Canadian COVID-19 News

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

My wife. She knows. She just read this and said, "hey, tell 'em surgical respirators can't be used in a sterile environment either."

I guess maybe some things she picked up as a surgical nurse for 34 years?

You will notice on the CDC website they use terms like "Cloth face coverings may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.

Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings.

Those are not scientific terms. Your cloth face mask likely filters large particles. But the large particles are not the problem with airborne viruses.

I've read your posts with interest.

Perhaps we could turn this around, based on this ^^^, your latest post.

Since you've attacked just about everybody, how about this:

What would YOU and your qualified nurse wife suggest be done?

Perhaps you could compare your ideas with some simple things, like what works and has been proven to work in countries like Canada, that seem to have worked, far superior statistically to the USA.

"Thanks in advance."

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

Of course anti-bodies disappear after awhile. It's completely normal. We got a pamphlet that explains it when we got our test results from the clinic and lab. In a normal person with a healthy immune system the "memory" for the infection is stored in lymphocytes. If the infection tries to come back later, those kick in and produce anti-bodies again much faster than they were produced by the first infection.

It's called secondary immune response.

It would be best to consult your medical care professional for medical advice and information instead of relying on the internet or the so-called "news".

I cited a report from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...s-fade-quickly

I only reference legitimate research reports and studies in my posts. The original study (cited in the article above) is here, if you care to read it and draw your own conclusions: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6

I don't trust internet news any more than you, but please don't paint scientific research reports with that brush. You need to learn how to discern the distinction. Don't be part of the problem by dismissing science.

The behavior of other corona viruses - those causing colds - is to be re-infective to a recovered person after three to four months. That MAY also be the case with SARS-CoV-2. We haven't had enough experience yet to know. The research continues.

[CruisingCouple]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Since you've attacked just about everybody, how about this:

You will notice I have NOT "attacked" anybody here.

What I "attack" is the massive mis-information campaign run by the MSM that they use to further political objectives.

What my wife suggests is go and get tested. You may find you are already immune to it, as there is growing number of tests that indicate that. If you do test positive for anti-bodies you will find Public Health is very interested in finding out how you got those and they will want to run more tests. The additional tests are voluntary but they don't cost anything unless you go to private health care where a commercial test may cost as much as $1,100.

If you are in a high risk category then completely stay out of the general public. The vast majority of people recover just fine even if they do get mildly sick, but some don't, and those that don't likely have a compromised immune system. And even staying home may not protect you. It was found that something like 2/3'rds of the hospitalizations in New York were from people totally obeying their lockdown, and they still got sick. Even the ventilation system in your building can be your downfall.

That why my wife says the approach to this one has been all wrong from the start. She worked all thru the last HIN1 pandemic at Regions and they recognized immediately it was an airborne virus and the Infectious Disease Units all over the nation responded accordingly and no public lockdown and hope for the best was going to work. How they managed to get it so wrong with COVID, advertising that it only spreads thru contact with surfaces and large respiratory particles is still a mystery. But the truth will eventually come out.

We had a decent healthcare system back then, but it has since been decimated by ObamaCare with skyrocketing insurance premiums with $12,000 deductibles, infectious disease units aren't even maintained anymore and they stick people in normal ICU's and nursing homes - guess what you're gonna get?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

You will notice on the CDC website they use terms like "Cloth face coverings may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.

Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings.

Those are not scientific terms. Your cloth face mask likely filters large particles. But the large particles are not the problem with airborne viruses.

Statistics is also a science. Stats are emerging to show the effect of widespread use of cloth masks.

Your wife would tell you to cough/sneeze into your elbow, or a hankie or a kleenex. Ask her why.

[Cpt Pat]

This is my favorite quote that applies to people who can't apply critical thinking to the deluge of information regarding the pandemic:

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays,
let me remind you that information is not knowledge,
knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight.
Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
- Arthur C. Clarke

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

That why my wife says the approach to this one has been all wrong from the start. She worked all thru the last HIN1 pandemic at Regions and they recognized immediately it was an airborne virus and the Infectious Disease Units all over the nation responded accordingly and no public lockdown and hope for the best was going to work. How they managed to get it so wrong with COVID, advertising that it only spreads thru contact with surfaces and large respiratory particles is still a mystery. But the truth will eventually come out.

You make a very good point here. Could it be the information given the public regarding the seriousness of COVID-19 infectivity was intentionally withheld through concerns over the economic consequences - and consequential negative political outcomes in the lead-up to an election -- with the truth only being begrudgingly disclosed when it became obvious to everyone? Just a question...

In the case of information coming from the WHO is concerned - I blame institutional denial and inertia. They only accepted the possibility of airborne transmission when 239 scientists from 32 countries forced them to.

That letter is attached here.

[CruisingCouple]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

I only reference legitimate research reports and studies in my posts.

And I believe they DID recognize that the long-term study of the secondary response was not included in that study. Which makes it only what has been known for years, and it's an incomplete study that somebody decides to publish on the internet, as it has no bearing to the long term immunity to the disease.

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

The behavior of other corona viruses - those causing colds - is to be re-infective to a recovered person after three to four months. That MAY also be the case with SARS-CoV-2. We haven't had enough experience yet to know. The research continues.

This is correct. And it is why Public Health would like us to come back on Aug 5 for more tests. They don't know and they're trying to figure it out.

They did identify that we were in close contact with two persons that tested positive on their viral tests. Actually people we went to dimmer with. That was three weeks ago. Since we tested positive on our serum tests they don't know whether we transmitted the disease to the other couple, but we ourselves were never affected by it. Or if we got the disease from them (since the dinner was a month ago) and it still never affected us.

Either way, neither of us was affected by it at all. The other couple got mild symptoms about like a cold and are since "recovered" in their stats.

So it is pretty obvious, just thru observation, that some people are SOMEHOW immune to it even on a first time "hit". But they don't know how. I think it's like my wife says - she's been around this kind of stuff as a career for years and she could've brought something home long ago that created an immunity to the current one, just because they had similar genome. So we get exposed to COVID, our white blood cells fire up and our systems immediately killed it.

It's all theories because even with the contact tracing they can't tell.

My wife also says she can't figure out how this mask thing got going so big with COVID. Back over 10 years ago it was recognized thru lab tests that a N95 was ~20% effective against coronaviruses and a normal surgical mask was about 2% effective. She looked up the study for me and gave me the link to it
https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/52/3/177/312528

Fast forward 11 or 12 years, how did it suddenly become "the answer" to the problem?

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

My wife also says she can't figure out how this mask thing got going so big with COVID. Back over 10 years ago it was recognized thru lab tests that a N95 was ~20% effective against coronaviruses and a normal surgical mask was about 2% effective. She looked up the study for me and gave me the link to it
https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/52/3/177/312528

I've seen similar studies and I don't dispute their validity. But they are looking from the perspective of protecting the health care provider from infection. The protection there from only the providers wearing masks is very incomplete. But the studies I have read, and the protocol I was taught as an EMT, was: put the mask on the patient instead, because the effectiveness of preventing infection to others by masking the infected person was far higher. And that's the message we're getting now: you mask-up to protect others - not yourself.

I was also taught - I believe validly - that how sick you may become is "dose related." If you're exposed to less of a virus, you are less likely to become acutely ill while still developing some immunity. That doesn't apply to all infectious diseases (it doesn't apply to anthrax, for example), but it's true for most. Any protection is better than none. And it's not inevitable that you will become sick.

Personally, I've been wearing a 3M model 7500 respirator with 3M model 60926 filters (P-100, 2.5 microns). I bought those in February and I've assumed all along the virus was airborne. I wear an N95 under that, to protect others. I'm in a "hot zone" here in Santa Clara County, California. I've been tested twice for IgG immunities, and so far, I'm negative and healthy. (I'm 66 years old.)

I was trained as an EMT during the height of the Cold War, and back then, we were taught countermeasures pertaining to biological warfare. I'd hoped I'd never need that kind of knowledge.

[CruisingCouple]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

And that's the message we're getting: you mask up to protect others - not yourself.

But the problem with that is that if the mask becomes contaminated, is it being handled correctly for disposal? If not, you may as well not wear it because it's the same difference.

Same thing with HIV and blood or other body fluids when a patient comes in and the PPE becomes contaminated. If you just take it off and throw it on the table and say, "we'll wash it later" you may as well not even use it.

The real danger with masks and untrained general public is that they get wet from your breath. What you're trying to filter out thrives in that environment. Those masks are very easily contaminated.

[OloteleMtn]

I recall that some test kits were actually contaminated with COVID-19 and were rejected; what steps are being taken now to ensure that testing is not infecting the testees? In an African country, samples were submitted for testing that were not even human or mammalian, that came back positive; also, in the US, some people scheduled testing but did not go, and were informed they were positive. How can we trust what we are being told in these kinds of circumstances? I realize this is a thread on Canadian CoVID news, but this virus affects all of us. Like an iceberg, there is more to this than we can see.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

But the problem with that is that if the mask becomes contaminated, is it being handled correctly for disposal? If not, you may as well not wear it because it's the same difference.

Same thing with HIV and blood or other body fluids when a patient comes in and the PPE becomes contaminated. If you just take it off and throw it on the table and say, "we'll wash it later" you may as well not even use it.

The real danger with masks and untrained general public is that they get wet from your breath. What you're trying to filter out thrives in that environment. Those masks are very easily contaminated.

Your point is well taken. It's suspected that the providers who were infected by Ebola here in the U.S. made mistakes in donning and doffing their PPEs. I don't know about you, but I have seen no instructions to the public on how to properly use PPEs. I've only seen guidance on hand washing. It's sad. But that inadequacy doesn't invalidate masks, per se, only our dismal public health instruction. There's what I consider to be good evidence that universal mask wearing is at least partially effective. Perfect should not be the enemy of Good.

[NaClyDog]

Could we please take this back to CANADA?


What happens south of here isn't our business and those from there can post in another forum?


Please?

[NorthernMac]

in 2 weeks™

[JPA Cate]

Some posts above have been deleted, for political content, for rudeness, and for being off topic.

Please take a look at the Sticky for the whole Covid19 containment forum. The rules are slightly different for posting here than in the main part of CF. A higher standard of kindness is asked of you all while posting here.

JPA Cate

[CruisingCouple]

Originally Posted by NaClyDog

Could we please take this back to CANADA?

Sorry. Maybe our Canadian sailing friends can learn something from all us infected USA'ers. After all, we got way more experience with Corona than you guys do!

But seriously, for those north of the border, the Dreaded Corona has not been that big of a shop stopper here in most of the country. Only in the major population centers. Here where we're working, there is no masks, no social distancing, people could care less. And there's nobody dropping in the streets like flies either.

In the major population centers, sure they got more positive cases. But they aren't reporting that the vast majority don't get sick at all, or recover just fine. It is not the End of the World As We Know It like the media tends to portray in the dramatic so-called "news".

In this state, they overthrew the Corona Lockdown as being unconstitutional like back in May sometime. Business openings, high school graduations, county fairs, large gatherings, even the local stock car racing track, all have gone off without a hitch for two months now. Pretty much like normal around here except for (I think) 41 "cases" (of which we are two of them), no deaths, no hospitalizations. But this is a more rural area and people spend >90% of their free time outdoors year 'round.

So if our Canadian friends think we are living in some sort of infected cesspool, that's just not the way it is unless you go to the large cities.