It’s not too past to fight Covid-19 as a scientist

In the past six months, a full semester, the United States has experienced more deaths and diseases from the new coronavirus than any other country in the world. Of the 28 million showed cases of Covid-19 in humans and 900,000 documented deaths worldwide, more than 20% have occurred in the United States. As of September 9, 2020, 6. 5 million Americans had been screened for the disease and 194,000 had died.

The underlying cause is a small virus, SARS-CoV-2, which is a component of the coronavirus family and is transmitted through the air; it can be spread simply through breathing drops or aerosol components. It is also highly contagious, with some others serving as spreaders consistent with: capable of infecting dozens, loads or even more than 1,000 people more than one single initial case. to 50,000 new cases consistent with the day, many deaths per day and autumn (and flu season) approaching, the stage is about to get worse.

And yet there is all we can do: we can fight covid-19 as scientists. Even after 6 months, it’s not too late. Here’s what you want to happen.

Currently, there are a massive number of active instances of Covid-19 in the United States: estimated at around 2. 5 million, or only about 1% of the population. We hope that most of those instances have been resolved without long-term damage (it’s too early to tell), however many (a significant percentage) have a maximum chance of long-lasting negative effects Damage to the respiratory formula has been reported , the circulatory formula and the endocrine formula of the patient, with situations ranging from mild (such as myocarditis) to severe (such as organ failure).

While it is true that older, immunosuppressed or other patients with comorability are at greater threat of serious illness than other groups, there have been serious cases that have caused long-term injury or even death in young adults, adolescents and even healthy children. Jamain Stephens, a 20-year-old school football player, died of headaches from Covid-19. With the reopening of many in-person training schools despite a lack of sufficient precautions, other people are right to worry that many other academics (and younger ones), athletes and non-athletes, will suffer unnecessarily.

That is not the case, of course, from the beginning science has pointed out the most productive way to prevent the spread of this disease, although we have done a bad job of following these recommendations in the United States, clinical evidence has only increased. Despite concerted attempts to minimize the virus – how contagious it is, how harmful and fatal it is, and how well it can be transmitted without proper precautions – infection rates and the number of deaths do not lie.

From a public aptitude perspective, there are individual steps we can take to protect ourselves and those we come into contact with. simple for most of us, but without universal conformity, its effectiveness is limited.

Individual interventions will never achieve the same degrees of good luck as a coordinated set of national efforts – the same charitable efforts in countries around the world, from New Zealand to Vietnam, from Spain to Italy and beyond. reins to science, this is how we can triumph over this existing pandemic in the United States and return to a “new normal” as in the countries of Europe and Asia, even before an effective vaccine was available.

1. ) We want a national mask mandate. I’m sorry for anyone who has a medical explanation as to why they can’t wear a mask; The fact is that the dangers of transmission and acquisition of the new coronavirus are being triggered without a mask. While the N95 and surgical mask are (and will be) reserved for hospitals, the hybrid mask and two-layer cotton mask offer exceptional coverage in 3 a need – it has shapes:

Although masks, scarves, scarves and tights vary in quality and efficiency, any face coating is greater than the absence of face coating.

Facial screens, a popular alternative, offer little or no coverage to the user compared to masks.

In contrast, the mask with integrated valves or vents protects the user, but does not protect others. As a general rule, if you cannot turn off a candle while wearing the coating, it will most likely be effective. not only are they much less likely to infect others, however, their Covid-19 infections are much more likely to be statistically mild, than serious or worse.

2. ) Stay socially away and enforce it. When you leave your home or come into contact with someone who doesn’t live directly with you at home, you’ll need to stand at least 2 meters (6 feet) away from anyone else. What constitutes 6 feet?

The explanation is simple: the virus is transmitted through airborne debris that is expelled through respiratory activity, this includes breathing, laughing, singing, talking, yelling, playing musical instruments, coughing and sneezing, among others. Charge thrown into the air can be particularly reduced, as can distance driven through droplets and aerosols. Without a mask, they can go up to more than 26 feet. A recent meta-study found that they were not only 6 feet (2 meters) effective. to cut viral transmission, but every additional 3 feet (1 meter) reduces transmission and sensitivity. Talking deserves to be normalized when someone is too close to their status, and to leave enough distance between other people for the protection explanation why they deserve to be mandatory.

3. ) Do not mix indoors with others living outdoors in your home. The main determinant of whether someone contracts the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is as undeniable as possible: exposure. The higher your chance of getting Covid-19, and the higher your exposure, the greater the likelihood that you have a serious, serious, or even fatal case.

When inside, aerosol debris remains in the air, and if a user in that area is inflamed with SARS-CoV-2, continues to accumulate the viral load to which a user is exposed in that area. drinking (such as bars or restaurants), where it is not unusual to do a song or speak aloud (such as study rooms or churches), or where difficult and heavy breathing occurs (such as gyms) only exacerbates this effect.

If we were to take public conditioning precautions seriously and lower infection rates, there would be a moratorium on face-to-face collection in spaces like this until the virus is low. remarkably undeniable way to do it.

four. ) Apply a “stay home” plan for four to 6 weeks. This is the massive step that can lead us to victory over the virus, however, it requires national coordination and massive degrees of social compliance to succeed. The explanation for why the virus has continued to spread over the population for more than six months, and will continue to do so until existing situations are substantially replaced, is that many of us too are participating in non-essential contacts.

We can fight this by having a national order of shelters on site.

The few contacts that cannot be eliminated (mainly for fitness reasons) will ensure that a certain amount of the virus remains in our population, however, on-site shelter orders (i. e. to stay at home) are one of the ultimate successes. fitness interventions that a society can adopt to combat a pandemic like Covid-19.

5. ) Reopen according to clinical guidelines. Although we have been fighting the new coronavirus in the United States for 6 months, we are still not following the recommendations of scientists, we do not have a universal search for contacts. We do not have rapid and widespread mass testing, as we do not know who is positive and who has been exposed, we do not isolate or quarantine ourselves properly, this means that asymptomatic carriers, presymptomatic carriers and other people with active and symptomatic infections are all in public , with the possibility of infecting us all.

If we were to prevent this pandemic and save it thousands more deaths, we would have interaction in these 3 interventions:

When infections begin to increase, a local home maintenance order can simply weigh an epidemic with this data before it spreads to other communities.

These five interventions, taken together, can in principle take us from tens of thousands of new cases per day to just burdens in a few weeks. Similarly, many countries with giant populations and extremely variable populations and population densities have already reopened safely by taking precisely those measures, recovering from an initial catastrophically higher rate of infection, the United States (and the United Kingdom, and other countries with circumstances) can simply be an absolute tide in combat opposing Covid-19. This only requires following the most productive clinic recommendation that experts have to offer.

Without it, the disease will continue to devastate individuals, families, communities and the country as a whole, the economic effects will be severe and prolonged, and our most productive hope of beating it will come from a vaccine, even then we will have to be scientifically guilty on this front too: vaccines will have to be shown and effective and, in reality, no single person is still near the finish line. – may have unacceptable-looking effects.

The most productive component of this clinical solution is that it is available to us: we can decide to adopt it at any time. The social and economic effects of the pandemic remain unastrous, but can be addressed by making situations safe. for everyone: workers, customers, teachers and students By applying mask guarantees, estating requirements, moratoriums on activities and businesses at risk, a coordinated shelter order at the site of four to 6 weeks and reopens only with science-based rules in place (which come with touch detection, widespread testing and isolation/quarantine for inflamed and exposed people), we can defeat the virus as a society.

Many of us, of course, are beyond the tiredness of the effect that the new coronavirus has had on our lives, the concept of having to isolate ourselves more is scary, but it is an action that can have a greater impact. An effect on the prevention of this virus on your tracks than anything we’ve done so far. Until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available, this is the clinical path to a safe and open America. We can decide on it at any time. The faster we do it, the more lives we’ll have saved.

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I have a PhD in astrophysicist, writer and clinical communicator, who teaches physics and astronomy at universities. I’ve won a lot of awards for clinical writing.

I have a PhD in astrophysicist, writer and clinical communicator, who teaches physics and astronomy at various universities. I have won clinical writing awards since 2008 for my blog, Starts With A Bang, adding the award to the most productive clinical blog of My Two Books, Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive, Beyond the Galaxy: How Human Look at Beyond Our Milk and Way and Discovery the Total Universe, can be purchased on Amazon. me on Twitter @startswithabang.

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