Yes: We’re Still Masking
Many things to go over this morning. Two posts – the second (“Shop Talk”) will be along shortly. But I want to start with a reader inquiry:
“George – with all the talk about masks being ‘useless’ and such, and with covid on the rise in just about every state, wondering, wht does you son have to say about people wearing/not wearing masks as a layer of protection against getting the virus…
I am interested because both hubby and I are in the ‘high risk’ group here in the King County, wa area, and don’t venture anywhere without a N-95 on and taking all the other overly precautionary means to avoid contact and exposure. I recall G2 was active in the medical field – contact tracing/Emt? Does HE wear a mask when out and about in everyday life? Does HE think it is a waste of time and useless for the states to impose restrictions for things like gatherings, dining in restaurants, etc?
I really am interested in knowing since I do not know anyone on the ‘front lines’ except for my neighbor who does hospice work.
Just curious.
Thanks for all you do for your readers, and all the wealth of information you share with us.”
Thanks for asking.
The Mask “Answer”
G2 started to write a book (“back when”) “Living in the Hot Zone” and it was from him I learned the “Zone Defense.” Green zone: Everything is touchable, edible, wearable. Safe. Then there’s a Yellow Zone. Decontamination happens at the Red Zone (disease likely) transition.
“For example: You go into the Red Zone , you’re properly protected and have gloves on, mask, boots, gown, hair covering and eye protection. Real PPE, not the public “lite” recommendations.
Now you touch something that has virus on it, like a railing and/or doorknob. Or, maybe someone coughed or sneezed and those tiny droplets that the person expelled by coughing or sneezing is still hanging around. Remember, virus droplets can travel in extreme cases 60+feet!
Fortunately, your breathing is protected (by the mask) so the virus can’t enter through your airway.
Since your eyes are protected by a face shield, it can’t enter in via your eyes, either.
Because you’re wearing gloves, the virus really never gets on your hands, its gets on your glove.
The bottom line is that since you are properly protections (and by that G2 means really, seriously protected) you have stacked the odds extremely high in your favor.”
G2 is not a medical doctor. However, he’s done Norwalk tracing in public housing, disease tracking at “drunk tanks”, HIVB/AID testing, and more recently, he’s been called out with a Type One forest fire team to do Covid testing on the big fire in Oregon (Beachie, Lions Gate) and Colorado (East Troublesome).
Combined, about the only group of people with more exposure risk? Trauma staff in a sick big city. Maybe.
PPE Scaling
His view – and the one I endorse – is that exposure is a game of odds. In the ideal conditions, you’d have on a P-100 rated mask, though a full-face Scott mask with cannister would be preferable. Then a face shield (yes, even over glasses), a virus-proof suit, gloves, disposable booties. In short, the whole thing.
As soon as you drop down to an N-95 (or lower) mask, your odds go up.
But it’s a matter of time of exposure, as well.
If you have outside pressurized air piped in, full face and head covering, and you’re gloved and in a suit, bootied and taped…you might be able to work all day.
On the other hand, with no PPE, one full breath of a dangerous virus could spell lights out, finis .
Consider all the factors involved in aerosol spread. It’s an impressive calculation!
- Type of virus
- Exposure to infective dose in healthy person
- Direct exposure concentrations (wet cough or dry?)
- Dilution study (how far is “enough?”)
- Incubation time of disease
- Time to maximum shedding
- On the receiving end:
- Co-morbidities
- General health (*supplements, rested or tired, etc.)
What’s Reasonable?
#1 Rule around here is? AVOIDANCE.
Since February, Elaine has been off the ranch once for a doctor appointment back in March.
We “compress groceries” to a twice monthly visit to Wal-Mart and Brookshires (a kind of Safeway lite). We aim for zero contact.
The odd prescription refill is a drive through.
Everything getting in the car is decontaminated. Food in the trunk when loaded by the online shoppers. We have zero contact with them and stay in the car.
Two neighbors visited, outdoors. 6+ feet,. no contact. Ditto the logging crew when we had some trees harvested.
Oilman2 and his son help with an antenna project. 6+ feet, no contact.
All groceries arriving are wiped down with Clorox. Even frozen goods are wiped. Fresh produce goes in cool water. Hand my the food grade hydrogen peroxide?
Gloves are worn once. “Go to town masks” are N100. Remember earlier on when we advised on this?
On Government Decrees
Should government at any level be allowed to issue decrees with the “force of law?” Tough question.
Government became dishonest when Regulators were invented. Government ceded its Constitutional responsibility to lawmaking to Regulators and that’s where your Deep State is.
Our belief is that “Smart People” will make smart decisions. Which means that “regulations” have two aspects to them. The first is absentee government trying to define life for stupid people. And the second is Regulators using their care of (“stupid people”) as an excuse to expand their own powers and become more intrusive, more powerful, and less responsive.
Which gets to the Constitutional view that any “law” with a penalty, not voted upon by elective representatives who can be removed from office, should NOT BE A LAW OR REGULATION AT ALL. Unless, the government’s premise is all a lie. (You don’t want to be against that, lol.)
A lot of people say “face coverings” don’t help. I beg to differ – based on simple logic of direct dispersal patterns versus indirect dispersal (which implies greater dilution. But yes, this is an “edge case.”
The real answers are hunkering and distancing. We’re in what amounts to the 10th month of our self-imposed quarantine.
As we have said many times, “No such thing as 3% dead.”
Quarantine as Growth Time
We’re pretty fortunate, in many regards. I lived on a 40-foot sailboat for almost 11-years. 13-feet 5-inches wide amidships. Small spaces and I get along. (More on this in the Shop Talk article in a few minutes – there is a downside to large spaces!).
Thing is the external sense of space (even in a small condo or apartment) has nothing to do with what you, as a person, can do and accomplish.
Sure, sure. Life seems to be an external affair. That’s where meals, money, friends, and music comes from. But the internal spaces – the fields of mind – are limitless.
That’s why “head people” can do well on remote ice stations (*and in space). They have the “I’m unlimited between the ears” mentality.
I can point to a lot of things about myself (and Elaine) which have grown during our quarantine. The 3D printing site is just one. The book 100-year Toaster is another (gotta get that on Amazon one of these days). New antenna design for another.
Viruses, lockdowns (illegal, but we can demand a day in court), and political mind-tripping.
When you strip out the p0litical “soldier-gathering” – the ruse of “patriotism” what we all come down to is how we choose to life our lives.
Here? Wearing masks and decontamination is a logical mindset for us. We don’t run the car with less than half a tank of gas. We have spares for everything. Belt and suspenders. Eliminate all single-points-of-failure. It’s why we have some solar power. A water source that can’t be turned off…all the rest of the prepped and debt-free life. It’s why the garden, why the Faraday can, why the medical kit…the list goes on.
In the end, if you choose to attend large groups, go maskless, and protest like hell? Have fun. We’ll be here in the woods exploring the wide open spaces between the ears. Where the only viruses present are those injected by crooked media into mass consciousness.
One Other Health Note
To your sources of zinc, vitamin C, D3, and multi, have you ever looked at HMB?
We just got around to reading “Health Benefits of ?-Hydroxy-?-Methylbutyrate (HMB) Supplementation in Addition to Physical Exercise in Older Adults: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis” and decided to give it a whirl.
Of course, as always, nothing here is medical advice. Talk to your healthcare priovider. (But don’t pick a stupid one!)
Breathe when you get safe,
George@Ure.net
Just finished reading one of my other daily reads, this by an 80+ year old woman who runs Service Dog Project that raises Great Danes as mobility assistants for disabled vets and children.
https://explore.org/livecams/service-dog-project/great-danes-arena-cam
http://servicedogproject.blogspot.com/
https://www.servicedogproject.org/
She can’t type worth a d**n, but she is full of strange and humorous wisdom from a long life of dealing with many types of animals (she handled animals for TV commercials) and a husband who was a doctor.
Here is her note on a product now being used for COVID that she uses for her Danes for a totally different reason.
“NOW HERE IS A THOUGHT PROVOKING ONE….When I addED the daily doggy about melatonin as being one of the things being given to somebody with CLV .. I googled it and ran into the fact that apparently IVERMECTIN is now given to someone with a COV .. IVERMECTIN is a wonderful medication for parasites you can inject it feed it or rub it on .. and it treats quite alright wide range a wormy things .. we give our dogs iver becton monthly to prevent heartworm .. we don’t buy the pills because you can buy 50 CCS in a bottle and by the time you figure out the milligrams per kilogram it works out that the Danes get 1/3 of 1 CC per month on a piece of bread on which we put peanut butter so that bottle Which costs about $40 in the agricultural catalogs will treat an awful lot of dogs .
So why if it’s primary use is parasitic is that why it is routinely given to people with CLV .. do we actually harbor some parasites that the medical community doesn’t want to talk about so they just give us some ivorra mekton just in case because all parasites would have some real action to your general health ..
I just find it very strange .. that we very carefully worm all our animals routinely and assume we are parasite free .. I never thought that was true raising children so I routinely wORMED my children couple times a year with the rest of the animals I was responsible for . it didn’t seem to hurt THEM and I was probably the only one in kindergarten they did not have worms . .. I never waited to get the notice from the kindergarten teacher that somebody in the class HAD NITS
just to keep Ahead of the curve I also shampooed their hair on occasion with the stuff the kills those hair bugs .
So all of you people with a lot of time on your hands at the moment somebody go figure out why they are giving IVERMECTIN .. in their treatment of COV.”
The coming big issue will be whether to take the early Corona virus vaccine (CV) or not to take the early vaccine. I expect that the school kids will have no choice. For the adults, it may turn out that this is the “to be or not to be” decision for several generations still with us.
For the minority report view, you might watch Will Smith in “I am Legend” on a Netflix DVD. I think the Covid-19 vaccination hype has reached the levels of the fictional thereupeutic Krippen virus (KV) in that movie. Hopefully a killed CV vaccine will work out better than a live KV vaccine. I mean, the CDC and FDA are from the government US, and they are here to help.
The CDC and FDA are from the government US, and they are here to help *themselves*.
I do feel that effective prophylaxis against the virus is a personal thing. Different people have different risks and risk tolerances. Restricting people’s activities in order to keep hospitalized populations down is NOT an acceptable excuse for shutting down the entire economy. People are responsible for themselves and that’s that. We can and should be caring of others, but we have a right to live our lives, including going about our business and having a personal/social life. Those who are really concerned have a template from George on ways to act and mitigate most of the risk. That won’t stop some random event but it will stack the odds favorably. NM has become the poster child for how to infuriate a population by unreasonable restrictions on activities and trade. We can only expect strong pushback against such an authoritarian approach. While I’m mostly careful, I can and will leave this state as necessary to get what I cannot get locally, including human touch.
NM Mike: The Texas governor has publicly stated that Texas won’t be doing anymore lock-downs (at least through January). If nothing else, you might slip across the border for a day shopping trip. At least you can get a haircut here.
I think we are all in a need of a road trip. I haven’t been particularly gung-ho to volunteer to be an early vaccine guinea pig, but I will acknowledge, taking the early vaccine, then taking advantage of the low airfares is starting to sound like an antidote for cabin fever.
Spartacuslam- Do you have a technical reference for the living CV RNA vaccine affecting genetic make-up? That sounds crazier than a Will Smith movie plot.
Not “killed” at All! In fact very much ALIVE – RNA based platform – that will affect on a genetic level..
Good luck wit that.
A lot of the people who are against the masks support Trump. They overlook the days before Noah.
“For as in the days before the flood, they ate and drank, married, and gave in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark.”
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Means wear a mask. Everyone keeps their bodily droplets to their own faces.
In olden day spitting laws were enforced. People spitting everywhere is gross and unhealthful. We don’t need it. Just as bad as the stupid dogs in big box hardware stores. We don’t need it.
People are disgusting pigs. Go to any swim-up bar and test the water for urine. You’ll see.
I have not yet seen a rigorous scientific experiment that proved the efficacy of the types of masks most people are wearing. These masks are too porous to stop the flow of viruses in or out because the viruses are smaller than the spaces between fibers. Nor do they cover eyes, which are claimed by some to be virus entry portals. The standard line is that a mask does not prevent the wearer from getting the virus, but instead prevents the wearer from spreading it, which implies that a virus from outside can go through a mask, but a virus can’t make the reverse trip. Makes no sense whatsoever! Dr. Fauci himself has flip-flopped several times on the value of wearing masks. Perhaps the zombie robot gear of horror movies would do the trick, but I haven’t seen anyone in that attire.
On the other hand, I’ve seen many scientifically valid tests showing that not only do masks have little, if any, value, but they are also unhealthy to wear because they limit oxygen intake and can bounce exhaled toxins right back into the wearer. People have gone unconscious for lack of oxygen while wearing them. One test from years ago showed that even surgical masks worn by doctors in operating rooms did not result in lower death rates of their patients. IMO, mask-wearing has become a virtue-signalling fad that only furthers the agenda to dehumanize people and weaken their immune systems. It’s another Deep State win!
We will not comply, but we will die from old age. https://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=158613
I’ve used several masks (being touted today as real life savers from covid 19) while doing projects around the house. I’ve found that only respirators give real protection … specially when sanding drywall. And if drywall dust can get through or around those masks, they’re useless in preventing a virus from being inhaled. That’s me experience, thus my opinion. You can try it for yourself.
Those with underlying health conditions SHOULD protect themselves, without a doubt. Best to speak with your doctor about it, not just listen to the media.
Recently heard that laying face down helps lungs to clear and heal, and for those who rinse their sinuses, a half teaspoon of Johnson’s baby shampoo added to the saline and distilled water, helps because the small amount of detergent in the shampoo breaks down the virus and clears the airway better … which will also help antibiotics get to their target more efficiently. Not advice, but feel free to look it up.
Then we have 23,000 scientists speaking up about lockdown. Good read … https://www.newsbreakapp.me/n/0XhzBDJw?pd=064VJQ3z&lang=en_US&s=i0
So, I wear a mask only when in stores so that I’m not a cause for the gestapo to shut them down. The rest of the time, I rely on my immune system to do what it’s capable of doing and, walk through the valley of the shadow of death where I fear no evil.
Have a Blessed Thanksgiving
“George – with all the talk about masks being ‘useless’ and such…”
Nothing is useless.
If you read me, at times I seem to “poo-poo” masks. This is because people who don’t research, believe wearing a mask makes them bulletproof. COVID, or any other virus, will go through ANY mask like a person taking a walk through a forested park. I want people to simply doubt their attitude, and understand that a mask alone provides very little prophylactic or protective effect.
I have a case of Kevlar, NBC “bunny-suits.” I bought them years ago, to make it so I could walk away from a house-paint or under-car job without soiling my clothes (and because they were only a few cents each.) They have built-in gloves, booties, and hoods, and are designed so if a person has a SCBA & helmet, the suit can be pressurized. Without being pressurized, CV-19 (or any other virus, microspore, nerve agent, or radioactive dust) will pass through, even though the Kevlar is waterproof, and as impermeable as a PVC garbage bag.
The function of the mask is to keep YOU from giving CV-19 to others, not to keep others from giving it to you.
With that said, humans fight a “battle of attenuation” against CV-19. It is mathematically unlikely that you are not breathing cells of the virus, right now. The thing is, our bodies will fight off individual cells or tiny clusters without notice. It is only when we acquire the virus cells en masse, that is, faster than our unstimulated immune system can reject generic foreign viruses, that we develop a COVID infection.
A mask contributes very little to attenuate the virus in free air, but it does contribute. A face shield doesn’t do much at all, except protect one’s eyes from sputum or other aerosol ejecta, but that’s a help. Latex/nitrile gloves don’t protect one’s hands, because CV-19 has no clear dermal path. What they do is protect our face, which we all touch, from getting a concentrated glob of virus cells, which we can ingest or inhale at our leisure, or shovel into our eyes. Using gloves requires re-educating ourselves to not touch our faces until we take the gloves off. If we can’t do that, the gloves are worthless.
Every thing we can do to lessen the number of CV-19 cells we take in, or slow the rate at which we take them in, greatly lessens our likelihood of coming down with the sickness.
I am in a public place, probably once every other day. When I go in, I have personal policies I follow:
I never sit
I never touch, unless I’m buying
Whenever possible, I hold, checker scans
If I pay in cash, change goes in the bag, where it’ll stay for 3 days, minimum
If I pay by card, touchless if possible, if not, the finger that touches the pad, touches nothing else, and the card stays in that hand.
When I get back to my car:
Sanitize first, including the door handle, grab bar if I’m driving a truck, and I’ll sanitize that ccard before it goes back in my wallet.
[If] I get gas, I sanitize my hands and the ccard when the pump goes in, and again after I hang it up.
[If] I get a beverage, I sanitize my hands, the beverage, and the ccard.
[If] I go to the bathroom, I walk in, run out the towel, turn on the water, then drain my bladder. I flush the urinal, wash & dry my hands, then use the towel to shut off the water and open the door.
FWIW I’ve been doing this latter for over 20 years. I shared a restroom trip with a chef, one time. This was his regimen. I asked why, he asked if I liked my food — ’nuff said.
Nothing protects you, but everything helps a little. “Little” helps don’t just add up, they compound…
I searched a local retailer’s website earlier today for HMB, and there it was available so I noted the details for later reference. Well, I tried going back to it a few minutes later, and the HMB page was gone. Strange.
By the way, belated sad news from The Palace appearing in “The Daily Mail” today. The English cocker spaniel received as a wedding gift by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge passed on last week. Lupo was a popular, friendly member of The Royal Household who famously selected the name “George” from the names on papers scattered about at the birth of the firstborn to The Duke and Duchess. Perhaps Peters and Clarks remain uncertain if Lupo was consulted by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
curious. expanding homeless population. masks. isolation. quarantine. where are the statistics on covid 19 infections. hospitalizations. deaths. i have only found a reference out of LA that the average of the affected during this pandemic is less than those persons in the general population. i am tired and only made a weak attempt to answer my own question. has anyone pursued the effect this pandemic has had on the population that is not able to shelter in place? it looked like the only vulnerability was an outbreak in a shelter. again. apologies for my own lack of follow through but hopefully one of you has also wondered why the media has not declared a huge infection and incredible body count among the homeless. pat
For one thing there in zero a accountability for the labs these tests are run in, zero accountability of whose qualified to run these tests, and zero accountability on the tests themselves, no one is questioning this issue, wonder why?
A couple of thoughts on this – nursing homes around here are still locked down tight for the most part. You have to visit your relative through a window, or from across a room, and everyone is masked up, presumably with something better than the improvised stuff the public wears (I went with Hanes). Yet we’re still having nursing home outbreaks (and deaths) right and left. I know that staff in those places tend to be minimum wage, without sick leave, so they have an incentive to keep coming to work as long as possible until they’re detected and quarantined. Still, the number of outbreaks suggests to me that the PPE isn’t working all that well. A conspiracy theorist might wonder if some of the infections are being introduced from other sources.
Three friends of mine in a rural area got Covid. All three had relatively mild cases and got over it at home. A friend of theirs, however, had to be hospitalized. He was holding his own until pneumonia set in. He did not survive. I want to remind everyone that there IS a vaccine for pneumonia available to older people. Walmart requires that you be 65; some other places are less stringent. One of the three who had a mild Covid case has all sorts of risk factors. He has diabetes, a pacemaker, a disease that they still can’t figure out after several years, and he drinks like a fish. But, he did get the pneumonia vaccine a few years ago.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan-masks/japan-researchers-show-masks-do-block-coronavirus-but-not-perfectly-idUSKBN2770DX
Japan deaths from covid = 1676, population 126 million
U.S. deaths from covid = 220,000, population 328 million
https://www.dw.com/en/how-japans-mask-culture-may-have-saved-lives-during-coronavirus/a-55321518
Trumpsters (just like their egomaniac leader) like to go maskless, and spread, spread spread!
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/31/donald-trump-rallies-spread-covid-19-stanford-study/6103779002/