Coronavirus

@jacobcole list public jacobcole-net systematicawesome Updated 2026-02-12

Coronavirus

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Coronavirus Resources #connectorDoc #curatedList
Gathered resources in responding to coronavirus
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Efficient Ways to Take Action

OperationMasks.org #good #competent
Best way to get PPE to healthcare workers
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<>flexport

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Some of our investors are facilitating a global coronavirus hackathon the next several days (26-30)! See below! Even if you're not able to participate, add to the Idea/Problems Idea Bank! #hackathon
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"A global Hackathon to build tools to help with coronavirus is coming together this Thursday and Friday. Join the slack group here to participate. Bring your skills & ideas for ways to get people the resources they need, combat loneliness, and support communities / service workers!"

Products:

Extra filters https://www.amazon.com/Filter-Insert-Activated-Protective-Breathing/dp/B084F7SN2X/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=n95+mask&qid=1583217137&sr=8-6

General Stuff to buy:

Medicines

Zinc Lozenges
decongestants (eg Sudafed)
fever reducers, multiple types (eg advil, tylenol, aleve): UPDATE: it looks like NSAIDS like advil and aleve may interact negatively with coronavirus.  https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-advises-patients-use-non-steroidal-anti-inflammatory-drugs-nsaids-covid-19

Other Consumables

Paper towels

Disinfectant wipes
Keep a bottle of sanitizer and disinfectant wipes available at each of your home's entrances and in car and on keychain ideally – 60% or greater ethanol

Gloves

Precautionary Measures

"Table 5: Home care and isolation guidelines for suspected patients with mild symptoms"

(Guidelines for self- or other-care at home)

https://mmrjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40779-020-0233-6/tables/5

“Coronavirus precautionary measures by James Robb, MD UC San Diego.

Subject: What I am doing for the upcoming COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic

Dear Colleagues, as some of you may recall, when I was a professor of pathology at the University of California San Diego, I was one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (the 1970s). I was the first to demonstrate the number of genes the virus contained. Since then, I have kept up with the coronavirus field and its multiple clinical transfers into the human population (e.g., SARS, MERS), from different animal sources.

The current projections for its expansion in the US are only probable, due to continued insufficient worldwide data, but it is most likely to be widespread in the US by mid to late March and April.

Here is what I have done and the precautions that I take and will take. These are the same precautions I currently use during our influenza seasons, except for the mask and gloves.:

1) NO HANDSHAKING! Use a fist bump, slight bow, elbow bump, etc.

2) Use ONLY your knuckle to touch light switches. elevator buttons, etc.. Lift the gasoline dispenser with a paper towel or use a disposable glove.

3) Open doors with your closed fist or hip - do not grasp the handle with your hand, unless there is no other way to open the door. Especially important on bathroom and post office/commercial doors.

4) Use disinfectant wipes at the stores when they are available, including wiping the handle and child seat in grocery carts.

5) Wash your hands with soap for 10-20 seconds and/or use a greater than 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer whenever you return home from ANY activity that involves locations where other people have been.

6) Keep a bottle of sanitizer available at each of your home's entrances. AND in your car for use after getting gas or touching other contaminated objects when you can't immediately wash your hands.

7) If possible, cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue and discard. Use your elbow only if you have to. The clothing on your elbow will contain infectious virus that can be passed on for up to a week or more!

What I have stocked in preparation for the pandemic spread to the US:

1) Latex or nitrile latex disposable gloves for use when going shopping, using the gasoline pump, and all other outside activity when you come in contact with contaminated areas.

Note: This virus is spread in large droplets by coughing and sneezing. This means that the air will not infect you! BUT all the surfaces where these droplets land are infectious for about a week on average - everything that is associated with infected people will be contaminated and potentially infectious. The virus is on surfaces and you will not be infected unless your unprotected face is directly coughed or sneezed upon. This virus only has cell receptors for lung cells (it only infects your lungs) The only way for the virus to infect you is through your nose or mouth via your hands or an infected cough or sneeze onto or into your nose or mouth.

2) Stock up now with disposable surgical masks and use them to prevent you from touching your nose and/or mouth (We touch our nose/mouth 90X/day without knowing it!). This is the only way this virus can infect you - it is lung-specific. The mask will not prevent the virus in a direct sneeze from getting into your nose or mouth - it is only to keep you from touching your nose or mouth.

3) Stock up now with hand sanitizers and latex/nitrile gloves (get the appropriate sizes for your family). The hand sanitizers must be alcohol-based and greater than 60% alcohol to be effective.

4) Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY "cold-like" symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available.

I, as many others do, hope that this pandemic will be reasonably contained, BUT I personally do not think it will be. Humans have never seen this snake-associated virus before and have no internal defense against it. Tremendous worldwide efforts are being made to understand the molecular and clinical virology of this virus. Unbelievable molecular knowledge about the genomics, structure, and virulence of this virus has already been achieved. BUT, there will be NO drugs or vaccines available this year to protect us or limit the infection within us. Only symptomatic support is available.

I hope these personal thoughts will be helpful during this potentially catastrophic pandemic. You are welcome to share this email. Good luck to all of us! Jim

James Robb, MD FCAP

Li, Fei-Fei Ph.D.”

The following is from an Asst. Prof in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University:

In our community chat, here, they sent this excellent summary to avoid contagion 👾.  I share it with you because it is very clear:
 * The virus is not a living organism, but a protein molecule (DNA) covered by a protective layer of lipid (fat), which, when absorbed by the cells of the ocular, nasal or buccal mucosa, changes their genetic code.  (mutation) and convert them into aggressor and multiplier cells.
 * Since the virus is not a living organism but a protein molecule, it is not killed, but decays on its own.  The disintegration time depends on the temperature, humidity and type of material where it lies.
 * The virus is very fragile;  the only thing that protects it is a thin outer layer of fat.  That is why any soap or detergent is the best remedy, because the foam CUTS the FAT (that is why you have to rub so much: for 20 seconds or more, to make a lot of foam).  By dissolving the fat layer, the protein molecule disperses and breaks down on its own.
 * HEAT melts fat;  this is why it is so good to use water above 25 degrees Celsius for washing hands, clothes and everything.  In addition, hot water makes more foam and that makes it even more useful.
 * Alcohol or any mixture with alcohol over 65% DISSOLVES ANY FAT, especially the external lipid layer of the virus.
 * Any mix with 1 part bleach and 5 parts water directly dissolves the protein, breaks it down from the inside.
 * Oxygenated water helps long after soap, alcohol and chlorine, because peroxide dissolves the virus protein, but you have to use it pure and it hurts your skin.
 * NO BACTERICIDE SERVES.  The virus is not a living organism like bacteria;  they cannot kill what is not alive with anthobiotics, but quickly disintegrate its structure with everything said.
 * NEVER shake used or unused clothing, sheets or cloth.  While it is glued to a porous surface, it is very inert and disintegrates only between 3 hours (fabric and porous), 4 hours (copper, because it is naturally antiseptic; and wood, be
cause it removes all the moisture and does not let it peel off and disintegrates).  ), 24 hours (cardboard), 42 hours (metal) and 72 hours (plastic).  But if you shake it or use a feather duster, the virus molecules float in the air for up to 3 hours, and can lodge in your nose.
 * The virus molecules remain very stable in external cold, or artificial as air conditioners in houses and cars.  They also need moisture to stay stable, and especially darkness.  Therefore, dehumidified, dry, warm and bright environments will degrade it faster.
 * UV LIGHT on any object that may contain it breaks down the virus protein.  For example, to disinfect and reuse a mask is perfect.  Be careful, it also breaks down collagen (which is protein) in the skin, eventually causing wrinkles and skin cancer.
 * The virus CANNOT go through healthy skin.
 * Vinegar is NOT useful because it does not break down the protective layer of fat.
 * NO SPIRITS, NOR VODKA, serve.  The strongest vodka is 40% alcohol, and you need 65%.
 * LISTERINE IF IT SERVES!  It is 65% alcohol.
 * The more confined the space, the more concentration of the virus there can be.  The more open or naturally ventilated, the less.
 * This is super said, but you have to wash your hands before and after touching mucosa, food, locks, knobs, switches, remote control, cell phone, watches, computers, desks, TV, etc.  And when using the bathroom.
 * You have to HUMIDIFY HANDS DRY from so much washing them, because the molecules can hide in the micro cracks.  The thicker the moisturizer, the better.  * Also keep your NAILS SHORT so that the virus does not hide there.

Interesting Info

What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage
It isn’t really about hoarding. And there isn’t an easy fix.
https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0

Scratch Notes

some countries are or will be scanning passengers for increased body temperature. if you have a fever, you may be detained.
take extra supplies of your medications with you. take a supply of cold medicine and a thermometer.
the who says the virus is transmitted by droplets, and only lives on surfaces for short periods, perhaps 30 minutes. other health groups have questioned that, suggesting it can live much longer on surfaces. if you are concerned, wipe down surfaces you are going to touch on airplanes or other public spaces, such as hotel rooms.
paper surgical masks are effective at keeping you from spreading disease if you are sick, but not effective at blocking you from ingesting virus. for that, health experts recommend an n95 respirator—a heavy-duty mask.
Tags:, coronavirus

smart travel planning in the time of coronavirus - wsj’
Tags:, subscription, wsj

Tags:, coronavirus
one-page layperson’s guide to the wuhan coronavirus - the prepared
survival — itsjusttheflu.com | coronavirus news & research — covid-19
past time to tell the public: “it will probably go pandemic, and we should all prepare now” - virology down under

here’s what coronavirus does to the body
here’s what coronavirus does to the body natgeo article - google docs
cdc warns community covid-19 spread could take place in us | cidrap

educate yourself about the coronavirus – what the symptoms are, how it’s transmitted etc. it causes severe long-lasting lung and liver damage to all infected people even if it's primarily the older and weaker ones who eventually die. wash your hands and wear your n95 masks. there is no cure atm and it is a global pandemic.

here’s a good resource: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/…/here-is-what-coronav…/… [edit: a friend says it's paywalled; here's a copy-paste: https://docs.google.com/…/1imdhqhorffg_4_48a5h-fb-v43…/edit… ]

here’s what coronavirus does to the body natgeo article - google docs
thanks matt bell

coronavirus in the us: time to pay attention

Treatments

- Zinc lozenges

-

Brainstorming on Cures / Treatment Etc.

Coronavirus Idea Bank: Covid19HackIdeas.jacobcole.net People Directory: Covid19Hack.jacobcole.net

"A global Hackathon to build tools to help with coronavirus is coming together this Thursday and Friday. Join the slack group here to participate. Bring your skills & ideas for ways to get people the resources they need, combat loneliness, and support communities / service workers!"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0?fbclid=IwAR3FqwpH9wyBPy9opRj5ogyq-I8RX2pbhZXQ6WGSvCO5d4_ifAIfMOZDnMw
“[WARNING: THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.  READ ALL THE INFORMATION I LINKED TO AND COME TO YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.  YOU ARE MUCH BETTER OFF WORKING WITH A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL IF ONE IS AVAILABLE.]

My order of Chloroquine Phosphate from a couple of weeks ago arrived today (I ordered via alldaychemist and paid for it with Ethereum :D )   It looks like they are still selling it and it's really cheap.

My plan is to have it on hand in case our medical system gets overwhelmed, I believe I likely have COVID-19, AND I have to self-treat at home.

HOWEVER:

I'm very curious if there has been any systematic study of it being used in a clinical setting aside from the one small not-well-tested clinical use report from within China.  

It appears effective in vitro ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0 ) but there are a LOT of contraindications and side effects, and you have to be careful to avoid toxicity.  Here's the clinical use report from China: http://rs.yiigle.com/yufabiao/1182323.htm”

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Live Notes from Thoughtstream

OperationMasks.org #good #competent
Best way to get PPE to healthcare workers
Tags:, lookingFor, money, donations
<>flexport

Frontline responders fund https://www.gofundme.com/f/frontlinerespondersfund
Tags:, lookingFor, loans, (12, mo, or, end, of, crisis),, not, donations, while, gov, is, going, slowly

Tags:, ventilators
https://e-vent.mit.edu/

Tags:, coronavirus
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/imperial-college-covid19-npi-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
 planning for 18 months of uncertainty… #epidemiology #message

The below is written by Jeremy C. Young:

We can now read the report on COVID-19 that so terrified every public health manager and head of state from Boris Johnson to Donald Trump to the dictator of El Salvador that they ordered people to stay in their houses.  I read it yesterday afternoon and haven't been the same since.  I urge everyone to read it, but maybe have a drink first, or have your family around you.  It is absolutely terrifying.  The New York TImes confirms that the CDC and global leaders are treating it as factual.

Here's a brief rundown of what I'm seeing in here.  Please correct me in comments if I'm wrong.

The COVID-19 response team at Imperial College in London obtained what appears to be the first accurate dataset of infection and death rates from China, Korea, and Italy.  They plugged those numbers into widely available epidemic modeling software and ran a simulation: what would happen if the United States did absolutely nothing -- if we treated COVID-19 like the flu, went about business as usual, and let the virus take its course?

Here's what would happen: 80% of Americans would get the disease.  0.9% of them would die.  Between 4 and 8 percent of all Americans over the age of 70 would die.  2.2 million Americans would die from the virus itself.

It gets worse.  Most people who are in danger of dying from COVID-19 need to be put on ventilators.  50% of those put on ventilators still die, but the other 50% live.  But in an unmitigated epidemic, the need for ventilators would be 30 times the number of ventilators in the United States.  Virtually no one who needed a ventilator would get one.  100% of patients who need ventilators would die if they didn't get one.  So the actual death toll from the virus would be closer to 4 million Americans -- in a span of 3 months.  8-15% of all Americans over 70 would die.

How many people is 4 million Americans?  It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever.  It's the population of Los Angeles.  It's four times the number of Americans who died in the Civil War...on both sides combined.  It's two-thirds as many people as died in the Holocaust.

Americans make up 4.4% of the world's population.  So if we simply extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the world -- now we're getting into really fuzzy estimates, so the margin of error is pretty great here -- this gives us 90 million deaths globally from COVID-19.  That's 15 Holocausts.  That's 1.5 times as many people as died in World War II, over 12 years.  This would take 3-6 months.

Now, it's unrealistic to assume that countries wouldn't do ANYTHING to fight the virus once people started dying.  So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy.  A mitigation strategy is pretty much what common sense would tell us to do: America places all symptomatic cases of the disease in isolation.  It quarantines their families for 14 days.  It orders all Americans over 70 to practice social distancing.  This is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

And it does flatten the curve -- but not nearly enough.  The death rate from the disease is cut in half, but it still kills 1.1 million Americans all by itself.  The peak need for ventilators falls by two-thirds, but it still exceeds the number of ventilators in the US by eight times, meaning most people who need ventilators still don't get them.  That leaves the actual death toll in the US at right around 2 million deaths.  The population of Houston.  Two civil wars.  One-third of the Holocaust.  Globally, 45 million people die: 7.5 Holocausts, 3/4 of World War II.  That's what happens if we use common sense: the worst death toll from a single cause since the Middle Ages.

Finally, the Imperial College team ran the numbers a third time, this time assuming a "suppression" strategy.  In addition to isolating symptomatic cases and quarantining their family members, they also simulated social distancing for the entire population.  All public gatherings and most workplaces shut down.  Schools and universities close.  (Note that these simulations assumed a realistic rate of adherence to these requirements, around 70-75% adherence, not that everyone follows them perfectly.)  This is basically what we are seeing happen in the United States today.

This time it works!  The death rate in the US peaks three weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down.  We hit, but don't exceed (at least not by very much), the number of available ventilators.  The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear; COVID-19 goes down in the books as a bad flu instead of the Black Death.

But here's the catch: if we EVER relax these requirements before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before.  The simulation does indicate that, after the first suppression period (lasting from now until July), we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by two more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply.  If we staggered these suppression breaks based on local conditions, we might be able to do a bit better.  But we simply cannot ever allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly.  If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying.  It simply can't be allowed to happen.

How quickly will a vaccine be here?  Already, medical ethics have been pushed to the limit to deliver one.  COVID-19 was first discovered a few months ago.  Last week, three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines.  Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing.  Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for fourteen months to make sure the vaccine is safe.  This is the part of the testing that can't be rushed: the plan is to inoculate the entire human population, so if the vaccine itself turned out to be lethal for some reason, it could potentially kill all humans, which is a lot worse than 90 million deaths.  Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population.  For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available.

During those 18 months, things are going to be very difficult and very scary.  Our economy and our society will be disrupted in profound ways.  Worst of all, if the suppression policies actually work, it will feel like we are doing all this for nothing, because the infection and death rates will be very low.  It's easy to get people to come together in common sacrifice in the middle of a war.  It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working.  But that's exactly what we're going to have to do.

Tags:, onlinelibrary, library, love, in, the, time, of, corona, readings, -, google, drive
i’m hosting a podcast rss feed of many audiobooks i love and am going through
feel free to add podmash.com/graycrawford to your podcast client (my abs fave is overcast)
silk mafia

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184308/coronavirus-italy-medical-3d-print-valves-treatments #coronavirus

We must discipline ourselves with the world will do it for us  #coronavirus
Making a cheap ventilator project

As COVID-19 cases ramp up around the world, we’re likely going to get the same urgent questions and cries for help again and again, with increasing frequency.  We don’t want to get overwhelmed.  It’s important that we are able to quickly point people to clear and concise answers for the most common questions that we’re likely to hear.  I’m going to put together a document with answers to these questions so they’re readily available for people.  

I want to crowdsource links to the most concise and focused responses to these questions.  I’ve already put up detailed responses to many of these over the last month, but I’m now looking for something extremely simple for people who just want to be given a simple and clear plan to follow.  These are answers for the people who are most averse to doing detailed searches on their own.  

I’m going to write responses to all of these, but if there are starting points that you’ve seen that you really like on other sites, LMK.  I’ll be working with all this on a google doc (see first comment).  Please feel free to contribute there directly, but don’t overwrite any existing text.  Any help is appreciated as I don't have time to answer all of these in detail.

Questions:

“My housemate / parent / friend won’t take this seriously.  How do I convince them?”

“How do I safely go out shopping for food?”

“What should I have on hand in case I get COVID-19?”

“I think I might have COVID-19, what should I do?”

“My housemate / partner has symptoms of COVID-19.  How do I prevent myself from getting it?”

“Where can I get a COVID-19 test?”

“How do I tell which hospitals aren’t over capacity?”

“Help! Someone I care about is very sick and I can’t find them a spot at ER?  What should I do?”

“I have an elderly relative who needs food and care, but I am sick myself.  How can I get something to them?”
Tags:, coronavirus

#coronavirus masks https://www.facebook.com/739471037/posts/10159622229081038/?d=n

#coronavirus https://www.facebook.com/100004716362287/posts/1482226468611218/?d=n j
B Can anyone confirm validity?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/health/coronavirus-ibuprofen-french-health-minister-scn-intl-scli/index.html

tldr; use tylenol not advil/motrin/ibuprofen/other NSAIDs

#coronavirus https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615348/heres-how-long-the-coronavirus-can-stay-in-the-air-and-on-packages/
D https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615367/coronavirus-24000-research-papers-available-open-data/

“Yeah, for the next month or so just assume everything from outside your house is covered in spiders” #coronavirus ~davidad

#coronavirus https://www.endcoronavirus.org/

#coronavirus New findings from recent research on coronavirus:

“early studies on Covid-19 suggest people who have contracted the coronavirus are emitting, or “shedding,” infectious viruses very early on — in fact sometimes even before they develop symptoms.”

“people shed more in the early phases rather than the late phases of disease.”

“If people can infect others before they know they themselves are ill, it makes it much more difficult to break the chains of transmission.”

“People can shed virus for weeks after they have recovered. But that doesn’t mean they are infectious.”

“The report from the WHO mission that traveled to China concluded that viable — i.e. potentially infectious — virus has been isolated from stool in some cases, but it questions whether that means much for spread of a virus that attacks the respiratory tract. Those mainly spread by coughs and sneezes.”

“The report from the WHO mission that traveled to China concluded that viable — i.e. potentially infectious — virus has been isolated from stool in some cases, but it questions whether that means much for spread of a virus that attacks the respiratory tract. Those mainly spread by coughs and sneezes.”

Truly asymptomatic Covid-19 infections are probably rare.

“Studies in China estimate that about 1.2% of confirmed cases are asymptomatic. But Van Kerkhove said when the scientists on the WHO mission to China pressed for more detail, it became clear that most of the people who were first described as asymptomatic actually were pre-symptomatic — they’d been detected through contact tracing before their symptoms manifested.”

“I don’t think that they’re actually truly negative and then they get re-infected again. It’s likely that they’re still positive for some time.”

Transmission in China happened among family members and close contacts. True “community spread” was less common.

“The “secondary attack rate” — the percentage of people in a household who got infected after someone brought the virus into the home — was between 3% and 10%.”

“Van Kerkhove said true community spread involves transmission where people get infected in a movie theater, on the subway, or walking down the street. There’s no way to trace back the source of infection because there’s no connection between the infected person and the person he or she infects. That’s not what the Chinese data show, she said.”

China’s Covid-19 outbreak isn’t driven by spread in hospitals.

“With global supplies stretched thin of of N-95 respirators and other equipment needed to protect health workers, there is a real risk of shortages that could put the front line workers at risk, the WHO has warned.”

“China’s Covid-19 outbreak isn’t driven by spread in schools.
Even when we looked at households, we did not find a single example of a child bringing the infection into the household and transmitting to the parents. It was the other way around,” Van Kerkhove said. “And the children tending to have mild disease.”“

The big unknown: How deadly is this outbreak?

This week the WHO said the case fatality ratio currently looks like 3.4% — which is not a reassuring number.

“Until we have population based sero-surveys, we really don’t truly know.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/scientists-were-close-coronavirus-vaccine-years-ago-then-money-dried-n1150091 #coronavirus

#coronavirus Sent to me by David Golub! Important read for everyone. Coronavirus precautionary measures by James Robb, MD UC San Diego.

Subject: What I am doing for the upcoming COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic

Dear Colleagues, as some of you may recall, when I was a professor of pathology at the University of California San Diego, I was one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (the 1970s). I was the first to demonstrate the number of genes the virus contained. Since then, I have kept up with the coronavirus field and its multiple clinical transfers into the human population (e.g., SARS, MERS), from different animal sources.

The current projections for its expansion in the US are only probable, due to continued insufficient worldwide data, but it is most likely to be widespread in the US by mid to late March and April.

Here is what I have done and the precautions that I take and will take. These are the same precautions I currently use during our influenza seasons, except for the mask and gloves.:

1) NO HANDSHAKING! Use a fist bump, slight bow, elbow bump, etc.

2) Use ONLY your knuckle to touch light switches. elevator buttons, etc.. Lift the gasoline dispenser with a paper towel or use a disposable glove.

3) Open doors with your closed fist or hip - do not grasp the handle with your hand, unless there is no other way to open the door. Especially important on bathroom and post office/commercial doors.

4) Use disinfectant wipes at the stores when they are available, including wiping the handle and child seat in grocery carts.

5) Wash your hands with soap for 10-20 seconds and/or use a greater than 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer whenever you return home from ANY activity that involves locations where other people have been.

6) Keep a bottle of sanitizer available at each of your home's entrances. AND in your car for use after getting gas or touching other contaminated objects when you can't immediately wash your hands.

7) If possible, cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue and discard. Use your elbow only if you have to. The clothing on your elbow will contain infectious virus that can be passed on for up to a week or more!

What I have stocked in preparation for the pandemic spread to the US:

1) Latex or nitrile latex disposable gloves for use when going shopping, using the gasoline pump, and all other outside activity when you come in contact with contaminated areas.

Note: This virus is spread in large droplets by coughing and sneezing. This means that the air will not infect you! BUT all the surfaces where these droplets land are infectious for about a week on average - everything that is associated with infected people will be contaminated and potentially infectious. The virus is on surfaces and you will not be infected unless your unprotected face is directly coughed or sneezed upon. This virus only has cell receptors for lung cells (it only infects your lungs) The only way for the virus to infect you is through your nose or mouth via your hands or an infected cough or sneeze onto or into your nose or mouth.

2) Stock up now with disposable surgical masks and use them to prevent you from touching your nose and/or mouth (We touch our nose/mouth 90X/day without knowing it!). This is the only way this virus can infect you - it is lung-specific. The mask will not prevent the virus in a direct sneeze from getting into your nose or mouth - it is only to keep you from touching your nose or mouth.

3) Stock up now with hand sanitizers and latex/nitrile gloves (get the appropriate sizes for your family). The hand sanitizers must be alcohol-based and greater than 60% alcohol to be effective.

4) Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY "cold-like" symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available.

I, as many others do, hope that this pandemic will be reasonably contained, BUT I personally do not think it will be. Humans have never seen this snake-associated virus before and have no internal defense against it. Tremendous worldwide efforts are being made to understand the molecular and clinical virology of this virus. Unbelievable molecular knowledge about the genomics, structure, and virulence of this virus has already been achieved. BUT, there will be NO drugs or vaccines available this year to protect us or limit the infection within us. Only symptomatic support is available.

I hope these personal thoughts will be helpful during this potentially catastrophic pandemic. You are welcome to share this email. Good luck to all of us! Jim

James Robb, MD FCAP

Li, Fei-Fei Ph.D.

https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext
Tags:, coronavirus, Human, coronaviruses, can, remain, infectious, on, inanimate, surfaces, for, up, to, 9, days., Surface, disinfection, with, 0.1%, sodium, hypochlorite, or, 62–71%, ethanol, significantly, reduces, coronavirus, infectivity, on, surfaces, within, 1, min, exposure, time., We, expect, a, similar, effect, against, the, SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/26/how-to-prepare-for-coronavirus/?arc404=true #coronavirus