“In just the last few weeks, the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. went from an emergency to a disaster. And it is getting worse — possibly much worse,” begins a report from NBC News, “How America gave up and how we fight back.”
As the COVID-19 disaster reaches new peaks, ten stories examine where we are and where the country is headed, if we still have a country by the time the plague ends. NBC’s Friday landing page continues:
There are more cases of Covid-19, more deaths and more pain for families than ever experienced throughout the darkness of 2020. A fractured government response, combined with growing public malaise and distrust, is threatening once again to overwhelm hospital systems across the country, just as it did in the confused and panic-filled weeks at the beginning of the pandemic.
Vaccines are on the way, with the first U.S. approval pending and distribution networks ready to launch. But that does not change the stark reality of the coming months: Public health professionals expect the winter to be the worst season yet for victims of the virus — assuming that America does not change the path it is on.
Before the year-end holidays begin, providing the easiest possible transmission of the virus, NBC News is presenting these special reports as a last-minute attempt to highlight an urgent truth: We can still turn the tide of the pandemic.
The Washington Post presents a video explaining the dynamics of breath/droplet exchange with and without wearing masks. It is both helpful and unsettling:
To visually illustrate the risk of airborne transmission in real time, The Washington Post used a military-grade infrared camera capable of detecting exhaled breath. Numerous experts — epidemiologists, virologists and engineers — supported the notion of using exhalation as a conservative proxy to show potential transmission risk in various settings.
“The images are very, very telling,” said Rajat Mittal, a professor of mechanical engineering in Johns Hopkins University’s medical and engineering schools and an expert on virus transmission. “Getting two people and actually visualizing what’s happening between them, that’s very invaluable.”
I have an outdated box of 3M N95 masks (individually sealed) left over from the swine flu pandemic of ’09. (Say “back in aught-nine” in your head in Walter Brennan’s voice if you need cheering up about now). Prices have gone way up since then. N95s are more inconvenient to get on and off than the surgical masks littering the house and cars. But after watching the Post’s infrared footage I think I’ll be wearing them more often than the surgical masks.
CDC-approved N95s are listed here. KN95s certified in China are cheaper, may not be as effective, but are more readily available. Some may also be counterfeit. These are not. See here for a primer on the diufferences.
Watch and learn. Be careful out there.