Random Thoughts – Randocity!

In recent days, it has been reported that a new coronavirus has emerged from Wuhan city in the Hubei province in China. It is dubbed nCoV-2019. Let’s explore.

Outbreak

The “novel Corona Virus” (nCoV-2019) outbreak began sometime in early December in Wuhan with the WHO being notified on December 31st of a possible new coronavirus strain. It seems the incubation period of this virus is somewhere around 7 and 14 days, after which symptoms begin to manifest. It was first assumed that nCoV-2019 was spread through a seafood market and food items. However, it seems that many in China are now getting the virus without having visited or eaten the suspected foods. The CDC is currently investigating exactly the means of transmission, but it is suspected that this virus has now moved into a person-to-person contact phase. Assuming person-to-person contact, then it is worth following standard winter Cold and Flu virus transmission precautions.

The nCoV-2019 virus is not an influenza or “the flu” type virus. This is an entirely different type of virus, but it does have similar symptoms to a cold virus, including respiratory distress. You can read this CBS news article to understand how it has been determined (so far) that this virus spreads. However, the means of spread should now be considered like most other viruses, including cold and flu, such as through body fluid contact. It may even be able to live on surfaces for a time like other viruses. That means if you touch a surface that has a latent virus on it and you touch your eyes, nose or mouth, you could become infected. It may also be transmitted through airborne contact by a sneeze or a cough.

Cold and Flu Prevention

In 2009, I wrote an article regarding flu prevention during winter months. I updated this article in 2018 to discuss getting the flu vaccine (which that vaccine won’t apply to nCoV-2019). However, this prevention information is now more prescient than ever when a new virus outbreak occurs. While we must all venture out into the public for various reasons, such as grocery shopping and for work. You can help prevent and limit your exposure by taking certain preventative measures as described in my earlier article. Let’s take my previous article’s advice and expand on it a bit further.

Limit Your Exposure

For nCoV-2019, it’s more important than ever to limit your exposure to others and particularly avoid face-to-face meeting with those people who tend to travel to and from China. If you work at a business where travel to and from China is important to your employer’s bottom line, you should warn your employer and the HR team to enforce mandatory quarantine on all staff returning from China. Insist that these folks must work from home for at least 16 days before returning to work. There’s no reason to risk your entire office staff’s exposure to a possible serious contagion by those returning from China. If a person begins showing any symptoms during that 16 day home quarantine, they should immediately seek medical attention.

Face Masks

While I know that these surgical face masks seem popular, they can’t fully prevent exposure to viruses. They may help limit the possibility, but they absolutely will not prevent exposure. Why? Because they still allow air around the edge of the mask. Further, you can still touch a surface with your hand or glove and then wipe your eyes. If you have open sores or cuts, you can easily expose yourself to a virus simply by touching a surface. When you can smell odors with a mask on, then the mask allows very small particulate matter through the mask to your nose and mouth (either at the sides or through the mesh). This can allow a virus in. Standard surgical face masks may help some, but they are no where near perfect.

A face mask only eliminates some airborne particulates, but does nothing to stop body fluid contact on surfaces or air flow around the edge of the mask. Shaking hands with someone might also be enough to transmit and expose you to a virus like nCoV-2019… particularly if you rub your eyes. Even a sneeze in your direction could cause you to inhale it through the sides of a mask.

If you must shake hands with someone, use hand sanitizer immediately after. Better, don’t shake hands. If you can get to a restroom to wash your hands in hot water after shaking hands, you can likely wash off any viruses with soap and hot water. Cold water will work, but hot water works better.

Airborne Viruses

While many state that the nCoV-2019 virus isn’t airborne, that’s kind of a misnomer and somewhat deceptive. Once a person begins showing signs and symptoms of a virus infection, such as coughing and sneezing, it’s possible to spread the contagion. These symptoms ensure that the ill become carriers for the virus. It’s all part of the virus’s plan to spread itself. It uses the body’s reflex mechanisms to launch the virus into the air through coughing and sneezing.

If you hear someone coughing or sneezing near you, you should move as far away as possible. If you’re on a multi-car public transportation system (like a train), you should move to another car. If you’re on a bus, you might want to consider pressing the stop bar, stepping off and waiting for the next bus.

If you’re on a plane, you’re kind of stuck. Planes offer closed recirculated air environments, which can actually lead airborne viruses around the entire plane through the ventilation system. On a plane, if someone is infected with a cold or flu or even nCoV-2019, you’re likely going to get it if they are coughing or sneezing even if they aren’t seated near you.

Office Buildings

Unfortunately, like planes, many office buildings also use closed recirculated air systems. This is done to retain the heat or cold air within, requiring less energy to heat or cool that air again. This also means that it takes only one person to sneeze or cough near an intake vent and a virus can be carried and spread over the entire building, landing on surfaces and making the virus airborne.

Yeah, kinda gross isn’t it? If the building uses HEPA filters on its HVAC system, this may or may not reduce the spread of such particulate matter. Unfortunately, HEPA filters are expensive to set up and maintain on so many intake vents in a large building. Even then, HEPA filters may not reduce airborne viruses. Many building landlords don’t and won’t spend for such filtration systems, mostly because of their limited effectiveness.

In other words, don’t rely on a HEPA filter to protect you from viruses.

Wearing Masks Part II

If you want to completely remove particulate matter and drastically reduce infection possibilities, then you’ll need a mask that not only seals tightly about the face, it must contain strong particulate filters. Such a respirator mask looks like so:

There are many respirator masks similar to this one. It doesn’t have to be this exact respirator mask model. But, it must fit tightly to the face. If you’re a man with a beard, plan to shave your beard so that no beard portion sits under the edge of the mask. The mask must make tight contact directly with skin, not hair, to fit properly and allow for proper air flow through the mask without leaking air around the edge.

When wearing one of these masks, you should notice three things:

1. No odors should be discernible
2. The mask should allow for easy air flow through the mask and not get hot
3. No air should flow around the edge of the mask

You should not have to struggle to breathe when wearing a mask like this. Air should flow easily, but seemingly all particulate matter should be eliminated. If you can smell nothing in the air, even when around solvents, spray paints or food smells, then the mask is working properly and is fitted correctly. If you begin to smell odors or the mask seems to perform differently than it did, it’s time to replace the filters or check the mask’s fit.

The above type of respirator mask is typically used when spray painting, sandblasting, when using chemicals with noxious fumes or when handling other noxious substances.

I used a respirator mask similar to this when I airbrushed T-Shirts at an amusement park. The particulate overspray coming from the aerosolized paint was palpable until I donned a similar respirator mask. Once I donned a properly fitted respirator mask, I could no longer smell the paint fumes or any other odors (not even the hamburger and fries scent coming from just across the way). Wearing the respirator mask made painting so much more enjoyable and allowed me to focus on the job. I didn’t have to worry about breathing in unnecessary and potentially harmful fumes.

If you’re looking for much better airborne virus protection, a respirator mask is a better option to the mostly ill-fitting surgical masks, which those masks offer only limited protection. Of course, a respirator won’t stop surface to surface contact of a virus, but it can drastically reduce airborne infection. In fact, it might be worth wearing one of these styles of masks when flying on a plane… only taking the mask off to eat or drink. Even then, I’d suggest eating and drinking before the flight and not taking it off until you’re off of the flight. If it’s a 13 hour flight, that might be a little difficult, however.

Just be sure that whatever filtered respirator mask that you choose to buy is well supported by its manufacturer. No-name manufacturers tend to discontinue their masks and filters quickly, leaving you with no way to buy replacement filters. You’ll be forced to buy a brand new mask with an all new filter system. If you choose to buy a respirator mask, be sure to buy enough filters with your purchase to last for as long as you think you’ll need. When you run out of filters, you may be forced to buy a new mask simply because the manufacturer has discontinued that product. Don’t think that because you decide to buy a 3M respirator mask that they will continue to support their products indefinitely. A large brand name is equally likely to discontinue a product as a no-name brand. This is the reason to stock up with as many filters as you can afford while they are available. Don’t let brand names lull you into a sense of security with the availability of product. Even just 1 year can see product changes.

Additionally, these masks rely on rubber and other parts that must come into contact with skin surfaces and whatever chemicals you may work around. It’s possible that skin oils and chemical exposure can degrade the mask’s components over time. Expect to buy a new mask whenever you notice signs of wear and tear or if the mask begins performing poorly even with new filters. Don’t forget that you bought the mask to protect you. If the mask has lost its ability to do this, you’ll want to buy a new one.

nCoV-2019

This new virus underscores the need to always be vigilant in our every day lives, particularly during winter months. During the height of winter is our most susceptible time to viruses because they can live on surfaces much, much longer than during summer months when it’s hot. This is the reason why colds, flu and viruses flare during the winter months. Cold temperatures are a great preservative to viruses.

Unfortunately, the nCoV-2019 virus isn’t something that has any protection yet. Taking a flu shot won’t protect you from nCoV-2019. It’s a virus that is a new strain and it’s also not a form of influenza.

When you’re out and about, be cautious of placing your hands anywhere on your face. If you must, visit a restroom first, wash your hands with warm soapy water, then touch your face. If you’ve been out shopping, you’ll want to wash your hands as soon as you leave the store. In fact, you might want to wash your hands in the store’s restroom once you have your bags loaded into your car. If you want, you can use hand sanitizer, but it’s not always as effective as washing your hands.

Shopping for Delivery

With apps like Instacart, Safeway and Postmates, it’s easy to avoid leaving home for certain types of shopping. With services like these, it’s easy to place an order for 1-3 hour delivery later that day. You’ll pay a little more for the delivery, but it avoids leaving the house. You can even use GrubHub and Yelp delivery services for home delivery of meals. This also avoids visiting a restaurant, potentially infecting yourself at the restaurant.

Dine-In Restaurants with Buffet Bars

As was described in my 2009 article, I’ll reiterate this point here. During fall and winter months, October through March, it’s wise to avoid buying foods from buffet bars (whether at a restaurant or a grocery store). In fact, it’s worth avoiding these types of bars year round. These buffet bars are completely unsanitary. The serving utensils are rarely changed throughout the day. This means that perhaps hundreds, if not thousands, of people could have touched that very spoon you are holding. Yuck!

While the serving trays get regularly changed for fresh foods, the utensils remain. Simply by touching one of these utensils, you may infect yourself with a cold or the flu, let alone nCoV-2019.

I can’t even recall the last time I visited a restaurant that had a salad bar or hot food buffet. Not only are these restaurants far too expensive these days, the food is typically grade C or worse. I’m looking for much better quality food. To get that, I visit restaurants with dine-at-the-table only options. Because sit-down restaurants make your order fresh in the kitchen, you’re unlikely to catch a virus by eating at this type of restaurant. However, serve-yourself restaurants may seem like great ideas, they are far from it.

Restaurants and grocery stores with food bars should be required for each person to grab their own clean serving utensil from a holder then place that utensil into a dirty bin when they are done. For restaurants, it’s better to have a waitperson from the restaurant dish out the food to your plate and not allow the unsanitary practice of people serving themselves from dirty communal serving utensils. This practice is so unsanitary.

Worse, while these bars typically have sneeze and cough glass coverings over the food, children’s faces sit under these protection mechanisms. Children can cough and sneeze all over the food… and it is these children who are typical carriers of cold and flu due to their school age nature. Avoid buffet bars!

Diligence

Always be vigilant with your health in winter months, regardless of outbreaks like nCoV-2019. Yes, this virus strain seems particularly virulent, but you should assume (unless told otherwise) that it is communicable in the same way as a standard Cold and Flu virus. This means following all of the same precautions as documented above (with the exception of the respirator mask). The respirator mask is a bit odd looking, yes, but if you’re heavily concerned that you could come into contact with this virus or if you are particularly susceptible to sinus or bronchial infections, wearing a respirator mask (instead of a surgical mask) can reduce your chances of contracting a virus through airborne means.

With a mask, this means that you’ll need to be diligent to keep your hands away from your eyes and keep all open sores fully covered when out and about. You must always be vigilant and maintain strict health protocols to avoid getting the flu or a cold, let alone a virus like nCoV-2019.

In the US, it seems the nCoV-2019 cases are presently limited to but a few. The difficulty with this situation is that it can change quickly. It only takes a few people who are not known to be infected to head home to the US to begin a large scale infection within the US. The CDC is monitoring the situation, but unfortunately, they can’t stop the spread of an infection like nCoV-2019 themselves.

Traveling is the easiest way for viruses to spread around the world. It only takes a few infected people to visit a few public places and the situation can easily get out of control. You, however, can limit your own exposure by taking the steps described to help keep you healthy and well.

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