Coronavirus prep

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  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,932 Member
    edited May 2020
    Dnarules wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    Athijade wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    Zoonotic illnesses have been around forever, and will continue to be.

    They travel through all animal species - there is no way to be 100% completely free of zoonotic inter-species transmission. It's a natural thing, even vegans are susceptible to feces contamination, insect transmission, airborne illnesses.

    We are all connected.

    Great book about this called Spillover by David Quammen.

    Thanks! I'd like to read it.

    There's actually this really good documentary called Spillover. I use it in my microbiology class. It is a NOVA documentary; you can Google it.

    I think Episode 1 on the Netflix "Pandemic" show covers it fairly well, too. Or at least gives a good 10,000 foot view.

    I'll look for Spillover...


  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    Well sure. In the U.S. ( not sure where you are, Fuzzi ) we have the same regulations.

    I've worked for many years in the food industry.

    It's only as safe as its weakest link.


    If you go out to the park or the beach, do you disinfect your shoes before you get in the car or before you walk in the house? How about washing your clothes every time you wear them? Without letting them touch anything else in your house? So that would mean disrobing immediately when you get in your house, showering and washing those clothes and disinfecting those shoes.

    But then - you have the car to worry about? Are you giving it 10 days between using it? If not, how are you dealing with contaminants in the carpet and on the upholstery?

    Now let's extrapolate that out to every human who touches every item that you might touch?

    Like I said, I worked in the food industry for decades. I'm surprised more people don't die just from eating out. It's a super unsafe industry - even though you think it's safe. That 20 year old girl who works at Mickey Dees? You think she never touches the brim of your cup or scratches her nose then bags your order? Ha.

    Same goes for grocery stores. Is every person disinfecting?

    Yeah, I did restaurant management for several years and one of the hardest things was just ensuring basic food safety in the face of (relative) employee indifference. Basic things like handwashing, not picking things up off the floor, changing gloves after touching personal areas, etc. Then you add all the stuff about making them care that the FOOD actually stays safe by staying at a proper temperature, etc.

    It's not that they were malicious, it's just hard to get buy-in to prevent "invisible" dangers.

    Especially when the vulnerability to the invisible dangers comes from below-conscious behaviors, and in a busy context.

    I see this in myself as I try to put in place sensible anti-virus measures to keep my house "clean" (in the viral sense - I'm still a desultory housekeeper generally :lol: ).

    I can tell myself (say) I'm going to take my shoes off at the door, but I forget and just carry the bag to the kitchen, now and then, on autopilot. I can adopt a certain method for handling maybe-suspect foods/packages/items, but it's easy to drop and pick up, grab something by reflex and not notice, etc.

    The above may suggest a level of fear or obsession that I don't think I have or feel, in practice; but I'm making a point about unconscious chinks in our armor, in the midst of busy routines, despite being well-informed, and making best conscious effort. It doesn't worry me deeply, but I know those chinks are facts. And they're not due to lack of awareness, lack of caring, or any form of intent.

    Yeah, I'm terrible about touching my face. I totally *get* that I need to stop doing it so much, but it happens below the level of deliberate thought so it is hard to control. I have gotten better at my anti-viral "returning home" routine, but it too is still a work in progress.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,932 Member
    edited May 2020
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    Zoonotic illnesses have been around forever, and will continue to be.

    Right. To elaborate on what you said, I feel like some things are getting confused. One is basic food safety and contamination (by things like excrement), which can lead to some kinds of outbreaks (like romaine and salmonella). Another is zoonotic illnesses that are caused by living in close proximity to animals (typically domesticated) and thus new diseases being introduced from them that were not previously seen in humans. Or animals living in proximity to each other (ducks and swine, for example, leading to bird flu in swine which then can jump to humans). As exotic animals are brought alongside other animals and humans in some markets, they can potentially lead to novel diseases (which may be what happened with this coronavirus, although as I understand it that's not at all clear).

    Smallpox is one example of a zoonotic disease caused by animal domestication and relatively dense populations living alongside animals in Europe and elsewhere many, many years ago. Many other common illnesses (or once common) resulted from this too, and it's not really about "food safety" or not. This is why the diseases that were commonplace in Europe (and still quite deadly there) by the time Europeans came to the Americas were so devastating to the Native American populations, who had no immunity to them.

    Smallpox may have gotten a hand-up by us living close to animals and domesticating them, but it's still spread by the mechanisms of contamination, whether on our hands, bodies and clothing or by ingesting unclean food/touching the same things that infected people have touched.

    Restaurant workers: I cannot even begin to tell you how bad it really is in a restaurant. Even one that passes health code inspections 99% of the time. Like Ann said, it's hard to get minimum wage teenagers to understand the gravity of food safety, constant disinfection and not touching their faces and then plates, silverware, glasses, etc.

    I live near a 20,000 member murder of crows at the Univ of WA. They are studying all the nasties in their feces - which I tramp home on the bottoms of my shoes on the regular. Same with my back-yard and the Canada geese...

    We all live close to animals. NYC? Rats and squirrels, chihuahuas and police horses. Mosquitoes, etc.

    https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,932 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    Well sure. In the U.S. ( not sure where you are, Fuzzi ) we have the same regulations.

    I've worked for many years in the food industry.

    It's only as safe as its weakest link.


    If you go out to the park or the beach, do you disinfect your shoes before you get in the car or before you walk in the house? How about washing your clothes every time you wear them? Without letting them touch anything else in your house? So that would mean disrobing immediately when you get in your house, showering and washing those clothes and disinfecting those shoes.

    But then - you have the car to worry about? Are you giving it 10 days between using it? If not, how are you dealing with contaminants in the carpet and on the upholstery?

    Now let's extrapolate that out to every human who touches every item that you might touch?

    Like I said, I worked in the food industry for decades. I'm surprised more people don't die just from eating out. It's a super unsafe industry - even though you think it's safe. That 20 year old girl who works at Mickey Dees? You think she never touches the brim of your cup or scratches her nose then bags your order? Ha.

    Same goes for grocery stores. Is every person disinfecting?

    Yeah, I did restaurant management for several years and one of the hardest things was just ensuring basic food safety in the face of (relative) employee indifference. Basic things like handwashing, not picking things up off the floor, changing gloves after touching personal areas, etc. Then you add all the stuff about making them care that the FOOD actually stays safe by staying at a proper temperature, etc.

    It's not that they were malicious, it's just hard to get buy-in to prevent "invisible" dangers.

    Especially when the vulnerability to the invisible dangers comes from below-conscious behaviors, and in a busy context.

    I see this in myself as I try to put in place sensible anti-virus measures to keep my house "clean" (in the viral sense - I'm still a desultory housekeeper generally :lol: ).

    I can tell myself (say) I'm going to take my shoes off at the door, but I forget and just carry the bag to the kitchen, now and then, on autopilot. I can adopt a certain method for handling maybe-suspect foods/packages/items, but it's easy to drop and pick up, grab something by reflex and not notice, etc.

    The above may suggest a level of fear or obsession that I don't think I have or feel, in practice; but I'm making a point about unconscious chinks in our armor, in the midst of busy routines, despite being well-informed, and making best conscious effort. It doesn't worry me deeply, but I know those chinks are facts. And they're not due to lack of awareness, lack of caring, or any form of intent.

    Why so much focus on shoes? Yes, my shoes are dirty, and they spread dirt to my floor. They do that normally when there is no covid because the ground is covered in tetanus and e.coli, among millions of other infectious agents. For that reason, I never put my shoes on a surface which ever contacts my face or something likely to touch my face. I wash my hands after doing push-ups, for example. I don’t lick my floors, or drop food on them and then eat it, or set plates on them. The floor is and has always been a non-safe surface. I tend to take my shoes off or change to indoor shoes when I come home simply because my shoes are uncomfortable for wearing around the house, but I would consider this true even if I lived Japanese-style and took my shoes off every time before entering, because I don’t regularly wash my feet as I wash my hands, so my feet are likely to be germy.

    Covid isn’t absorbed through the skin, if you can avoid sticking your shoe in your mouth (either directly or indirectly) you should be fine.

    Don't put your feet up on the couch, table or bed without washing them. Because once it's on the furniture or in your bed, it's transferable to your hands, body, face. Don't use throw blankets on the couch when it's cold...same thing. Don't pet your dog or cat who sleeps on the floor...etc.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    The gov of Virginia instituted some kind of executive order requiring masks/ face coverings in all indoor public places. It is not being policed by law enforcement though, it's under the purview of the Dept of Health. Which I think means it isn't really enforceable, but more meant to give a clear and concise message. And I think make it a little easier for businesses to all be on the same page.

    Number of new cases in VA isn't really going down, so we are still mostly in stay-at-home orders, except outdoor dine in is allowed and some parks have partially opened. We never really had much of a peak (yet) just kind of plateaued at a handleable amount of cases. In my mind, the cases and deaths are still high enough to be daunting, but hospitals are in good shape so at least there's that. The fact that there's room in the ICU if I need it isn't really comforting to me, but I guess it is for some :disappointed:
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,935 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    Well sure. In the U.S. ( not sure where you are, Fuzzi ) we have the same regulations.

    I've worked for many years in the food industry.

    It's only as safe as its weakest link.


    If you go out to the park or the beach, do you disinfect your shoes before you get in the car or before you walk in the house? How about washing your clothes every time you wear them? Without letting them touch anything else in your house? So that would mean disrobing immediately when you get in your house, showering and washing those clothes and disinfecting those shoes.

    But then - you have the car to worry about? Are you giving it 10 days between using it? If not, how are you dealing with contaminants in the carpet and on the upholstery?

    Now let's extrapolate that out to every human who touches every item that you might touch?

    Like I said, I worked in the food industry for decades. I'm surprised more people don't die just from eating out. It's a super unsafe industry - even though you think it's safe. That 20 year old girl who works at Mickey Dees? You think she never touches the brim of your cup or scratches her nose then bags your order? Ha.

    Same goes for grocery stores. Is every person disinfecting?

    Yeah, I did restaurant management for several years and one of the hardest things was just ensuring basic food safety in the face of (relative) employee indifference. Basic things like handwashing, not picking things up off the floor, changing gloves after touching personal areas, etc. Then you add all the stuff about making them care that the FOOD actually stays safe by staying at a proper temperature, etc.

    It's not that they were malicious, it's just hard to get buy-in to prevent "invisible" dangers.

    Especially when the vulnerability to the invisible dangers comes from below-conscious behaviors, and in a busy context.

    I see this in myself as I try to put in place sensible anti-virus measures to keep my house "clean" (in the viral sense - I'm still a desultory housekeeper generally :lol: ).

    I can tell myself (say) I'm going to take my shoes off at the door, but I forget and just carry the bag to the kitchen, now and then, on autopilot. I can adopt a certain method for handling maybe-suspect foods/packages/items, but it's easy to drop and pick up, grab something by reflex and not notice, etc.

    The above may suggest a level of fear or obsession that I don't think I have or feel, in practice; but I'm making a point about unconscious chinks in our armor, in the midst of busy routines, despite being well-informed, and making best conscious effort. It doesn't worry me deeply, but I know those chinks are facts. And they're not due to lack of awareness, lack of caring, or any form of intent.

    Why so much focus on shoes? Yes, my shoes are dirty, and they spread dirt to my floor. They do that normally when there is no covid because the ground is covered in tetanus and e.coli, among millions of other infectious agents. For that reason, I never put my shoes on a surface which ever contacts my face or something likely to touch my face. I wash my hands after doing push-ups, for example. I don’t lick my floors, or drop food on them and then eat it, or set plates on them. The floor is and has always been a non-safe surface. I tend to take my shoes off or change to indoor shoes when I come home simply because my shoes are uncomfortable for wearing around the house, but I would consider this true even if I lived Japanese-style and took my shoes off every time before entering, because I don’t regularly wash my feet as I wash my hands, so my feet are likely to be germy.

    Covid isn’t absorbed through the skin, if you can avoid sticking your shoe in your mouth (either directly or indirectly) you should be fine.

    Please note sentence in post you quoted: "The above may suggest a level or fear or obsession that I don't think I have or feel . . . ."

    I don't like shoes, I normally take them off at the door. If it's muddy or there are extra reasons for doing that, I'm more likely to want to remember to do it. Sometimes I go on autopilot and forget. That's it: That things I intend to do for reasons of cleanliness (or whatever) don't always happen, when I'm rushing around focused on other stuff. Our automatic actions create chinks in our armor.

    (I'm a terrible housekeeper, not at all a germophobe. If exposure to microbes creates a stronger immune system, mine would be a Titan, an Amazon. :lol: ).

    Essentially, I was suggesting that the minimum-wage teenagers might not be so different from the rest of us, when it comes to following through on sanitation details of whatever nature, in a busy context where automatic below-conscious-thought actions are more probable.
    cmriverside wrote: »
    (snip)

    Restaurant workers: I cannot even begin to tell you how bad it really is in a restaurant. Even one that passes health code inspections 99% of the time. Like Ann said, it's hard to get minimum wage teenagers to understand the gravity of food safety, constant disinfection and not touching their faces and then plates, silverware, glasses, etc.
    (snip)

    FTR, that was not me (though I did work in a similar context for a while). That's closer (maybe not exact) to what @janejellyroll said: "It's not that they were malicious, it's just hard to get buy-in to prevent "invisible" dangers."

    I was going further, defending said minimum-wage teenagers a bit, suggesting that even if they did buy in mentally, their behavior still might not consistently reflect it, especially in a busy environment. Indifference is a factor, of course; but not the only contributor.

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