[ExI] Cloth masks do protect the wearer

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Mon Aug 31 15:02:11 UTC 2020


 

 

> On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat
Subject: [ExI] Cloth masks do protect the wearer

 

https://theconversation.com/cloth-masks-do-protect-the-wearer-breathing-in-less-coronavirus-means-you-get-less-sick-143726

 

Masks slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by reducing …

 

 

Thanks Dave!

 

This makes perfect sense to me: the virus is in the air everywhere.  So if we paper masks filter some of them, even just by some unknown amount, that would give the body an additional virus antibody advance warning time to crank up protective measures.

 

I have a cousin and genealogy collaborator from Florida.  I was on the phone with her (ZOOM we used! (oh I am so hip (several of us gathered to work on a family tree puzzle (it was like the Brady Bunch intro and exit (or the Hollywood Squares (and they put ME in honored Alice the maid’s position! (do pardon, Will and SR, it’s 60s humor (which leads to a question we kids all had: Mr. Brady had a job, the family had a maid to cook and clean… so what the hell was Mrs. Brady good for?  Eye candy?))))))

 

OK where the heck was I?  Oh my cousin from Florida is a nurse, nearing retirement and was working part time but was on deck nearly constantly after the COVID crisis began, an exhausting schedule for her.  Her husband is 74.  That’s the kind of person she is: duty calls, she answers, and the answer is always I WILL.  Love that woman.

 

Long story short: her husband caught Covid.  Age 74.  Surprised them both: he was feeling lousy, she knew the symptoms well, tested him, positive.  She tested negative.  She took care of him, much to everyone’s surprise, his was a mild case, couple weeks later he was walking under his own power, week after that, near normal.  He looked fine on our Zoom call.  That was all in late May.

 

While he was still recovering, she tested positive.  They test the nurses every time they come in.  She had been getting persistent negatives, but tested positive while she was feeling fine.  They thought it might be a false positive, but can’t take a chance, so adios nurse, until she could get three negatives in a row spaced a week apart, hospital rules, strict.  

 

Well, In the next week, she felt a little blah but it isn’t always clear really if symptoms are mind, and hers didn’t really match what she was expecting from a lot of experience with sick patients.

 

She was the one who figured out my 7 week misadventure last winter might have been Covid, but it was she who sternly advised me: do not get tested.  Our test kits are mixed source (intentionally) and they can’t get the consistent results.  Ever since early June, she has been trying to get three negatives in a row, but still hasn’t done it.  They are showing elevated antibody levels, which causes her to be disallowed from returning to work.  So now she was just on the verge of getting a third green light so she could help her team, who had two others out with the same problem: they caught and recovered, or never really did feel any symptoms, but tested positive, so adios nurse, then they couldn’t get back to their jobs because the test kits, even when taking two of them at the same time… returned inconsistent results.

 

So… her husband caught, had a mild case, went on about his business.  She had a very light case with almost no symptoms, now can’t get consistent results with the tests, regardless of which brand or where they were made in the world (they are importing them from everywhere.)

 

With that information, she advised me to not get tested: there’s no point if there is a high risk the test will return false results, which are harmful either way the error goes.  So… I didn’t test.  I will in November.  And even after I get that test, we may still not know what was Mrs. Brady’s actual function in life.

 

spike

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