February Update - Masks

February Covid Rant:

Update – Masks

You’ve had both shots of the Covid vaccine. Two weeks have passed. Your life now returns to normal, right?

WRONG. There’s a bunch of hooey going around the Internet telling people who’ve had the vaccines that they no longer need to wear masks. IT ISN’T TRUE.

Here’s the truth:

v  👉As of 10 February 2021, the CDC has said that people who have received both vaccine shots AND two weeks have passed so the vaccines have reached maximum protection, if you’re exposed to someone with symptoms of Covid 19 or who has Covid 19, you don’t have to quarantine for 2 weeks afterward, UNLESS you start to show symptoms.

v  👉Under all circumstances, you still must wear a mask, maintain social distancing, practice excellent hand hygiene, and all other CDC and state health department mandates about Covid 19 risk management. YOU HAVE TO WEAR A MASK ALWAYS. EVERYWHERE.

v  👉If your second Covid vaccine shot was more than 3 months ago and you’re exposed to someone with Covid 19 or the symptoms of Covid 19, then you DO need to quarantine: no one yet knows how long the vaccines are effective.

Things to remember to help you understand why you can’t return to normal even when you’ve had both shots of the vaccine:

• Ø  The vaccines are not 100% effective, so you can still catch it. You may be asymptomatic, or have such mild symptoms you don’t notice, and you can pass it on to other people.

• Ø  There are new variants of the virus in the country and no one yet knows how effective the vaccines are against those variants. One, the British variant, which has already been found (Feb ’21) in NH, is believed to be more deadly and cause more hospitalizations. Other variants may be more contagious but not as deadly – except for the people for whom they are; and you don’t know if you are one of those people.

• Ø  It really isn’t nice to risk passing on a potentially deadly disease to your friends and neighbors. You may personally be safer against serious infection because you’ve been vaccinated, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of giving it to someone else. You are still not safe to be around for the vast majority of the population. Don’t freak everyone else out and don’t put them at risk!

Things for everyone to pay attention to about masks:

• ü  Masks are now more widely available, so everyone should have access to them. If you don’t, please come see us at Suite 230 and we’ll try to help you with that.

• ü  Cloth masks are generally less protective than the “paper” masks, because cloth masks are generally only 2 layers of woven material. Woven material is less protective than the paper, non-woven-material masks. Cloth masks with replaceable filters are safer – as long as you replace the filters often enough and wash the masks frequently, and only handle them safely, and they fit tightly.

• ü  Paper, disposable masks are generally 3 layers of material (some are 4 layers), but most often don’t fit tightly. Some brands fit more tightly than others, and it depends on your face shape, but most gap at the cheeks and around the nose, even after the nose strip is adjusted. These are still slightly more effective than many cloth masks, which usually don’t have a bendable nose-strip, and so are even more “gappy.” And, once again, woven materials let in more pathogen – woven things aren’t tight enough material.

• ü  Cup-shaped masks with bendable nose strips are the better solution; even better if the ear loops are adjustable for a snug fit. A paper disposable mask with a bendable nose piece, covered by a cup-shaped cloth mask of at least 2 layers of tightly-woven material, if it fits well, can be 90% or more effective. You still have to toss the paper mask regularly, and wash the cloth mask regularly, and handle the whole in a way that doesn’t spread pathogen from the outside of the mask to the inside when you’re putting it on and taking it off.

• ü  KN95 masks which are becoming more available nowadays are cup-shaped, with bendable nose strips, made of non-woven material. They’re disposable, so you can’t wear one forever, you need to toss them every so many days; they still leak if they don’t fit your face well. They have 5 layers of non-woven material and so are 90% or more effective. They tend to be a little expensive: $2.50 or more per mask. They will fool you into thinking they’re washable – they aren’t! They just look and feel less like paper than the surgical-style paper masks.

• ü  N95 masks are similar to KN95 masks but are even more adjustable – the ear loops or straps can be adjusted and the cup shape is more rigid, but moldable. These are the masks hospital workers wear under their face shields, and are not widely available, and should be reserved for fragile patients and health-care workers. They are also disposable, unless you have fancy sterilizing equipment. They are also expensive – running about $6 per mask.

Safe Mask Handling:

• If it gets wet, toss it if it’s paper, wash it if it’s cloth, and if it gets wet while you’re out somewhere, replace it immediately with a dry one because a wet mask is not protective. At all. Carry a clean replacement with you. Clean, unused masks can be stored in plastic baggies.

• ·         Wash the cloth masks often – you need to have at least 5 or more per person to be able to wash them often enough.

• ·         DO NOT touch the inside of your masks, paper or cloth!

• ·         DO NOT put the dirty outside of your mask down on your clean dining room table or kitchen counter or anywhere you don’t want Covid virus. Find a better way to store them. Putting a used mask, folded carefully in half, inside touching inside, outsides out, into a clean paper bag is one method.

• ·         If you can’t tell inside from outside of your cloth masks, and you don’t wash them every time you use them, mark them so you won’t make a fatal mistake.

• ·         Don’t handle your masks without clean hands!

• ·         Wash your face once you’re home, having first carefully washed your hands after  removing your masks and storing or tossing them. Your face has been subjected to everything your mask walked through, and a dirty face will quickly be a source of virus transferral to your nose or mouth because WE ALL TOUCH OUR FACES, ALL THE TIME.

• ·         How often to toss or wash your masks? Depends on where you’ve been. The more people you’ve been around (grocery store, church, doctor’s office, etc) and the longer you’ve spent in closed spaces with them, the more immediately you should change your mask. When I go get labwork done, or see my MD, for example, I dump the paper mask I’m wearing immediately I get back to my car, sanitize my hands carefully, then put on a new, clean mask  before I go anywhere else. Grocery store? Depends on how long I’m in it, how small it is, how many other people were there. Walking through the Tiptop to get to my office? I’ll wear the same mask for a week or two. Treating patients? Every day; more often if sneezing or coughing (mine or theirs) happens.

 

An Interesting Week

Calla Lily Leaves

Well, this has been an interesting week: I got the second Covid vaccine (sore arm, one day of creepy-crawly skin, irritable, squirrely stomach, and sleepiness, followed by 2 more days of sore arm, sleepiness) and slept through Lincoln, The Rose, and most of The Importance of Being Earnest, then many hours of Poirot on Acorn; on day 2 I was well enough to do some paperwork until my brain just gave out. Stayed awake for Downton Abbey but lost it for Poirot again, and went to bed early.  I had chills both days, but that could be a function of our house (woodstove) and sweats at night, which could also be a function of the house (a tendency to load up with too many blankets when the bed’s cold when I first get into it), but overall, much better than the symptoms of having Covid. Today’s looking to be a close repeat of yesterday.

Of course now, according to the latest QAnon word, transmitted to me by way of someone who had a conversation with a follower recently, I have a molecule inside me that allows the overlords to track me and I’ll slowly become a zombie. Sounds like fun. Do Q zombies eat pizza and curry? 

If you plant these mini roses, they'll live in the garden

Also this week, as expected, the rat bastards in the Senate found the worst president in history not guilty of inciting insurrection, then some of them tried to land on the correct side of history by saying it was because they had no power to try a “private citizen.” Riiiiight. After – how many was it? 147? of the most respected Constitutional scholars from both sides of the political divide in the country got together to write a letter to the Senate telling them it was their considered opinion that the Senate did, indeed, have every right to try the ex-president. Nice try, McConnell.

After a few days of recovery perhaps we’ll get some time, as a dear friend longs for, when we won’t have to hear the Inciter-in-Chief’s name on the news. Though it would be welcome if paired with the words “Sentenced to Jail” attached.

I’m in the midst of ordering seeds and such, assuming that spring will eventually arrive despite all signs to the contrary. Snow expected tomorrow, again; there were only 2 days this week we actually didn’t get at least some hours of snow, so not a big surprise. I’ve got the live plants, potato, onion, leek, shallots all ordered, and a few seeds. There’s still a large list of seeds waiting to be sorted and put on an order form and mailed. I do it this old-fashioned way hoping that when I’m looking at the stupidly long list I’ll come to my senses and not over-order. It never happens. Part of the problem is that seeds are so tiny, and the garden seems so large; and part of the problem is that I live in the middle of a field, so my brain looks out at the back forty and says, “Pshaw, there’ll be plenty of room, go for it.” 

Stuff that lives in my dining room

 Of course, if we’re still in the middle of a drought as we were last year, I’ll need extra seed. Too many things needed to be replanted because they either took weeks and weeks to germinate, or germinated and soon after shriveled up and died.  It wasn’t a great year for gardening.

So if the world warms up in its usual time, I’ve got about two and a half months to get my hands in shape to be able to plant, otherwise the Husband’s going to have a miserable spring while he plants and I stand over him saying “Not that way!!” The weird thing that happened to my hands last summer soon after I injured my thumb by hitting a rock, hard, while hand-troweling planting holes, is still unresolved. One MD (bone specialist) said it’s arthritis, and couldn’t explain how 3 days of Vitamin D3 cured half of it; another MD (pain specialist) said it’s carpal tunnel, and couldn’t explain why the first MD didn’t think so, or how my left hand and my little finger on my right hand “caught” carpal tunnel from the right thumb.  I think they’re both wrong, though I think the second might be partially right. Whatever. I’m trying a new combo of Chinese injury formulas which are having some effect and might have enough effect over the next few months.

Two Days Later: So apparently the transition into zombie is well underway; at dusk last night (day 3 after the vaccine) my shot arm got wicked, wicked sore and it’s making my neck and shoulder and upper back on that side also sore. And my knees. And every other pain I’ve ever had in my body. I vaguely remember this happened last time, too, but earlier in the day so by morning it was all completely gone. It didn’t disappear overnight this time, so I’ve got CBD ointment on the arm (for some people arnica works well, it has no effect on me; and if I didn’t have the CBD here, I’d use either one of my Chinese medical ointments, or Tiger Balm, but I’m interested in testing the CBD so I’m using that), and a body warmer on the shirt over the painful spot (heat for 8-12 hours!) and a sweater over that, because chills seem to be part of this for me; and then a hot rice shawl-pad over the shoulder and neck and down the back, and a high-necked polar fleece vest on top of all. And I broke down and took a couple of acetaminophen.  It’s minimally helpful but the rice bag’s making my neck and shoulder feel better and I’m very sleepy.

So I’m going to end this and go sleep through a couple more DVDs, and with any luck tomorrow I’ll be pain-free or a total zombie. Fair warning for those of you who haven’t had the vaccines yet!

For the blog 15 February 2021: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

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