ESN NEWS CHANNEL: COVERING THE VIRUS EMERGENCY DAY BY DAY

COVID-19 is thought to spread mainly through close contact from person to person, including between people who are physically near each other (within about 6 feet). People who are infected but do not show symptoms can also spread the virus to others. We are still learning about how the virus spreads and the severity of illness it causes.

How easily a virus spreads from person to person can vary. The virus that causes COVID-19 appears to spread more efficiently than influenza but not as efficiently as measles, which is among the most contagious viruses known to affect people.

• People who are physically near (within 6 feet) a person with COVID-19 or have direct contact with that person are at greatest risk of infection.
• When people with COVID-19 cough, sneeze, sing, talk, or breathe they produce respiratory droplets. These droplets can range in size from larger droplets (some of which are visible) to smaller droplets. Small droplets can also form particles when they dry very quickly in the airstream.
• Infections occur mainly through exposure to respiratory droplets when a person is in close contact with someone who has COVID-19.
• Respiratory droplets cause infection when they are inhaled or deposited on mucous membranes, such as those that line the inside of the nose and mouth.
• As the respiratory droplets travel further from the person with COVID-19, the concentration of these droplets decreases. Larger droplets fall out of the air due to gravity. Smaller droplets and particles spread apart in the air.
• With passing time, the amount of infectious virus in respiratory droplets also decreases.

• Some infections can be spread by exposure to virus in small droplets and particles that can linger in the air for minutes to hours. These viruses may be able to infect people who are further than 6 feet away from the person who is infected or after that person has left the space.
• This kind of spread is referred to as airborne transmission and is an important way that infections like tuberculosis, measles, and chicken pox are spread.
• There is evidence that under certain conditions, people with COVID-19 seem to have infected others who were more than 6 feet away. These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation. Sometimes the infected person was breathing heavily, for example while singing or exercising.
  • Under these circumstances, scientists believe that the amount of infectious smaller droplet and particles produced by the people with COVID-19 became concentrated enough to spread the virus to other people. The people who were infected were in the same space during the same time or shortly after the person with COVID-19 had left.
• Available data indicate that it is much more common for the virus that causes COVID-19 to spread through close contact with a person who has COVID-19 than through airborne transmission. [1]

• Respiratory droplets can also land on surfaces and objects. It is possible that a person could get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or eyes.
• Spread from touching surfaces is not thought to be a common way that COVID-19 spreads

• It appears that the virus that causes COVID-19 can spread from people to animals in some situations. CDC is aware of a small number of pets worldwide, including cats and dogs, reported to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, mostly after close contact with people with COVID-19. Learn what you should do if you have pets.
• At this time, the risk of COVID-19 spreading from animals to people is considered to be low. Learn about COVID-19 and pets and other animals.

The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. You can take steps to slow the spread.

• Stay at least 6 feet away from others, whenever possible. This is very important in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
• Cover your mouth and nose with a mask when around others. This helps reduce the risk of spread both by close contact and by airborne transmission.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.
• Avoid crowded indoor spaces and ensure indoor spaces are properly ventilated by bringing in outdoor air as much as possible. In general, being outdoors and in spaces with good ventilation reduces the risk of exposure to infectious respiratory droplets.
• Stay home and isolate from others when sick.
• Routinely clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces.
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Pandemics can be stressful, especially when you are staying away from others. During this time, it’s important to maintain social connections and care for your mental health.

Learn more about what you can do to protect yourself and others.

1Pathogens that are spread easily through airborne transmission require the use of special engineering controls to prevent infections. Control practices, including recommendations for patient placement and personal protective equipment for health care personnel in healthcare settings, can be found in Section 2 of Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Healthcare Personnel During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A couple of tips from ESN News Channel not included in the CDC 

guidelines:

1. Try to break the habit of touching around the face, particularly around the nose, eyes and mouth, the primary pathways for entrance of the virus into the body from touching surfaces contaminated with the live virus. Studies have shown that most people touch their faces up to 2,000 times per day.

2. Transmission from surface contact is now viewed as a lessor threat for spread than previously but reducing this potential can have benefit.

3. Don't let up on hand washing, particularly for males.  Make it a regular habit until the "all clear" is sounded.

4. Close the lid on the toilet after using the bathroom, before flushing. This applies to within your home or apartment as well as in public restrooms. Fecal matter can contain infective particles that can become aerosolized, which means the virus could spread within your household, or even to a neighbor's apartment, through the air.

5. Check the ventilation system in your house, apartment, place of work or anywhere you spend significant time indoors. Many office and apartment buildings mainly recirculate indoor air, not refreshing the air with air from the outside. A MERV 8-13 air filter is capable of removing many small particles and can provide a safer environment. Outside air moving through a building is much safer than recirculated air from inside.

These are suggestions based on the best information available. Treat them as such and by being more aware and careful, help to prevent the further spread of the disease.

FROM ESN NEWS CHANNEL:

NOTE: At the left is the page content from the CDC website on the virus and how to deal with it in one's daily life. There is a lot of fear, some of it excessive, about the disease. We seem to have both overreaction and, likewise, resistance to taking measures to protect yourself and others.

Read the information from the CDC carefully and it is possible to get a better understanding of the risks and preventive measures. The CDC seems to stop short at times of making specific recommendations, preferring vague statements. When it doubt, do what makes you and those with whom you come into contact safe or at least safer.

There is no perfect way to be 100% assured you won't be exposed to the virus and get sick. If you take no measures or don't follow safety protocols carefully and wisely, you can be assured that you are much more likely to get the virus and, second, spread it to family members or others with whom you are in close contact.

Here are some other facts to understand:

1. The virus is NOT everywhere. It isn't floating outside your house ready to infect you the moment you walk out. It isn't in your car unless someone has recently been in the car and was infected. Open the car windows and the viral particles, if there are any, will escape. You don't have to live in constant fear. There are specific ways you could be infected and specific, medically known ways you can help avoid it.

2. It is highly unlikely that you would be infected walking passed someone outdoors who didn't have a mask or if you didn't have one on. Likewise, someone running or riding a bike passed you would be gone before their lungs could expel significant viral particles.

3. If you are in a room, like a bedroom or college dorm, and someone else is staying in the same room and has been infected, you are likely to be exposed to enough particles to cause infection, perhaps greatly. If the room has outdoor ventilation constantly, your chances of escaping infection would be greater. If there is a strong ventilation system bringing in outside air, likewise. If there is an air circulation system using strong filtration plus bringing in outside air, there would be a better chance of not getting the virus.

4. Indoor seating in restaurants and bars without strong ventilation of outside air or highly filtered air can increase your chance of infection. A study of infection spread in one early case showed that people sitting in a restaurant with air conditioning blowing the air from a table with a person infected spread the virus to others around the room. This was likely a specific case with specific circumstances but it indicates the virus can spread farther through ordinary air conditioning.

5. If someone is more than six ft. away from you outdoors and both of you have no masks on, it is unlikely that you would be exposed to sufficient particles for infection.  If someone is ten feet or more away, the chance of infection would likely go close to zero. The viral particles spread out or fall to the ground outdoors. Someone coughing or sneezing obviously emits more particles than someone just breathing. There is no definitive evidence on the small particles that come from breathing and infection other than the fact that we know most infections come from close personal contact. Sitting in a room without good ventilation and talking to someone with the virus for half an hour? Good chance of infection.

6. The general purpose of masks is to prevent spread from you to others but the CDC has recently changed its recommendations to indicate that masks also protect you from viral spread from those around you. If everyone has a mask on, then people who don't have symptoms yet or who have the virus without symptoms are not likely to spread it. Medical experts have said we need 90% compliance with mask wearing to stop the virus.

7. We have proven examples of US states and foreign nations fighting back against the virus and reducing its spread dramatically. Three examples are New York, New Jersey and Maryland as well as many foreign nations around the world. The measures taken internationally might not be appropriate in this country (perhaps too drastic) but they do provide indications of workable models. The idea that the virus can't be reduced and eventually  defeated as a steady factor in our lives is wrong.

8. The virus is called a novel virus for a reason. This is the first time as far as is known that it appeared in humans. It migrated from animals to humans in Wuhan, China, and because early measures were not sufficient, it quickly spread around the world. Scientists have been warning of this type of potential for decades. It does not come as a surprise, but it is still new, which means that scientists are learning about it as they, and we, go along. We should continue to expect that information will be changed and the advice can sometimes be contradictory.

9. The fact that epidemiologists have made mistakes in how to deal with the virus does not mean that they are in error about everything. Mistakes in trying to help the public deal with a new form of illness are inevitable. Even when dealing with disease outbreaks that have been around for a hundred years or more (like the H1-N1 flu strain), knowledge and information changes and new directions are required to be taken. Yes, it would be great if they would be right more often and, as specific advise from the CDC shows, even their best, careful efforts sometimes don't translate into something that is clear and understandable for us all.

10. Much of the rest of the world has followed the procedures for dealing with a pandemic that were developed in the U.S. over the last decades and many countries have been successful in reducing the spread of coronavirus. When measures at control have been dropped, gradually or all at once, the virus has returned at higher levels in the population.

WHY WAS THERE SUCH ALARM ABOUT THIS VIRUS?

One of the reasons that the nation and the world have taken on this virus, while not taking preventive measures in the past, like the flu epidemic of 1968, is that our knowledge of viruses and how to control them has developed. Decades, or even a hundred years ago, people considered themselves pretty much helpless to diseases. (Although mask wearing was common during the flu epidemic of 1918 and kids in schools, even in New England in the winter time, attended classes with the windows wide open.) 

Now, we know much more and therefore try to help people prevent death and disability.  As a developed society, we naturally consider early or unnecessary deaths as regrettable for both the individuals and families and for the society at large. Preserving life is as fundamental  of a basic  human value as one can imagine.  The fundamental plans for dealing with a pandemic were begun under Bill Clinton, extended considerably under G.W. Bush and, once the threat was again recognized, again expanded under Obama. Top government officials have known, as said publicly, that a pandemic would happen sooner or later as demonstrated in the Washington Post documentary (and other sources) on this website.

Another reason the world reacted so sharply to the virus is that the earliest medical reports predicted an alarmingly high death rate, known as the lethality rate. It was put at 4.5% in the early reports. Had it proved to be correct, that would mean at the current rate of infection we would be approaching 2,000,000 people dead in the US alone. Dr. Anthony Fauci said at the time that he believed the death rate would be considerably lower, as it has proved to be, but still higher than the seasonal flu, which makes the potential for early death quite high.

In a dire situation it becomes necessary to react to incomplete information. The threat of mass death from the virus means that actions have to be taken immediately, before the full statistics and information about the threat has become available.  The earlier action is taken, the better the likely outcome which, in turn, helped to create a backlash because the impact was not being seen in all regions of the nation.

Doug Terry, ESN News