Category Archives: Health & Medicine

Just This Breath

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When you hear someone you love and think is smart and literate say Oh it’s no big deal if I catch the virus, say “I love you and you’re smart and literate, and please read this story, because you’re wrong about it not being a big deal.”

The virus is hidden inside of me. I feel its force and power. My body aches. Cold knots snarl in my calves and my thighs; my back feels frozen; shivers ripple up my arms. By the time I reach the birdbath, I’m sweating in the soft breeze. I close my eyes. The hardest part is taking the next breath. I must breathe very, very slowly, in a very specific way. Breathing has become like remaining steady on a balance beam over a dark pit.

Perfect example of save my life story-telling. (An essay by Heather Sellers)

“If you don’t solve the biology, the economy won’t recover”

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This is the best thing I’ve read so far on knowing and avoiding the risks of COVID-19. The author is Erin S. Bromage, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Dr. Bromage graduated from the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences James Cook University, Australia where his research focused on the epidemiology of, and immunity to, infectious disease in animals.

Dr. Bromage’s research focuses on the evolution of the immune system, the immunological mechanisms responsible for protection from infectious disease, and the design and use of vaccines to control infectious disease in animals. He also focuses on designing diagnostic tools to detect biological and chemical threats in the environment in real-time.

This short article was packed with useful information. One of my favorites:

“We know most people get infected in their own home. A household member contracts the virus in the community and brings it into the house where sustained contact between household members leads to infection.”

You can download (PDF) the full article here.

If someone can see you, mask up.

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Katie Notopoulos, writing BuzzFeed’s How To Plague advice column:

“A good way to gauge the amount of distance where it’s OK to dangle your mask around your neck or off one ear is to imagine your mouth is your asshole. If you were completely alone, it would be fine to let your nude tushy hang out, but you’d want to pull on your pants as soon as you saw anyone coming, even from 100 feet away. Basically, if someone can see you, mask up.”

Custom mask by Tonya Lear.

Why you should wear a facemask

  1. If we all run around naked and someone pees on you, you get wet right away.
  2. If you are wearing pants, some pee will get through, but not as much. So you are better protected.
  3. But if the guy who pees also is wearing pants, the pee stays with him and you do not get wet.

 

Yuval Noah Harari: COVID-19’s Impact on Humankind

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I’ve read all three of Yuval Noah Harari’s books and found them… interesting, to say the least. I’ve been eager to hear his take on COVID-19 and was a little surprised to get it from an interview by James Corden, who I think of as a late-late-night comedian. But his questions were brief and to the point and he allowed his guest to answer the questions without interrupting.

“ambulatory sacks of virus”

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“Anyone else getting a bit … relaxed about all this? I say this as someone who washes his hands after reading about COVID-19, because all hypochondriacs know you can get something just by perusing a list of symptoms. But have we become, let’s say, slightly less alarmed? You keep your distance from the other ambulatory sacks of virus, previously known as “people,” and you don’t feel all that anxious.”

“Of course, that’s the last thing we should be. We should be determined to hunker as long as it takes.”

— James Lileks

The same thing at the same time

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“There’s never been a time in modern human history when every person is seriously worried about the same thing at the same time. And there’s never before been a ubiquitous threat that can be so instantly broadcast to a world of 7.8 billion people.”

— David Ropeik, consultant on risk management and former instructor in risk communication at the Harvard School of Public Health