Coronavirus prep

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  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited April 2020
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Diatonic12 wrote: »
    So much doublespeak or doubletalk. Now they're telling everyone that wearing a mask protects others from 'you' but that road runs both directions. I knew on day one that masks and gloves offer protection but there's not enough to go around. I've been improvising since the dawn came to light as I've been taking care of others for years.

    @MikePfirrman Do you know if pneumonia and shingle shots offer any protection vs. having none.

    I'm not a scientist or a doc but I don't think that either do. I think both are a good idea, but I haven't gotten either of them. I'm a strong proponent of AHCC, a mushroom derivative supplement. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that both Shingles and Pneumococcal stem from the HPV virus, the same one that causes certain cervical cancers. AHCC is a supplement that has been clinically proven both to boost the immune system and also eradicate HPV viruses over time. I'm certainly not antivax by any wild stretch of the imagination, but I prefer AHCC, which is also fantastic in general right now. If I were a healthcare worker, I'd be taking AHCC daily. Essentially, it helps your NK and T Cells work much more efficiently and actively.

    No comment on prophylactic supplements, but about the bolded:

    There are multiple HPVs (Human PapillomaVirus): Dozens, probably over 100. It's a family of viruses, similarly to the way Coronaviruses are a family. There are multiple STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) that are HPVs (about 40). Some of those cause genital warts. Some of those cause cervical cancer. Some HPVs can cause lung infections.

    Each type, as a generality, causes distinct diseases, or clusters of diseases, but all the HPVs are not one thing, just as some types of the common cold are Coronaviruses, but are not the same thing as the novel Coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

    Chicken pox and shingles are Varicella zoster, not an HPV. IMU, it's a herpes virus (also a larger family, which includes some STDs, but the STDs are not Chicken Pox or Shingles).

    I know this is off-topic to the thread, for which I apologize, but there's so much dysfunctional information circulating in the world about HPVs (and the HPV vaccination), and Varicella (and the Shingles vaccination), that I didn't want to let this unclarity pass without comment.

    Thanks Ann for the clarification. Like I said, I wasn't sure about Pneumococcal. I didn't imply anywhere that Covid-19 was an HPV. Also, there is a human clinical trial already on if AHCC, which as I mentioned kills HPV, can prevent (I should say reduce the chances of getting) Covid-19, which aren't the same thing, I realize. What that trial will find out, who knows. But at this point they are throwing lots of prescription pills at it without any clinical proof.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Now, huge numbers of people who normally go out to workplaces daily are staying home. Substantial numbers of the 20% of people who've used 80% of the supply are now using home TP instead of industrial-roll TP.

    When I was last at Costco (3 weeks?) home TP was out of stock, but there were still cases of the bigger industrial rolls. Coincidence?

    ( :lol::lol::lol: <== please note LOLs, and refrain from arguing the point logically. I'm joking. Mostly.)

    ETA, with some extra :lol: : Not two minutes after I typed the above, I heard an NPR story (on All Things Considered) in which they mentioned that the shift from workplace to home TP was probably one (small) factor in the TP demand, though far from the most important one. Weird coincidence!

    That makes sense. I actually heard that if you go downtown (which is mostly a business district) it's easy to find. Happily, I am not currently in need.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    jo_nz wrote: »
    Someone in the region was ticketed yesterday ($225) for breaking the Stay at Home order. She was just driving around, supposedly, and was stopped by a cop. If she had been smarter, she would have said she was going out for a hike, but she told him she was bored and just driving to get out of the house. I wonder if that will become common or if she just was used to set an example?

    Our store shelves are still remarkably empty, at least in the afternoon. No frozen vegetables, no TP or hand sanitizer, etc. They did still have their sale items on sale as usual.

    This is super silly. People driving around aren’t in contact with each other. I don’t know if this is true in Memphis, but in Southaven the mayor pointed out that he encourages people to drive around to keep from going nuts.

    From what we are being recommended here, it's not silly at all.
    Basically, the more you drive around the greater chance of needing maintenance on your car, more fuel stops (potential contact with virus at the pump), more chance of breakdown or road accidents. If something happens, someone then has to risk exposure by going out to help.

    We are expected to only drive to supermarkets/pharmacies/medical centres, or of course essential workers going about their jobs.
    Unlike spiriteagle99's suggestion, we couldn't even get away with saying we are heading out for a hike...we are expected to only walk locally near our homes.
    Though from the traffic on the roads when I walk the dog, I am sceptical that everyone is following the expectations.

    Right, that was my thought, especially avoiding unnecessary accidents. I do have to eventually drive my car to keep it operational, so will go to a grocery store that's slightly farther than my closest ones when I do, but I understand that we are being discouraged from driving too (although I have no fear that I will be arrested for doing so).
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
  • Diatonic12
    Diatonic12 Posts: 32,344 Member
    'Do vaccines against pneumonia protect you against the new coronavirus?'

    No. Vaccines against pneumonia, such as pneumococcal vaccine and Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) vaccine, do not provide protection against the new coronavirus.

    The virus is so new and different that it needs its own vaccine. Researchers are trying to develop a vaccine against 2019-nCoV, and WHO is supporting their efforts.

    Although these vaccines are not effective against 2019-nCoV, vaccination against respiratory illnesses is highly recommended to protect your health.

    https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters


    Thanks for the previous replies. <3 This particular answer does seem like more doubletalk in some ways. Sigh.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,089 Member
    just_Tomek wrote: »
    Easter is next week. I already did get my parents upset telling them I will not be coming over for breakfast / dinner.
    Anyone else? How many do you think are going to stay home and not visit family / friends???

    I have no idea about the percentages at large. I know I'm staying home rather than visit family, and I know the family I would be visiting otherwise are staying home and not having anyone else over.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,089 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    lkpducky wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »

    I can't give you cites because my source was listening to NPR and BBC on radio, but I believe there's a new study out in just the last few days showing potentially-infecting particles from coughs/sneezes traveling much farther than previously thought (like twice as far), plus some fairly new information about the nature of virus shedding by people who are still asymptomatic.

    You are referring to this, I believe https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852?appId=scweb
    and this https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/824155179/cdc-director-on-models-for-the-months-to-come-this-virus-is-going-to-be-with-us

    Thank you. The JAMA paper sounds like it may be what I heard mentioned in passing, and while I don't think I heard the Redfield interview or a focused news item about it, that's consistent with what I did hear in the reports.

    Normally, if I hear something on NPR/BBC/other audio source, I can find the story in a text or audio snip on their web sites, and would include it in a post. In this case, I hadn't zeroed in on the radio items for follow up when it occurred, had the radio on all day, had no idea what service/program mentioned it. Appreciate you being a better researcher! :flowerforyou:

    Shifting gears:

    Throughout all of this rapidly evolving public-policy response, I'm aware that we (including me) sometimes aren't able to acknowledge in our guts that scientists and public officials are human beings, who, like us, can be confused, communicate poorly, change their minds (and should, BTW), and generally make mistakes. Keeping that in mind is especially difficult in a context where some officials clearly are negligent, willfully ill-informed or self-dealing actors. (I won't go further than the generality, avoiding the politics prohibition here - and my intent is not partisan anyway, as IMO all large-scale groups include a segment of idiots and scoundrels.)

    Of course, their mistakes are high-stakes and incredibly costly (in lives!) at a time like this. They've taken on the job (like doctors, or police, or others whose jobs routinely involve life and death matters), so we can hold them to high standards, but holding them to inhumanly high standards is just unrealistic. (Not saying we can't or shouldn't hold them accountable for even well-intended actions that turn out to have disastrous consequences. We can, and should. With some compassion, IMO. Any decent human who makes a deadly error, and realizes it, has a burden of conscience, as well, possibly life-long.)

    Just my dumb opinions, as usual.

    Thinking about what I've written on this subject, I hope I didn't come across as though I thought that those behind the messaging on masks were evil or even completely in the wrong. Sadly, I think that to the extent that they were trying to avoid hoarding of medical masks by the general public, they were probably right that there are too many people who would try to do so if given a message of "we need to save medical masks for health care professionals on the front lines, but the rest of you should cover your mouth and nose in public with whatever non-medical or makeshift mask you can find."

    Edited to try to fix the quote nesting. I'm seeing so much more of this problem lately that I'm wondering if it's an MFP glitch.

    To me, no, you didn't come across that way.

    Part of the reason I wrote what you just quoted (and frankly stupidly did so in a part of the thread where it didn't logically tie up ideally), was that I thought I'd not been clear. My basic point (in my post that I think started this subthread) was that I'm seeing a few people (mostly in my FB feed) quickly leaping to conspiracy theories and/or outrage over the shifts in mask recommendations. "Why didn't they tell us that before? Were they trying to kill us?" (<== cartoon level representation).

    I don't think that's reasonable. Personally, I think the situation should be interpreted mainly as human beings, who happen to be officials, trying to make sense of a mountain of information that keeps growing and changing. Some people I know bizarrely seem to think that pretty much all officials know everything all at once at the start (including a bunch of secret stuff), and manipulate it cynically (or at least officials from "those other parties" do). That's bizarre thinking, to me. (JMO) Officials are regular humans no different from us, mostly.

    I don't want to try to imagine what you're thinking behind the limited interpretation I can make from what you do write, but do have the impression that you may feel that the impulse to avoid a public run on masks loomed larger, in officials' initial thinking, than I do.

    I think that I'm giving relatively more weight to the officials being humans trying to sort out a lot of conflicting advice, in a context where most politicians/deciders are not subject-matter specialists; and I'm thinking that there was initial belief that (near-)universal mask wearing by the general public was not going to have a major helpful effect, and had some potential negatives (such as a run on supply more urgently needed elsewhere).

    Recently, more information seems to be coming out (various ways: studies, clear expert consensus emerging from what was previously a less-clear diversity of expert statements, etc.), and shifting the apparent weight of masks' importance. That's just my inexpert impression, nothing more.

    If this perception about your/my opinions is even true, I don't particularly want to chase it down between us to the Nth degree. I respect your intelligence and opinions over a long period of posts here. I don't consider the opinion I've perhaps mistakenly attributed to you to be an irrational one. I haven't seen you say anything that's (IMO) irrational about this topic. Some of your posts have seemed to me to be asking me to defend my opinon, focusing on a sub-part of my (intended, maybe unclear) thesis, so I've responded.

    I'm not an expert on what the experts (such as researchers) are saying. I wasn't trying to pile up a mountain of evidence (specific studies and their timing) to support the the idea that calm, rational people could/couldn't have or should/shouldn't have made a "general public should wear masks" recommendation earlier, or not. The people acting haven't had the luxury of calm rationality: I think most are thinking on their feet as best they can, under tremendous stress, with such expert advice (from many quarters, needing to balance many competing factors of various weights) as they can find.

    Thank you for fixing the quote nesting. I'm the one who broke it, and didn't notice until too late to edit. I don't know how it happened, but assume it was my typo, since I haven't had that problem with any frequency.

    Thanks, Ann. Yes, what you think I'm thinking is pretty spot on. Seems like a good place to leave it.