Hiding a Pandemic in Plain Sight

This excellent thread is from Barry Hunt:

Canada only reports a handful of cases even though cases are 10 times to 100 times higher this year than last year. We only publicly report 2% of cases. Sometimes 1%, sometimes 3%, but literally just a drop(let) in the bucket. 

The public is being duped. They have no idea how high cases are.

Canada masked until FREEDOM drove and honked in the streets early this year. THE GREAT UNMASKING™ of 2022 means CoVid is unlikely to ever go down below 100,000 cases PER DAY. EVERY DAY. FOREVER. AND EVER. 

Unless we re-mask.

And what did the GREAT UNMASKING™ accomplish?

The infection of 80% of Canadians in just one year.

Million of people's immune systems impaired. A late-breaking spike in flu hospitalizations in the spring. A massive spike in flu hospitalizations in the fall. And RSV. Including 20 times higher hospitalizations for kids. 

And massive reinfections this fall. Almost 80% of CoVID infections this fall are re-infections. The 20% of Canadians who have not been infected by CoVID yet are stubbornly refusing to go quietly into the night. 

THE GREAT UNMASKING™is causing more deaths than ever before. 2022 deaths will likely be 50% higher than 2021. [We had about 15,000 deaths in 2020 and 15,000 deaths in 2021, but we're looking at about 20,000 reported in 2022 (data here) plus another 20,000 unreported!] When the dust settles and the final numbers are in a year from now, deaths may even turn out to be double that of last year. 

The cost of THE GREAT UNMASKING™is astronomical. Canada has spent $9 BILLION already this year on hospitalization costs for CoVID treatment alone. Canada is currently spending $8.6 MILLION PER DAY. EVERY DAY. 

How can we stop this madness? 

RESPIRATORS. 

Even if we just had universal FREE RESPIRATORS in schools and hospitals and LTC, we could reduce the majority of community cases. Better yet if EVERYONE had access to a Made in Canada respirator. 

But isn't that expensive? Well, actually $9 BILLION wasted on hospitalizations is expensive. $9 BILLION could provide respirators when needed for every Canadian for the next ten years. $9 BILLION could stop the pandemic in Canada and prevent 400,000 deaths over the next ten years. 

Well, who is this guy anyway? Just some inventor / entrepreneur who has been solving problems in healthcare for forty years. Someone who took on solving HAIs 13 years ago because, despite rising IPC numbers and hand hygiene rhetoric, the problem was getting worse, not better. 

So just "Engineering" Infection Prevention is enough of an innovation to win some kind of award? Yes. Believe it or not, Infection Prevention is far from "Engineered" as traditionally practiced. There's little knowledge of aerosols or transmission or technology or automation. 

So how do you "Engineer" Infection Prevention? Well, you take the human out of the equation for starters. Humans are nice but unreliable. We need 6-sigma reliability. And manual labour is not scalable. We need continuous and high-frequency repeatable solutions, backed by data. 

Okay, but getting back to the pandemic, doesn't he just want to sell respirators? Well, yes. And lots of other stuff too. That's how our society works. 

Problem -> research -> develop -> solution -> product -> sell -> repeat. 

When all the problems are solved, we can stop. lol

But isn't that a Conflict of Interest? Well, the items of interest in yellow are Commercial Interests. I'm not sure a commercial interest to SOLVE infection problems is nearly as big a conflict of interest as professionals taking active measures to NOT SOLVE infection problems. 

Okay, so how do you figure RESPIRATORS will solve the problem when Masks didn't? Well, masks work well for airborne pathogens that don't transmit easily, like flu and RSV. Even TB. They have R0 in the range of 1 to 2 [a replication value indicating how quickly it's spreading - R0 = 1 means for every infection, one other person will get infected]. We had no flu in North America for two years while we wore masks. 

Yes, don't remind me, that's why we have so many severe cases now. No. That's BS. 

We have severe cases of CoVID, flu and RSV hospitalizations now because so many people have PCID now - Post-CoVID Immune Disruption. And continued re-infections are going to continue to make it worse. Masks kept CoVID numbers low until highly transmissible Omicron variants came along in 2022. With R0 18, we need some combination of measure that reduce transmission by 95% to get Rt < 1 to stop transmission. 

R0 x Vax eff % x ventilation eff % x distance eff % x mask eff % = < 1

Vaccines wane and are less effective against new variants of concern (VOCs). Ventilation is variable from place to place. People can enter your personal space unexpectedly, so distance doesn't always work.  But respirator efficiency is the one constant that goes with us from place to place and doesn't wane. 

But respirators can slip, or be forgotten, or be taken off for moments, minutes or longer So we need a RESPIRATOR+ strategy. 

Engineers: Never rely on single-fault. Be conservative. Always add safety factor. Double it and add 10%. 100% backup. Manual fail-safe. Belts and suspenders.

Two-way respirators CAN protect us against any known airborne virus in most any environment. But it's too easy for momentary mistakes to happen that could have life-altering repercussions. An amateur makes sure he CAN do the job. A professional makes sure he CAN'T FAIL. 

So... Get the best sealing, most comfortable respirator you can find and wear it. Everywhere. Even to a restaurant. Or a wedding. Or a Christmas get together. You can eat with a respirator, it just takes some thought and practice. You can drink too. SIPMasks makes it even easier. 

Open windows, turn furnace fans on manual, open vents, get fresh air moving. Confirm it with a CO2 monitor. Add air purifiers. Room size HEPA or MERV 13 like CR boxes to reduce exposure in the whole space. Desktop / portable HEPA units to provide a bubble of clean air in your personal space. 

The holidays are coming up, enjoy, safely. Eat, drink, and be merry. Visit with family, friends, and neighbours. Safely. For some that will be zoom only, for others gathering outdoors, still others inside with a respirator and good ventilation. Help other understand that CoVID is not over.