These informative words were uttered to me by a woman of keen intellect and sharp wit, who has an apparent hobby of observing human behavior, which I’ve never been particularly good at. It’s been demonstrated to me as being true many times over since she first bestowed this wisdom upon me and it is very evident in the trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While we knew nothing of this CoV-2 virus just a few months ago, we are starting to grasp some of the basics. It is a remarkably successful evolutionary marvel, making the leap from bats to humans, with a likely intermediary animal we haven’t located yet. As it turns out, bats carry a plethora of viruses and they spit them out quite regularly as part of the natural pattern of echolocation and food seeking. Most never do any harm; in fact bats have a powerful immune system that allows them to live with all these viruses without much issue. Before you get mad at bats, it’s mostly our fault their viruses find their way to us. Disrupting their habitats is the most likely cause of us coming into contact with their viral buddies.
CoV-2 is a coronavirus; one of many, but it’s a new version humans haven’t experienced before. It is highly contagious, carried in tiny droplets we exhale when just breathing, talking, and certainly coughing. The person standing next to you as you exhale your CoV-2 sucks it up and it attaches to the receptors in their nose and tongue, and gets into their cells telling them to make more viruses. Apparently, if it gets passed your immune system and makes it down the trachea into the lungs, that’s when shit gets really bad as the lungs are filled with the little ACE2 enzymes that coat some cells in the body, which is the entry point for CoV-2. And it has evolved to make the entry quite easily.
Another reason it’s so successful as viruses go, is that while it’s deadly, it’s only a little deadly. COVID-19 is the name we’ve given the disease CoV-2 causes, and people who develop it have symptoms ranging from nothing to death from acute respiratory distress which robs the body and all its organs from oxygen. If the virus killed all its human hosts, it wouldn’t last long, but since it doesn’t, it gets to spread and reproduce widely. In fact, those asymptomatic people in particular may be super-spreaders of the disease.
There is no cure for COVID-19 and no effective treatments. Scientists around the world are working madly to develop them, along with a vaccine to try to prevent the future spread of it. But we’re a long way off from that. In fact, an interview I heard today with a virologist working on treatments is that we are more likely to develop a preventative treatment protocol before we get a vaccine, and we really have no idea how effective a vaccine will be. There are several different coronaviruses that cause the common cold and we have no cure for those, or a vaccine to prevent them. So there is plenty of reason to believe defeating CoV-2 will be difficult, or perhaps not even possible.
Alarming stuff certainly, but there are ways we can live with this thing while the best and brightest among us continue to try to find ways to combat it. Basic precautions can protect us from becoming a victim of the virus and/or a spreader of the virus.
- Wash your hands properly. I’ve never washed my hands correctly in 56 years of life on earth. Incredible as that may seem, it is true. Soap is a marvelous invention and it effectively destroys viruses and bacteria on our hands by literally breaking them apart. The same way soap cuts grease on dishes, it cuts open the virus and bacteria lurking on your hands. You just need to do it right.
- Wear a mask when out in public. The mask keeps your viruses from getting on others, and will help their viruses from getting in you. It doesn’t have to be a high tech surgical mask.
- Practice physical distancing. Notice I didn’t say “social” distancing. I heard this from a doctor of some kind that I can’t recall now, but it’s a valuable distinction. We don’t really want to distance ourselves socially from each other. We’re social creatures and we need human interaction. Even phone calls, video calls, the new Zoom technology, etc. can keep us connected socially while also keeping us physically distant. 6′ apart is the common rule, but depending on the scenario, that may not be far enough! A hard cough or sneeze will spray a viral bomb as much as 23′.
- Avoid large gatherings. Bats carry as many viruses as they do because they naturally bunch up into huge, closely knit groups breathing, coughing and sneezing all over each other. Being packed shoulder to shoulder with our fellow humans in a club, restaurant, concert, auditorium, etc. makes us highly susceptible to contagions, and remember, CoV-2 is really, really, highly, effectively contagious. 1 infected person showed up for work at a Smithfield meat processing plant and they ended up with 1,000 cases of COVID-19 (there were “only” 644 cases at the time the article was written, but there’s plenty more now). Why did this happen? Workers “stood side-by-side less than a foot away from their colleagues on production lines, they passed in and out of crowded locker rooms, walkways and cafeterias.” That’s all it took. 72 people ended up with COVID-19 after attending large gatherings recently. We don’t know for sure which ones, but there was a large group protesting against government restrictions, and they weren’t physically distancing or wearing masks. That protesting, ironically, may have gotten them sick.
Okay, so those are the basic steps to try to stay healthy, and to be part of the solution to this pandemic, vs. part of the problem. Which brings me to the point of this musing. There are people who just won’t do it. The most obvious example of this type of disregard for their wellbeing and those of others is going into a public place, like a grocery store, unmasked. You’d have to be living in a cave off the grid to not know by now that masks are the hot new fashion item that can also save lives. The refusal to do it demonstrates a disdain for knowledge and a willful ignorance. That “type” of person is also likely to ignore the rest of the basic precautions and be clamoring to go to bars and restaurants and live as they’ve always lived, in spite of all the evidence around them that they’re bringing harm to themselves and others. I’m willing to bet that “type” is also prone to conspiracy theories and being skeptical of the wrong things. They probably think the earth is flat and the moon landing was faked. This is the “type” of person ideally suited to distance yourself from. They might as well be wearing a sign saying “stay away from me; I’m an idiot” and we would all do well to follow those instructions.
Joe's Blog 