As everyone else, I’ve become so frustrated during this pandemic on so many levels. Although personally I’m not the least bit scared of contracting Covid-19, it’s apparent that the damages due to the shut down is astronomical in addition to its significant medical damages due to its 10 million cases worldwide. Whether we agree with the shut down or not, there is a real spike in cases and a spike in daily deaths remains to be seen in the next 1-2 weeks and more importantly our government has obviously decided that shutting down is the answer at least for now. It’s time that we as a country start to make REAL changes and accommodations to beat it rather than continuing what feels like just a slow inevitable death ( to our economy at the least). I listened to an interview with Dr. Fauci and for 25 minutes, the man offered zero useful information. How many times do we need to be told to “stay six feet a part, wash your hands,” blah blah blah. It’s obvious by now that these rudimentary strategies are not nearly enough. We are smarter and more capable than this; there has to be more substantial measures made, exp if this might be “ the new norm. “ Below is my list of things that I feel need/should be done that as far as I know, the so called experts and politicians have not even mentioned. It is by no means comprehensive. If anyone has any other suggestions, please feel free to post them. Please be constructive, leave the political debates out. I’m posting this here because I don’t really know how else to get the word out. For what I do for a living ( family practice and urgent care of over 25 years) I really cannot do social media. I’m no expert in infectious disease but yet I know I’ve come up with many more ideas than the people with authority including Dr. Fauci ever will evidently.
- Need to start talking about installation of negative pressure fans in as many buildings as possible: restaurants, warehouses, stores, classrooms, etc. For those not familiar, I’m simply referring to “whole house fans”. These are fans installed into ceiling that pull indoor air out and blown over the roof or somewhere high and into the open sky. A store like Walmart and restaurants can have these installed in half a day. If a more sophisticated system is desired, these can be installed with filters and UV light as well. It has already been shown that the AC is a large culprit in spreading the virus as all it does is keep recirculating contaminated air over and over again. In fact if you sit in the pathway of the AC air, you are much more likely to catch Covid-19 in public places. This air needs to constantly be removed or at least have the AC system be hooked up to some kind of UV light treatment before it goes back out for recirculation. BTW, fans are cheap! Especially compared to closing down the world for almost 4 months now. If you are admitted into a hospital today for a nasty respiratory/ airborne infection such as TB or Covid-19, you are placed into an infectious disease unit that should have this negative pressure I’m referring to. Supply would be the obvious hurdle, but let’s get started!
- Covid-19 task force. I had wanted to suggest that our country needs one until I was extremely disappointed to find out earlier this week ( correct me if I’m wrong) that we already have one and Mike Pence is the leader. Obviously Pence knows nothing about microbiology and infectious diseases and apparently hasn’t done anything useful that I can see in terms of the pandemic( not a political stance). Does he at least get credit for the increased in testing capacity? Anyway, this task force needs to quickly scout the many kinds of establishments and then send out millions of letters , each a little different depending on the addressee’s nature of business. Provide detailed, concrete instructions on how to prevent the virus from spreading in that particular setting. One patient I spoke to that works in a warehouse, for example, said that his manager called a meeting to simply say something in the line of: “Folks, I don’t know what we’re suppose to do to prevent this virus from spreading. I’m just a warehouse manager. If anyone has any suggestions, please speak up. “ Obviously the measures needed at a warehouse is different from a restaurant, a classroom, a gas station, etc. Here’s a short list of simple things that can be done at different setting that really should be common sense but apparently isn’t.
- Stop making people wait in single file lines! Especially indoors. This coronavirus can last in the air for up to 3 hours. If a person in front of the line coughs( and not wearing an unventilated N95 mask), there’s a 3-6 ft diameter sphere that every person behind in line will walk through. It doesn’t matter if people are standing 6ft or 60 ft apart, as long as they walk through that spot within the next 2-3 hours, he or she will have been exposed. Home Depot, Walmart, and previously Costco for example are guilty of this. Stores need to aim at allowing customers to go in and out of the store as quickly as possible by utilizing all check out aisles. If lines are unavoidable, then form multiple short lines instead of one long one.
- Gas stations need a box of gloves mounted vertically on every pump. Pull one or a pair out, use it while buying gas and throw it away after. Sad but true...I saw a lady put on gloves to pump gas then drove off still wearing them.
- Alternatively each pump needs a bottle of hand sanitizer
- Ask businesses to leave one front door open so there is no need to pull a door open to get in.
- Shopping carts handle need to be wiped down before returning them to the storage area for reuse.
- Stores clerks need to wipe down the credit card payment keypads and stylus after every use. By the way, Saran wrapping the keypad but never changing it out or wiping it down does nothing!
- Stop installing eye level plexiglass shields at registers. It’s not that they are bad, but just that they are completely useless.
- N95 masks. Where the hell are they? Who’s hoarding them? I’m a front line worker but yet my office hasn’t been able to find any since the end of March! At least I finally found some China made KN95’s earlier this week online. As of March, the US companies were able to ramp up production to over 300 million N95 masks per month. Another three months have passed yet I estimate 70% of the population don’t have a single N95 mask, including millions of health care workers. I had envisioned that by April there would be government trucks driving by, dropping off free boxes of masks to the public. In stead, we are still left with watching YouTube on how to make homemade cotton masks that keep falling off our faces as it becomes completely counter productive as we keep adjusting it and touching our faces. While Cotton masks and surgical masks offer a moderate level of protection against the virus, I should mention here that they are ineffective at containing the virus if you are sick. In other words, studies have shown that they help keep the virus from coming in( as long as you are not touching it repeatedly), but not from coming out.
- More needs to be told by the media on what can be done to boost your immune system. Specifically: more Vitamin D3. 2000-5000 units a day( I wouldn’t recommend more to the public), more Zinc, more vitamin C and Omega 3’s( not really proven but couldn’t hurt)
- Protests. Can we move on yet? Point has been made. World leader Pelosi and multiple Democrat members of the Congress have already gotten on their knees( literally) for The BLM movement. Again, not trying to make a political statement here, just a suggestion in regards to the pandemic.
- What else? Just these alone with the words from doctors and other “experts” and implementation by politicians would go a long long ways, esp in regards to the negative pressure fans discussed above which I understand would by far be the largest effort as well. Cost should not be a factor when comparing to the price of a global shut down. At this point, it’s easy to say we need to keep delaying the reopening of businesses, no sports, etc for the sake of medical safety but at the same time I really don’t feel that it’s a viable option. The key then becomes reopening with the least risks possible.
- Please help me spread these ideas.
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