Tag Archives: covid-19

Pandemic Masks

Memories, Musings, Obsessions, Things, ,

Is it too early to talk about the masks we wore to protect us and others from Covid-19? I’m talking about the earlier days — the fabric masks. The handmade ones, the ones that suddenly appeared on Amazon. The ones that really were not that effective.

To be clear, I was happy that we were not expected to wear masks when out and about at the very beginning. I’d seen people wearing masks in my day and I was happy I didn’t need to do that — it seemed so odd and embarrassing. I just didn’t leave the house — so I didn’t need to worry about getting Covid-19. I was completely devastated for many reasons when it was announced that the general public should begin wearing masks. To begin with, I didn’t know where to find a mask. The good ones were reserved for doctors, nurses, first responders. A FB acquaintance even went so far as to shame anyone who was able to get N19 masks. I don’t recall her exact words, but they were sharp and scathing and she didn’t back down when some people explained that they had N19 masks left from house projects or dealing with forest fire smoke.

Another reason I was terrified to wear a mask was because I didn’t know how to and I felt uncomfortable about doing so. I thought they were ugly and bothersome.

My first concern was eased by someone on our neighborhood email list who offered to make masks for people in exchange for a donation to her favorite charity. I made a donation and stopped by her house one day and picked up my mask on her front porch with the instructions to wash it in hot water in case she was inadvertently passing on Covid germs.

My first mask

My second and third concerns were eased only by experience.

A local women’s group held an outdoor mask sale to benefit their non-profit and I bought one or two masks there. I bought more on Amazon, two through King Arthur Flour, and a few from the company that made KA Flour’s masks. I gave some away for Christmas that year as well. My friend Catherine who’d just moved to Seattle sent us one that had ‘VOTE’ on the front. I gave that to Dean because it was too big for me.

Dean modeling my VOTE mask

My favorite mask was my Kate Bush mask that featured a woman in a red dress standing in various poses with ‘You know it’s me — Cathy’ written on the bottom. Unfortunately that was just for looks because the material was too porous. I wore it over another mask when I was out and about.

My Kate Bush mask
Daughter’s IG story about my mask

Most of the masks were too big for me so I bought beads to string on the ear bands and hooks to wrap the ear bands around my head.

Eventually we were able to easily purchase N19 and KN19 masks and the fabric masks became redundant. I even have unused masks left over.

I’m keeping my fabric masks for the time being. Not that I think I’ll need them, but because, in a way, they make me feel a little safe.

Have you noticed…

Musings,

This week (fortnight actually) our small blogging group are answering a question we found in a poem and using it as a starting point for our writing. Helen suggested a few poets and their questions. I am sticking with her first suggestion “Have you noticed…” from Ghosts by Mary Oliver.

Have you noticed… people are being kinder these days?

Have you noticed … people are being more cruel these days?

Have you noticed…people are acting smarter these days?

Have you noticed… people are acting stupider these days?

Have you noticed… leaders are speaking the facts?

Have you noticed… leaders are speaking lies?

What have you noticed?

Guest Post: Why social distancing works

health, ,

NOTE: Updated 3-21-20 — 8 months in the second to the last paragraph was incorrect. Dean asked me to change it to 8 weeks.

My husband is a biostatistician for the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He sent my kids and me an email explaining why social distancing works. (Emphasis mine)

Here’s something I wrote up about social distancing.

If life continued without change, on average, someone with COVID-19 might infect somewhere around 3 others. And it takes about 6 days, say a week, for someone to infect others.

So in two months just from that one person we go from 1 to 3 to 9 to 27 to 81 to 243 to 729 to 2187. All from one person.

With social distancing suppose that we reduce this to 2. Now in 2 months we go from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 to 64 to 128. Still explosive growth but 128 is about twenty times less than 2187. While most people who are infected don’t need to be hospitalized, there are still twenty times as many hospitalizations if we do nothing.

In fact we want to reduce this number (called R0 or R-naught) to way less than 2. If it is 1.25, then after 8 weeks we expect about 5 cases. And if we keep it less than 1, the epidemic will die out.

That’s why governments are introducing drastic measures. If we keep the growth down, the hospitals can better handle the cases. We can better learn how to treat cases. We can do studies to find what treatments really work and which give false hope. And it buys us time to evaluate vaccines.