A Successful N95 Mask Is Where You Keep Your COVID Virus Germs.

It’s all good. One thing I respect is someone who can admit their mistake. Good on you.

 

Nobody's purple! That's what my niece says when she means to say "nobody's perfect".

 

Smart girl

 

Cheers. Have a great Friday evening.

 

You too!

 

So spray the mask down with liquid (not gel) alcohol every other hour or so. Just a little spritz, not a super-soaker. The alcohol will evaporate before it harms the mask. It will smell funky but probably not transmit COVID.

Or hey, why not walk around with a little uv light shining on you all the time? Sortal like those miner's lamps that are popular now but shining in.

Jeez, I gotta tell you guys everything.

 

I haven’t heard Paul speak on coronavirus. But Fauci has spread loads of misinformation that has cost many lives. Of course few care...

 

Did I give you the impression that I believe in utopic dreams? I was merely saying what OTHER wiser countries have been doing nonstop since the beginning of the pandemic. Over here? Pfft... we made of masks a political statement instead of a public health tool. Our own president mocked it numerous times. Even our health officials issued contradictory statements about them. We failed as a people. All of us. Trump. Cuomo. DeBlasio. Other Democrats and other Republicans. Fauci. The CDC. The FDA. We the people. We ALL failed, as appropriate in an empire in frank decline.

 

Sorry, ArmySoldier. I like your NFL posts. But frankly, you are mistaken about this virus if you don't think it is dangerous. Yes, it has a low mortality rate, of about 0.65%. Yes, many tests have false positives, but that's the rapid antigen tests. The PCR tests have false negatives, but few false positives. In any case, regardless of tests, the fact is that the death toll is not all.

This virus has a predilection for the endothelium (the inner layer) of small vessels, and for the muscle fibers of the heart. As such, it causes severe and permanent consequences for 10% to 20% of the people who catch it and survive (these small vessels are the ones that feed the vital organs). Sure, 80% to 90% do not experience bad consequences and some don't even know that they had it, or they have had mild and transient symptoms.

But the problem is, this virus is very contagious; more contagious than the flu. So, it's been spreading very fast among the population. There was again a recent study estimating that we are missing 8 cases for each case we have detected. This means that the number of people who caught the virus is likely to be 9 times more than the numbers we have of confirmed cases. We are currently at 13.4 million confirmed cases. Times nine, we are likely to have 120 million cases by now, or more than a third or our population.

Why is this important? Because a study in Germany found 78% of Covid-19 survivors, including the ones with asymptomatic or mild disease, including those in youngish and healthy people, with some scary heart issues, and 60% of them had inflammatory myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle fibers) of the type that can be silent now and asymptomatic, but can evolve to heart failure a few years down the road. An eminent cardiologist said, maybe we'll get rid of the acute phase of this pandemic, just to see in a few years a pandemic of heart failure.

OK, let's not panic and let's think that 78% and 60% are numbers that are too high and maybe the population studied in Frankfurt, Germany for this study (100 people randomly picked from the list of positive people in a testing center) had some sort of fluke or unknown intervening factor (maybe the specific strain in Frankfurt had a stronger predilection for the heart muscle fibers), but let's just think of this 10% to 20% of survivors coming out of it with permanent organ damage (myocarditis leading to weakened hearts as explained above, but also kidney insufficiency, lung fibrosis, foggy brains, blood clots in limbs and stroke being the most common).

Let's even cut it down to 10% to be conservative. Apply 10% to 120 million people, and you are facing 12 million Americans coming out of it with very serious long term permanent damage to one or more of their vital organs. Do you see the enormity of this? It's the worst public health calamity we've seen in more than a century.

Not to forget, this number of 120 million people (if the "we're missing 8 cases for each diagnosed case" is correct) is likely to continue to grow quite sharply for the next six months, until a good chunk of the population is vaccinated and the vaccine starts protecting (December through May, because the vaccines will be widely available by April but then you need another month for them to work). The way it's going, maybe we'll have, say, 165 million people with it (half of our population) by May. So, 10% of permanent organ damage, we're looking at 16.5 million Americans facing serious health issues for several years. This is a catastrophe, in terms of curtailed life span, treatment expenses, and lost productivity.

This is a very dangerous virus that shouldn't be underestimated. Yes, it kills a small percentage of the people who catch it, less than 1 in 100... but it looks like it badly maims 1 in 10 up to 1 in 5 (10% to 20%). That is not good.

Please, ArmySoldier, take this seriously for another few months. The vaccines are coming. It would be extremely silly and imprudent to catch this thing now, and be subjected to a Russian roulette of a 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 permanent organ damage for the rest of your life. Better safe than sorry.

 

You missed the entire point in the hypothetical offered, and I'm not surprised.

 

Which was what?
Negligent people spread disease?

 

That the mask essentially stores the virus it blocks, and by wearing such a mask over and over again, the virus gets a free ride to other potential victims.

 

So being negligent spreads diseases..no I didnt miss that point.