Good Morning All
A couple of house keeping items first. I notice I write the way I think and lot’s of time that is not grammatically correct. I was thinking is this a problem?? I suppose I could install “Grammarly” but it would probably be correcting me constantly and it would drive me crazy. Then I thought that some of my mistakes might be funny.. We all need a little humor.
I’m also a terrible speller, funny thing Mckeane is Dyslexic and one of his teachers when he was about 6-7 was riding him about his spelling. She told me afterwards that he told her he did not think it was the “Dyslexia” but it was genetic because his mother is a terrible speller. She was shaking her head laughing thinking this kids going to be alright in life.
This kinda feels like this is a biblical novel, Right?? The Pandemic, Dam’s breaking, next we will have the rolling blackouts ( we just bought another generator by the way) then fires, all we are missing are the locust’s and frog’s. Taking a line from that fella Sean Spicer, “you can’t make this shit up…..” Funny, he is somewhere I’m sure thinking, thank goodness I was fired when I was.
I just finished a course with John Hopkins institute of medicine “COVID 19 Contact Tracing” It was very good, very factual and not too heavy with medical language so I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more and have the facts, or anyone who is looking for a Job, It might be cool to say I was a “contract tracer during the Pandemic” As I’ve said before we are in this for the long hall and the more knowledge and facts we have, we can be more prepared, less afraid and also have the ability to correct the misinformation therefore keeping us all safer.
I’m going to start with this Fact, which is not part of the contact tracing but more to tell you that as humans we are genetically alike ( nearly all of us)
Human DNA contains about 3 billion Nucleotides with more than 99% of those being the same in all people.
This tells you that the below information applies to 99% of us.
Yes there is going to be the very small % less than 1 which may present with different, signs and symptoms and different outcomes. We hear about them because they are so rare and it scares the cramp out of us, just remember we are really not all that unique...
In the beginning, Yes we did have to isolate, we did have to shut down business’s and school’s. Yes we had to STOP the world because we had no idea what this disease was going to do. I will say that most disease are very systematic, there is a pattern but we needed to know what that pattern was with COVID 19. Now we have a fair idea how it is presenting and what is working to prevent the spread and what is not working.
Let start with when you are contagious.
We Know that COVID19 has an incubation period of approx. 14 days.
50% of people will exhibit symptoms approx. day 5. 100% of people if you have it will have symptoms by 14 days.
If you don’t have symptoms by day 14, you do not have it unless you get exposed to another person who has it.
You cannot be a silent carrier indefinitely. This is not like Typhoid Mary.
Let’s say you start to develop symptoms on day 5, These symptoms are either Fever, Cough, muscles aches and fatigue and these symptoms can be in any order. Sore throat is not a first symptom of COVID 19. This will be important to know as we head into the fall, when the Flu and cold season begin and stomach viruses are more prevalent.
Remember, Muscles aches and fatigue, Fever and Cough, you can have them all or just one or two of the symptoms.
If you develop these symptoms Isolate yourself and get tested. Remember this is approx. day 5, the less people you come in contact with the less you will spread it. Here’s the reason
You are contagious 2 days before your symptoms develop so approx. day 3 In the above scenario. So we have to find mainly the people you had contact with 2-3 days before. If you were with someone 7 days before your symptoms appeared you have not infected them. You were not contagious at that stage.
How long do you stay contagious:
Approx. 10 days after you developed your fever, cough and muscle aches. or until 3 days after your fever has broken and your symptoms are improving and you are feeling better day by day.
The spread of infection right now is approx. 2.5 people, meaning that an infected person is infected 2.5 other people and they go on to infect 2.5 more people and so on.
So if we can Isolate the infected person (the CASE) quickly this slows the rate of infection.
Why are we wearing mask you may ask and I know that most of you know this answer. In this disease they are some people and we don’t know the extend of how many or what % of people are Asymptomatic. Meaning they are walking around with no fever, cough or achy muscles or not enough to make them think they might have COVID 19 but if we and they are not wearing masks and keeping 6ft apart and remember also add in prolonged exposure 15 minutes or more to them, say they are sitting beside you at a concert, ( if that ever happens again ) Well you have had Contact with an infectious person.
If we can slow the rate of infection to 1 person, its the difference between an infected person infecting 15 people (2.5 RO) to infecting 4 people (1RO).
If we can Isolated the infected person quickly day 1 of symptoms ( With testing) and trace back then to the people they had contact with 2 days prior to symptoms and then Quarantine and test these people. That’s how we are going to slow it down.
A couple of terms you should know and then I will stop before I do your head in.
Case: Someone who has COVID 19. Has a positive lab result
Contact: Someone who had contact with a CASE while they were infectious ie During their illness or 2 days before their illness began.
Three kinds of contact:
Physical contact.
Close physical contact less than 6 ft for 15 minutes
Proximate contact: More than 6 feet but in the same room for an extended period.
Isolation: Keeping sick people from healthy people . So we Isolate a CASE (someone who has tested positive for COVID 19)
but we Quarantine CONTACTS: Restrict healthy peoples movement who have been exposed to person with COVID 19 during their infectious period ( 2 days prior to symptoms developing) We quarantine and test CONTACTS for 14 days since last contact with the person who is infected.
Let’s recap here. I think that all this information is really important because I think it we are running out and testing everyone regularly, multiple times especially in the fall, Kids, adults, we are going to have a new word. It’s Called TESTING FATIGUE : Testing Fatigue is going to become a “Thing". Anyone who has had testing done with that Swab up your nose, which has to be shoved so far up your nose it hurts like hell. Your kids are not going to want to do this. I won’t want to do it.
The facts are important. Were you in contact with a “CASE” 2 days prior to their first symptoms. If you were, Quarantine and get tested. If it was 6 days prior to their developing symptoms, You do not need to be tested.
If you develop symptoms stated above, get tested and Isolate.
Everyone else, Social distance, mask wearing. washing hands. Do not touch face.
Lastly my 2 cents on going to Church, per the latest tweet. Remember the information above : Proximate contact: is defined as More than 6 feet apart but in the same room for extended periods. I think Your God will be OK with Zooming for a little while longer unless you want to increase your chances of meeting him sooner than later.
Explain this to your kids, explain it to your friends, learn these words above. Share this newsletter. Unsubscribe me it you can’t stand it anymore.
Be Safe, take care of yourself and take care of others….
Marina