wear glasses, and yes they do fog up when I’m wearing a mask, so I thought this method looked promising. I haven’t tried it, yet, so I’d love some feedback:

cheers
Meeks

I love you Warrandyte!!!

Almost exactly a month ago, I drove in to Warrandyte to pick up some necessary prescriptions from the chemist. A month ago I was the only person wearing a mask.

Today…every. single. person. I. saw. was. wearing. a. MASK!

Thank you, just…thanks 🙂

love
Meeks

For Victorians Only

If you thought you were safe from Covid-19 because you live in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, or out bush somewhere, think again. DHHS publishes a table of case numbers by local government area, but the table is waaaaay down the very bottom of the daily report. I’m ashamed to say I only found it today myself, so I thought it might help if everyone could check their own area.

[Note: On the DHHS website, the table is sorted by number of cases. I copied the DHHS table and sorted it by locality to make it easier to find your own area]

New cases of Covid-19 by locality name

LGA	Confirmed cases (ever)	Active cases (current)
ALPINE	1	0
ARARAT	5	0
BALLARAT	24	11
BANYULE	288	147
BASS COAST	6	1
BAW BAW	9	3
BAYSIDE	63	26
BENALLA	3	0
BOROONDARA	151	52
BRIMBANK	730	481
BULOKE	0	0
CAMPASPE	5	0
CARDINIA	53	24
CASEY	296	149
CENTRAL GOLDFIELDS	1	0
COLAC OTWAY	46	46
CORANGAMITE	1	0
DAREBIN	193	91
EAST GIPPSLAND	2	1
FRANKSTON	62	18
GANNAWARRA	2	0
GLEN EIRA	90	28
GLENELG	6	5
GOLDEN PLAINS	9	6
GREATER BENDIGO	14	4
GREATER DANDENONG	118	84
GREATER GEELONG	104	29
GREATER SHEPPARTON	17	1
HEPBURN	2	0
HINDMARSH	0	0
HOBSONS BAY	133	73
HORSHAM	10	7
HUME	728	338
INDIGO	0	0
INTERSTATE	85	7
KINGSTON	82	42
KNOX	55	26
LATROBE	13	4
LODDON	4	1
MACEDON RANGES	18	8
MANNINGHAM	93	40
MANSFIELD	4	1
MARIBYRNONG	205	117
MAROONDAH	40	20
MELBOURNE	542	281
MELTON	318	195
MILDURA	5	0
MITCHELL	34	9
MOIRA	11	0
MONASH	118	49
MOONEE VALLEY	473	227
MOORABOOL	12	9
MORELAND	429	238
MORNINGTON PENINSULA	80	14
MOUNT ALEXANDER	7	1
MOYNE	1	0
MURRINDINDI	2	0
NILLUMBIK	55	24
NORTHERN GRAMPIANS	3	0
OVERSEAS	5	0
PORT PHILLIP	111	42
PYRENEES	0	0
QUEENSCLIFFE	0	0
SOUTH GIPPSLAND	9	4
SOUTHERN GRAMPIANS	2	0
STONNINGTON	155	39
STRATHBOGIE	2	0
SURF COAST	14	4
SWAN HILL	6	2
TOTAL	7744	3995
TOWONG	0	0
UNKNOWN	49	46
WANGARATTA	2	0
WARRNAMBOOL	5	0
WELLINGTON	13	0
WEST WIMMERA	1	0
WHITEHORSE	97	49
WHITTLESEA	379	245
WODONGA	1	0
WYNDHAM	756	474
YARRA	218	126
YARRA RANGES	57	26
YARRIAMBIACK	1	0

I live in the Shire of Nillumbik, and guess what? Yup, we have 24 active cases. I was shocked. This virus is spreading like a grass fire.

And now a basic little chart of how the new cases have been rising since May 1, 2020 [that’s when I started recording daily cases on my spreadsheet].

This is a link to the Daniel Andrews update posted 2 hours ago. In that update he confirms that one of the men who succumbed to Covid-19 overnight was in his 40s. Bear that in mind as you read the rest of this post.

And finally a plea : if you won’t wear a mask to protect others, please wear one to protect yourself.

Quite apart from the threat of fines, evidence is growing of long term health problems in many of those who get Covid-19 and recover. According to data from Italy, 87% of recovered patients in the study had some symptoms/health problems for up to 2 months afterwards. Only 13% reported no symptoms/problems at all.

The following graphic is a screenshot taken from the Med Cram video on ‘Long Haulers’ – i.e. those who continue to have symptoms after the virus is gone:

The next graphic is from the same Med Cram video:

Breakdown of data regarding Covid-19 ‘Long Haulers’

What the graphic shows is the breakdown of the data. These are the important bits:

• 143 recovered patients were studied
• all of the patients were sick enough to be admitted to hospital
• the median age of the patients in the study was 56 [median means that there were just as many patients younger than 56 as there were older than 56. So it’s not an ‘average’]
• 13% of patients studied had no symptoms/health problems after recovering from the virus
• 32% had 1-2 symptoms/health problems for up to 2 months after recovering from the virus
• 55% had 3 or more symptoms/health problems for up to 2 months after recovering from the virus.

So, if you get sick enough to be hospitalised, you’re going to feel pretty awful for quite some time afterwards. But who is this ‘you’?

To find out, I searched for ‘long haulers’ and ‘covid-19’ on Youtube. I found so much more than I ever expected. This video is about a 38 year old woman who’s been battling the after effects of Covid-19 for months:

This next video gives some info about how many ‘long haulers’ there are:

We have to rethink our response to Covid-19. It is not just a danger to ‘oldies’. It is not just a danger to people with co-morbidities. It is a danger to all of us, of any age.

Next time you go out, ask yourself if you want to become one of the ‘long haulers’. If the answer is no, wear a mask and stay away from those who don’t.

cheers
Meeks

Covid-19 and ventilation

Just a very quick update regarding the possibility of viral spread via air conditioning in close, confined spaces:

I remember some years back there were a spate of Legionnaire Disease outbreaks caused by contaminated air conditioning units. You’d hope that the technology has improved since then, but if it hasn’t, then shopping malls, supermarkets, trains, trams, buses etc could be pathways for the spread of this virus.

If true, the wearing of masks becomes even more important.

cheers
Meeks

Covid-19 – To mask or not to mask?

I had no intention of posting today, but I believe this video by Dr John Campbell is so important, everyone should see it. And then perhaps we should demand that our governments do something useful to reduce the rate of Covid-19 infection. But first the video:

If you don’t want to watch the video, I’ve cherry picked what I believe are the most important points. First up, a study that shows we’ve been under estimating the distance the virus can spread:

According to this data, the 1.5 metres advocated by most governments is not enough, even just for breathing, especially in confined spaces like public transport.

Next up is a study using hamsters. And yes, they can get Covid-19 just like us. What the researchers did was to set up two cages, side by side. One cage was ‘masked’ and infected hamsters were placed inside [cage on the left]. Non-infected hamsters were placed in the second cage [cage on the right]. Then, a fan was used to blow air from the infected [but masked] cage across to the uninfected cage. This is what you see in the top row of the dinky graphic below:

The result was that only 15% of uninfected hamsters became infected. Remember that their cage was not masked.

The second row of the graphic shows a similar setup, except that this time, only the cage of uninfected hamsters is masked. The result is that 33% – i.e. more than double the previous number – of the hamsters were infected, despit their cage being masked.

The reason? Because ordinary masks aren’t fine enough to filter out the tiny droplets of the infection.

Now let’s extrapolate to you and me. If I’m infected and you’re not, but you are wearing a mask, there’s still a 33% chance that I’ll infect you just by talking to you, or by leaving droplets of infection on surfaces you may touch. But if I’m the one wearing the mask, almost all of the virus I breathe out will be trapped inside my mask, so it can’t reach you.

Now, if both you and I are wearing masks, the likelihood of infection plummets. You can find Dr John’s very good explanation at 13:26 of the video.

Still not convinced? Then look at the countries that have done best during this pandemic. Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand etc have all managed to protect both their people and their economies from the ravages of Covid-19, yet they don’t have vaccines or special treatments. All they have is what is available to us as well – good hygiene, social distancing, and a culture that’s okay with wearing masks in public.

If 80% of people wore masks [of any sort, even home made ones] in public, we could stop this pandemic in its tracks and reopen our countries safely. Instead, here in the West, we’re reopening on a wing and a prayer. We hope that people will continue social distancing and doing the right thing…pfffft.

Just last night I heard a really loud party going on here in Warrandyte. If the volume of screams and laughter were anything to go by, the party goers were drunk, and having a very good time indeed. Of course they were social distancing…yeah, right.

We’ve proved, time and time again, that we can’t be trusted to do the right thing. Yet governments are basing their hopes on us, and a dinky app that will, supposedly, make it easier to track infected contacts? Puleeze.

I believe that mask wearing has not been mandated because:

• making self indulgent people wear masks would be like herding cats, and
• the governments of our countries actually want us to keep infecting each other…just not too much. They don’t want our hospitals overwhelmed, they just want enough of us to get sick so we develop ‘herd immunity’.

But…

‘Researchers think that the R0 for COVID-19 is between 2 and 3. This means that one person can infect two to three other people. It also means 50% to 67% of the population would need to be resistant before herd immunity kicks in and the infection rates start to go down.’

https://www.webmd.com/lung/what-is-herd-immunity#1

The trouble is, even the places with the highest rates of infection so far, the so called ‘hot spots’, have nowhere near the 50-67% infection rate needed for herd immunity. For example, New York has an estimated infection rate of only 13.9%. https://www.chron.com/news/article/Cuomo-13-9-percent-tested-positive-COVID-19-15221278.php

This means that people will have to be infected for years in order to reach herd immunity. Years of continued deaths, years of the vulnerable having to live in a bubble because every single person they meet could be a spreader. Years of the hospital systems having to cope with an ongoing pandemic…and that’s the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that the virus will quickly slip its leash and spread like wildfire through the uninfected parts of our populations. Given how little immunity those populations currently have, that means pretty much everyone. At once. As Italy proved, no health care system can cope with such a demand.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. We could follow the example of our Asian neighbours and wear masks until an effective vaccine can be developed. Once there is a vaccine, reaching that magical 50-67% required for herd immunity would be a snap. We could all be protected, and no one would have to be sacrificed ‘for the economy’. This is the Plan B our governments want to ignore.

So the question is this, are we okay with the arrogant assumption of government that they can ‘control’ this virus? Or would we prefer to wear masks until plan B can take effect? I know which plan I prefer.

Meeks