Protection for WHO?
You may not be familiar with the word ‘fomite’. A fomite is any object that, when contaminated with infectious agents, can transfer disease. One example of a fomite is a door knob or push handle. If a sick person with a highly infectious disease touched it, you might contract that disease through contact if you unknowingly touched that same object. Young children have a tendency to touch anything they see, or worse put it into their mouth. I’m sure at one point or another when you were younger your parents yelled at you ‘don’t touch that, you don’t know where it’s been!’, or a similar warning.
The healthier you are, the stronger your immune system tends to be, and you can fight off infection easier. Health and personal hygiene go hand-in-hand. Good hygiene should always been encouraged from an early age, as habits formed during one’s youth tend to last a lifetime. Habits are easily formed through constant repetition until they become second nature. These go for both good and bad habits. It takes discipline and diligence to improve one’s life by forming good habits and breaking bad ones. As always self-improvement begins with SELF. No one can force you do what you are unwilling to do, short of passing laws with stiff penalties. Even so, laws do not stop people from completely disregarding or willfully violating them. It’s illegal to litter, yet people throw trash in the street. It’s illegal for people not to wear seat-belts, or safety harnesses while driving automobiles in 49 of the 50 US states, yet some people choose not to do so. There are over 30,000 gun laws on the books in the USA, and there is still crime committed with guns. We don’t need ‘better laws’, we need ‘better people’. The Bible is the ultimate self-improvement book.
The Ten Commandments which are the basis for most laws in the western world appear twice in the Bible, first in Exodus 20: 1-17, and then they are restated in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Decent law-abiding citizens are kept in check NOT by the laws on the books, but by their internal moral code.
MURPHY’S LAW
When I was in high school, my one English teacher the late Mr. Jim Murphy introduced me to a couple of ‘dangerous’ books. These were intended for mature readers, and were definitely way over the heads of most teenagers. There are even ADULTS that wouldn’t be able to handle some of the Science Fiction stories in these books. I refer to the Science Fiction anthologies Dangerous Visions, and the sequel Again, Dangerous Visions, both edited by Harlan Ellison. One of the two stories I vividly remember to this day appears in the second volume and is titled Elouise and the Doctors of the Planet Pergamon by Josephine Saxton. The story involves a perfectly healthy girl who was raised by her mother free of all illness and disease. Unfortunately that is against the law on Pergamon and she is arrested and forcibly restrained and examined by a hundred physicians who mercilessly poke and prod her everywhere.
Last month in mid-March most of the USA, as well as nearly every nation on Earth began shutting down EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE that was deemed non-essential due to the world-wide pandemic COVID-19, AKA the Wuhan coronavirus, sometimes shortened to just corona. COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease, and there are various strains, seven of which have crossed over to infect humans. According to WebMD:
Scientists have divided coronaviruses into four sub-groupings, called alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. Seven of these viruses can infect people. The four common ones are:
- 229E (alpha)
- NL63 (alpha)
- OC43 (beta)
- HKU1 (beta)
The three less-common ones are:
- MERS-CoV, a beta virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)
- SARS-CoV, a beta virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
- SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19
Scientists are divided over whether or not COVID-19 is transmitted by airborne particles or solely by close contact or by both. According to WHO, the World Health Organization, studies to date suggest that COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through contact with respiratory droplets rather than through the air. These droplets are too heavy to remain airborne. Only tiny air particles known as aerosols remain in the air for a brief period. This type of ejaculate of respiratory particles usually occurs when someone sneezes or coughs. If you’ve ever had someone accidentally sneeze or cough on you and felt a slash of wetness, you understand what I mean. It’s common sense. You cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, and you quarantine sick people to keep THEM from infecting healthy people. If you suspect a person is sick, you avoid contact. If YOU are sick STAY HOME. If YOU have a weak immune system, STAY HOME.
As far as how long the virus can survive outside of a host in can live:
- In the air: Up to 3 hours in air particles called aerosols
- On copper: Up to 4 hours
- On cardboard: Up to 24 hours
- On plastic: 2 to 3 days
- On stainless steel: 2 to 3 days
COVID-19 IS a ‘nasty bug’, BUT it is NOT a death sentence. HEALTHY people with STRONG immune systems may get sicker than they’ve ever felt before, but will generally make a full recovery with proper treatment and care. As of this writing there have been 2,329,651 cases WORLDWIDE resulting in 160,721 deaths. In the USA, there have been 740,557 cases resulting in 38,979. To put in on a much more local level, in my home state of Pennsylvania, there are 31,731 confirmed cases, and there have been 1,102 deaths. This is ‘about’ the same number as what’s showing in California which reports 30,811 and 1,148. By comparison, the area of Pennsylvania is roughly equal to that of the nation of England, and California as about the same size as Italy. New York is the ‘problem child’ and the epicenter of the US outbreak. NY is responsible for about 1/3 of the total cases and nearly half of all the deaths due to COVID-19 in the US. Those numbers from our fourth-most populous state are 241,041 cases and 39,015 deaths. (Pennsylvania is fifth in population. New York has 19,491,339 people, Pennsylvania has 12,813,969) These numbers CHANGE every second and will probably have increased slightly by the time you finish reading this.
President Trump is desperately trying to re-open portions of the USA on a case-by-case basis as some states like NY have been hit much harder than the virus, than say Alaska. In a press conference on Wednesday, President Trump made his position clear that he wants to get the nation back to normal and re-opened very soon, possibly before the end of this month, but he would let each state make that determination on when it should, or should not re-open. People are out of work as a result of to the shutdown. Bills need to be paid, and that requires an income. This prompted an immediate retaliation from Democrat run ‘Blue States’ like NY, and PA to issue new mandatory face-mask rules starting by or before this Monday, and a promise to veto any attempts to re-open their states.
Unintended consequences
When you lock away a sick person, it’s quarantine. When you lock away a healthy person because they MIGHT make YOU sick, you take away THEIR freedom and THEIR rights. There is little or no evidence to suggest wearing a surgical face-mask will prevent a healthy person from getting sick. If a person wants to wear a mask because it somehow makes them feel safer, I have NO problem with that. FORCE ME to do it, and we have a problem. So until this mandate is revoked, my freedom is severely being infringed upon. This is America, NOT Communist China, and I am NOT happy.
And what those CIVIC-MINDED people who are wearing gloves and masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 doing with their used items? Why just throwing their potentially hazardous medical waste on the ground to blow around town like little coronavirus-tumbleweeds.
And then there’s identity. Who’s behind the mask? Anyone, EVEN dangerous criminals and sex-offenders can now move about freely with their identity concealed behind a mask. If someone robs your essential business, how do you describe the criminal. He was wearing a mask. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN THE STATE.
It was a running gag at the end of every episode of The Lone Ranger that some character would say “Who was that masked man?”. The Lone Ranger character was created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker and first aired as a radio drama on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, in 1933 running up until 1954. There was a movie serial in 1938, and then a television show that ran from 1949-1957. Clayton Moore Portrayed the Lone Ranger alongside Jay Silverheel’s Tonto. Moore often was quoted as saying he had “fallen in love with the Lone Ranger character” and strove in his personal life to take The Lone Ranger Creed to heart. He was never seen in public without his mask until a 1979 lawsuit forced him to turn in his mask. He donned sunglasses before returning to his mask when the lawsuit was dropped three years later. Doing what you love to do causes personal happiness, and Moore loved to be the Lone Ranger and wore his mask proudly, because he wanted to. He is forever synonymous with the character he portrayed. As always, I wish you success and happiness!
Instant Coffee Wisdom 