Tag Archives: social distancing

April 20, 2020 · 12:04 am

How effective are cloth masks?

I came across a YouTube video on cloth masks that gave a really good explanation of how the virus travels and how effective social distancing and masks actually are. Thought you would benefit from it.

Tony

With COVID-19 Curve Flattening, It’s Time to Prevent a Second Peak

He helped coin the phrase “flatten the curve.” And he’s pretty impressed at how well some countries, and American states and cities, have done it in recent weeks.

By keeping as many people at home as possible, they’ve kept the numbers of serious cases of COVID-19 below or just above what hospitals in most areas can handle, says Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine.

Based on data from what happened in some American cities in 1918-1919, this illustration shows what could happen if current social distancing measures end too soon. Image by Stephanie King.

And that, without a doubt, has saved lives. It’s also bought time for researchers to seek treatments and develop vaccines, and for public health agencies and hospitals to build up the testing and treatment capacity that must be in place before any “return to normal.”

But now, Markel worries that some of those places will squander the progress they’ve made.

If they take recent signs of “flattening” as a signal to ease up on restrictions, they could end up with something just as bad as, or even worse than, an unflattened curve of COVID-19 cases.

Markel is worried about curves with a double peak.

Easing up on “social distancing” steps too soon, and too quickly, could give the novel coronavirus a chance to race back into broad circulation, he explains. Serious cases, and deaths, could spike again, and waste all the progress that has been made so far.

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Filed under coronavirus, coronavirus risk, curve flattening, flatten the curve, social distancing

Tagged as coronavirus, coronavirus risk, curve flattening, flatten the curve, social distancing

April 9, 2020 · 4:15 am

Do’s and don’ts of interaction during a pandemic – AHA

Across the nation, Americans find themselves in varying degrees of social isolation as part of a coordinated effort to try to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. Some cities are in full lockdown. Others are asking people to simply remain socially distant.

But navigating this new world of social limitations can be confusing. What should – and shouldn’t – people be doing?

Photo by Burst on Pexels.com

That depends on your level of isolation, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.

The most restrictive level, said Caplan, is quarantine – when a person is ill or known to have been exposed to the virus and must be completely separated from others with no social interactions outside the home. Continue reading →