Flu Prevention Kit
If avian flu arrives in your town, what you'll need to remain free of the disease are things you learned in grammar school. There will be no 'better living through chemistry' as the DuPont ad used to tout. Neither antivirals or present-day vaccines are likely to be much help for very many very soon. Changed behaviors may be your best prophyllaxis.Wash your hands. Cover your mouth.
When you become aware of it, it's amazing how many publically handled surfaces your fingertips come in contact with--dollar bills in the change from the last fill-up, handrails, doorknobs, cold drinks from a machine--any of which could have been handled by an infected person. And too, it becomes apparent how often you put your hands on or near your face. I have a bad habit of moistening my fingers when shuffling through papers. Or I HAD a habit. I rest my chin in my hand while reading, I stroke my beard when thinking.
Simple handwashing could be the single most effective measure against your own personal infection--of the common cold, the regular seasonal flu, or the bird flu du jour.
I started using Purell disenfectant hand cleaner recently, mostly to clean up my chalk dusted hands after lecture. It is 99.99% effective against invisible microbes on your hands. Great! I thought, til Ann told me about a recent infection control meeting at her hospital where a public health physician told her this kind of antimicrobial application is an evolutionary force weeding out susceptibles and leaving resistant bacteria in the places where there are the greatest variety of different pathogens: hospitals. Makes sense.
The good news is that bird flu (at this point) requires close contact to spread person to person. Coughs and sneezes are the main culprit (though at least some variants seem to involve the GI route, I've read). Infection is spread by way of larger droplets whose effective range is a few feet, so keeping your distance from a sick person can significantly reduce risk of infection--unless, of course, they are in an airplane or in an elevator with you. How long can you hold your breath?
One tip I've read that I think is good advice for everyone all the time is this: don't cough or sneeze into your hand. Use the crook of your elbow to muzzle the aerosol mist of potentially infected droplets.
Another thing I've realized related to all this is that surgical type masks are more for the infected than those hoping to avoid infection. The mask reduces the probability that infected droplets are being propagated when the sick person coughs or sneezes. Masks would become commonplace during the peak of a local outbreak as a common courtesy and prophyllactic measure, which along with hand washing could go a long way to minimize infection.
Comments
Huge signs: Wash your hands for 30secs and Cover your mouth. Unfortuantely most people are STILL stupid about hand washing even after using the bathroom let alone not hacking into the air. We are a culture of ignorants. About most everything of any common sense or intellengence. And certainly lacking in 'manners.' Idiots=Public=98%. No hope.
Why does the comments window pop up with 'americannewsreel.com' in it's heading? Hate pop up comments windows because I can't use spell checkers FRED!!! Then I look stupid when all that happened was I was in an experimental class in third grade and missed phonics. see? KNowing how a word is spelled does not denote intelligence. Knowing how to use spell check before hitting the send button does, EXCEPT when that option is NOT available FRED!!! Pop up windows are NOT nice to those of us that can't spell. Hrmmp. (slinking away for more coffee).
Posted by: Kim | October 18, 2005 9:38 AM
My mother is a Native American (Mik-Maq), born on the Burnt Church reservation in New Brunswick, Canada. It's not far from Fredericton, on the coast, near Big Cove and PEI. Back in the 30s and 40s, the Flu was a very big deal on a reservation. I was raised in Vermont in the 70s and 80s, far removed from Burnt Church, and my mom, even in public, would sneeze directly into her shirt. She'd lift up the neckline over her nose and blast away. Mildly embarassing to me as a child. Lately I've begun to understand the practice, and I wonder if it's common in other cultures.
I remember an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullsh!t, a program that aired I believe on Showtime but I believe eventually made it's way onto other media. Man, it was hilarious. They had an episode that attempted to dispel some bullsh!t about germs and their propogation. They had the director of the California board of health basically say that toilet seat paper covers were worthless because toilets weren't a consequential source of infection. Others said urine was essentially an inert liquid and because of the presence of hydrochloric acid, no living germs existed in urine. To further prove a related point, they had three subjects, one hippy sorta fellow with minimal hygenie standards, one very cleanly female model, and a clean cut business professional. From each subject, doctors swabbed several locations including a butt cheek, the underside of a foot, the palm of a hand, and the cheek near their nose. They ran tests to determine the locations with the greatest proliferation of bacteria, etc. Of all the locations, the cleanest was the butt cheek! The next was the foot. The most germ ridden spot was the palm of the hand with the second nastiest location being the face.
So, maybe we should begin rubbing butts together when we greet eachother, haha!
Sean
Posted by: Sean Pecor | October 18, 2005 10:24 AM
HoooooT!
Okay Sean, you start. Others will surely follow. Tis a meme born of sheer survival logic. I'll wait to read the reports of this new greeting in the Boone's Mill BullShooter before initiating it in Floyd. :-}
FF
>>So, maybe we should begin rubbing butts together when we greet eachother, haha!
Posted by: fred1st | October 18, 2005 11:09 AM
If you install Firefox and the Spellbound plugin for it, you can spell check any text, entered into any text box, on the Internet.
Posted by: Chris | October 18, 2005 12:30 PM
My dearest Fred, anytime I install and then have to learn something 'new' on my computer, I seem to lose about 15 million hours down that 'must get it to work' hole. And, while I'm sure you mean only the best for me, I need to become less 'involved' with my computer.
This is so I can have a life with something 'other' than my computer. That, and, it's sailing season. October in Las Vegas...(November too). Sailing. Kim should be ON the water. In her boat. So, instead, I insist YOU allow me get on with my daily work...by changing YOUR stuff. (Just go with it Fred, it's a red-head thing.)
Because, my most lovely Fred, it is the KIND thing for you to do. Kim really needs to get to the boat and NOT be trying to learn FIREFOX and SPELLBOUND. At this point in my life (I'll be 49 ****ing years old in a few weeks) I should be looking for a significant other that has a working brain (remember this IS Las Vegas). Preferably that likes sailing.
So, please, don't make me learn FF and SB to appear somewhat 'smart' in your comment section. I already have 'other' issues. Obviously.
Posted by: Kim | October 19, 2005 1:20 PM