COVID-19 Update: Thursday, August 6

More news on masks, public health shortages, testing woes, hand-sanitzer cocktails, and MLB.

1. Johns Hopkins and the University of California has brought forward a theory that mask wearing not only reduces spread, but it also reduces disease severity due to limiting the amount of viral load exposure of the wearer. They further this idea by pointing to nations where mask wearing is normalized such as South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan who all had low case fatality rates. This will open up a new branch of research.

2. With new cases high and school about to start, public health departments are stretched thin and contact tracers are unable to keep up with the need. Burnout is becoming a major issue as financial and human resources are inadequate.

3. The number of tests being conducted each day is dropping. Nationally it has dropped 3.6% over the last two weeks but in some places, like Iowa, it has dropped 40% in 2 weeks even though the rate of positive tests is increasing nationally (meaning a higher number of people testing are positive). This seems to be caused by long waits for both the test and the results. At some testing sites people have to wait hours to get tested and then days to get their results. In some cases, it can take 7-10 days to get results. Total number of people being tested has dropped in 22 states.

4. People are still drinking hand sanitizer, and some are dying from it. Please don’t do this.

5. MLB has had dozens of positive cases and is tightening their restrictions to try to help stem the spread.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Sometimes people ask me how we got rid of the Spanish Flu in 1918. The honest and unsatisfying answer is we didn’t. The flu is still around. But the outbreak got under control because of a few key things, 1) the people who were sick died, 2) those who didn’t die recovered and had immunity for a while so there were less people vulnerable for a while, 3) it is seasonal 4) people wore masks and socially distanced to slow the spread enough for the first three things to happen. Eventually we used that virus to build the modern-day flu vaccine. The thing is, COVID isn’t going anywhere. It won’t just fizzle out and there is no silver bullet cure. We are stuck dealing with it and this ends one of two ways, 1) we develop a vaccine that works and lots of us get it (think polio) or 2) we develop an effective treatment and reduce the threat of getting it (think Strep). But it isn’t just going to go away. A vaccine will not be readily available this year. Neither will an effective treatment although we are certainly getting better at treatment and closer to both. So in the meantime, we have to be able to live our lives as normally as possible while mitigating risks. Life cannot and should not be avoided but we also can’t pretend this isn’t happening and refuse to take any actions and think it is all going to resolve itself. Virology and history tells us that will not happen. We have an obligation to each other. We have an obligation to protect each other, to care for each other and to do our small part to help hold the line until scientist can find a cure or treatment or vaccine. The question is not when will this end. The real question is how many of us have to die before we decide we’ve had enough. How many have to suffer long term illness before we are willing to put on our masks and join forces standing together, United, against our common enemy. So don your super hero mask, let out the cry of the warrior and join the battle.

1918 Barber Shop.