Update: Toilet Aerosols, Gnome Shortages, Health Workers, Vaccine News
Toilet Aerosols…Ewww
Previous posts have discussed how the virus spreads, mostly focusing
on how masks
stop transmission of aerosols emitted from one’s mouth. Now there’s a new
potential source.
It has been known for
some time that SARS-CoV-2 can infect one’s gut and be expelled with feces. Those
feces (hopefully) go into a toilet, and guess what happens when you flush the toilet. You get aerosols, lots
of them. According to a scientist quoted
in the article:
Both the toilet and urinal
generated large quantities of droplets smaller than three micrometers in size,
posing a significant transmission risk if they contain infectious
microorganisms. Due to their small size, these droplets can remain suspended
for a long time.
As the article points out, there are no documented cases of COVID-19
being spread this way. But it is a possibility.
Gnome Shortages
Back in January, I did the first post
about pandemic-related shortages. It covered grocery staples and chips for
making cars. Since then I’ve written
about a second
toilet paper shortage (which seems not to have developed…yet) and a ketchup
packet shortage.
Now there is a shortage of garden gnomes. NO!!! NOT THE GNOMES!!!
Health Workers Consider Quitting
I recently did a post
recommending an extensive report on pandemic effects on health care
workers. The latest news is that some of
them want out. A study
shows that one out of five has considered quitting and almost a third have
considered reducing hours.
That is bad news for all of us. Even before the pandemic we were facing a shortage
of health care workers. If a fifth of them bolt now, we could be in big trouble.
Vaccine News
This blog has had a lot of coverage of vaccines.
A few items of interest have popped up recently.
In a bit of good news, an extensive study
by the CDC has found that mRNA vaccines (Pfizer & Moderna) don’t just prevent
serious COVID-19, they prevent infections too.
This means they make it hard for the virus to get a foothold in your
nose and start replicating. This is important because for some time public
health people have been unsure whether you could still have an asymptomatic
infection and spread the virus even if you were vaccinated. In more than 90% of
cases, you cannot.
Of course, this is only the case is you are fully
vaccinated. Unfortunately, lots of
people are skipping
their second shots. The reasons mostly boil down to inability to get the
second shot because of supplies, forgetting to do it, a bad experience with the
first shot, or people being babies and not wanting the side effects.
It's also another thing not to get any shots, which is what 43%
of Republicans, 22% of independents, and 5% of Democrats plan to do,
according to a new
poll. These are either people who don’t believe the pandemic is real and/or
are free-riding off the rest of us who are being responsible.
Here's an idea. Let’s make a rule: If, once you have been eligible for some time, you fail to get vaccinated without a documented medical reason, then if you get COVID-19 you are 100% responsible for all the expenses associated with your care. No insurance.
I would sure be interesting to
see if these COVIDiots would put their money where their mouth is. I doubt it!
