Yup, Still Writing About It

Covid is still here and still killing more people than car crashes. The highest vehicle fatality rate in Canada in the past decade was in 2023, with 1,964 deaths with over 8,000 serious injuries. For Covid, counting less than the last year (about 11 months) and only from participating provinces, we've had 2,248 deaths and over 33,000 serious illnesses that required hospitalization. So, more. 

In some places, it's way more right now!

California is experiencing a surge, and Honduras is experiencing such a spike in illnesses that they're mandating face masks again in hospitals, airports, shopping centres, schools, public transport, and other enclosed or crowded paces. A recent study suggests that LongCovid may be far more common than currently estimated at about one in ten people, with non-human primates studied reaching 90% of the population with bio-markers: 

"Even if you started off lean and healthy, this study shows it won't protect you from some of the worst consequences of Covid."

I compare Covid rates to car crashes because we still, pretty much all of us, take precautions whenever we get in our car, and most of it don't even think about it any more. Some precautions are imposed on us, like I had to ditch my car because apparently the MTO would take it off the road for rust that could enable exhaust to get inside the vehicle. Air bags and driving laws are imposed on us. But we willingly strap ourselves in our cars, for most of us, even when no cops are around. I do it automatically before I start the car. It became second nature.

N95s really prevent illness from almost any virus, but most are still resistant to wearing them, as if the risk is perceived as too minimal to take precautions. But even if we're not worried about getting it, shouldn't we still at least be concerned about spreading it?? 

A recent study (from OHSU) discussed how doctors and caregivers are missing signs of LongCovid in newborns to preschoolers because they don't know what to look for, despite that their study found 15% of previously infected kids had it. Symptoms might include stuffy nose, coughing, poor appetite, and low energy. Lawrence Kleinman, a medical school prof said, 

"The Covid pandemic began with a myth - that children are spared its ill effects. In contrast, many children were sick with Covid, and we now have a new chronic illness emerging." 

As we've known for years, like many other viruses, SARS-CoV-2 hibernates in the body after the initial infection. 

"Some adverse aspects of Long Covid may not be apparent until some point in the future. That suggests the condition is more common than current estimates reflect." 

Another study suggests that Long Covid may have surpassed asthma as the most common chronic condition experienced by American children." 

This review of Eddington, a movie about a town fighting over the best way to manage a pandemic, says it for viewers to be able to sink back into the trauma of May 2020:

"Even five years on, the sight of someone proudly maskless inside a grocery store during a time of mask mandates is familiarly disheartening, made even more acutely so by the fact that ... heartless self-importance has become de rigueur. ... What Aster does manage that most Covid media ... doesn't is a perceptive take on how easily kindness and empathy were misdefined. ... Covid is a harbinger of change that Joe [who sticks up for anti-maskers] has no power over, and the lack of control makes him feel small and unimportant in his own being, an insecurity reflected by his squeaky voice and diminutive stance. While it would be considerate to think about a neighbor's safety and mask up, real empathy demands decentering the ego, and that's something Joe is incapable of, going so far as to position himself as a champion of small-town compassion."

Also good to remember that it sucks to be sick! A simple N95 can prevent all of this!

Some Useful Reminders: 

Almost 60% of transmission is from asymptomatic cases (either before symptoms appear or from people who don't have any symptoms). So that healthy-looking person might be more of a risk than someone coughing up a lung. If you only throw on a mask when you hear coughing, you might decrease your chance of getting it by a bit, but you'll miss all the cases that are doing most of the spreading. That's why some of us still mask around people who seem fine. 

Covid hangs around in the air for a good couple of hours and can cross a room in minutes, like smoke. If you're within distance that if another person were smoking a cigar you could smell it, then you're close enough to catch a virus from them.  

N95s can be worn over and over provided they don't get wet or dirty. 

Touching things isn't a big deal as long as you don't touch your mouth, nose or eyes. I wear a mask and glasses whenever I go out and don't think twice about handshakes or passing an object around. They prevent any contact with all my face holes. Back home, I take off the glasses and mask and wash my hands before carrying on with my day. 

Vaccinations help reduce the acute symptoms, but you can still get it along with lingering blood clots that could lead to a stroke, and vaccines effectiveness is reduced dramatically in a few months.  

There's little access to any treatments, so all we have is prevention. N95s actually work (if worn properly and all the time when in public), but they work even better when more people wear them.