PERSONAL RESET!

In my previous article, with reference to sources, I noted that we are thought to have identified only 0.33% of viruses that are currently capable of transmitting from animals to humans and that the possibility of such transmission is increasing due to several listed contemporary realities!

Take note, these viruses have been identified which does not necessarily mean that medications have been developed to combat them or that any of the others, currently unavailable for animal to human transmission, could mutate, as viruses are known to do, and obtain a similar capacity!

Am I trying to scare you? No, not at all, what I am trying to illustrate is that we, as individuals, need to wake up and stop relying completely on others for guidance, whilst rediscovering and actually using our supposedly inherent common sense and logic?

Given the above and the obvious mayhem created by COVID-19, we as individuals need to position ourselves to avoid the exact same repercussions brought about by possible consecutive waves of COVID-19 or some novel or existing threat. If you’re trusting in a vaccine and see it as the end to all woes, please reread the third paragraph of this article and, thereafter, the preceding two, slowly?

Unfortunately, any form of structured and sensible guidance in this regard is severely lacking, with most governments and institutions seemingly rolling with the blows rather than rationally positioning themselves or their wards for a repetition, or worse, a similar yet different threat!

In this article I shall discuss some of my personal considerations, which of course by no means provide a conclusive list nor any form of prescriptive suggestion, just things to consider when designing your own, personal reset strategy.

Personal Health and Hygiene

I must admit that I only have Natural Sciences at grade 12 level and am highly reliant on collecting, comparing and evaluating information by way of common sense and experience, when designing any personal strategy to counter SARS-CoV-2. So, you are obviously free to come to a different conclusion and devise some different strategy, as long as you actually do something?

In designing an approach to combating infection it is essential to evaluate your risk and acknowledge the logical realities, that is, to differentiate between potential and chance.

One of several definitions for the word potential, according to the online Cambridge Dictionary, is: able to develop into something in the future when the necessary conditions exist.

One of several definitions for the word chance, according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, is: the possibility of a particular outcome in an uncertain situation.

In the COVID-19 scenario potential aptly describes the macro landscape: the disease is able to develop into a pandemic when the pathogen is present and conditions are favorable for its spread. As such potential is the branch of the threat that societal operations like shops, malls, municipalities and governments need to acknowledge and address in order to limit or expel the necessary conditions for the virus to spread. Except for avoiding public places, the individual can do little or nothing to effectively combat potential. Contagious potential is an existing external threat (out there) that can only be countered by any individual when negating or limiting contagious chance (this is in your power or up to you).

Thus chance is part of the micro landscape of the disease and something any individual should strive to manage, by removing the uncertainty in the uncertain situation and subsequently limiting or completely excluding the possibility of a particular outcome – contracting the virus.

The differentiation is discussed in more detail and examples provided in a previous article titled A Novel Analysis of a Novel Virus, COVID-19, Efficacy of Lockdown, but in this article we shall be focusing on and addressing chance in particular.

Aerosol Transmission

It is a documented fact that SARS-CoV (1), which emerged in 2002 to 2003, spread as an airborne aerosol.

Having a half century of first-hand experience with the ever adapting influenza virus and the cause of COVID-19 being scientifically labelled SARS-CoV-2, a virus akin to SARS-CoV-1, I personally found initial denial of aerosol transmission rather incredible, solely from a common sense perspective. This belief was completely contrary to prevailing science but subsequently vindicated and common sense proven to have trumped science! (Excuse the pun, none was actually intended)

With reference to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, an article by Samuel Volkin on a Johns Hopkins University website, available here, reads as follows: “SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can live in the air and on surfaces between several hours and several days. The study found the virus is viable for up to 72 hours on plastics, 48 hours on stainless steel, 24 hours on cardboard, and 4 hours on copper. It is also detectable in the air for three hours.

(My highlighting)

From the above we should be able to draw the following conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 could be in the air and on any surfaces in any place where some infected person has been?

In the air, imagine a cloud of invisible pathogens with a potential equal to the amount of escaped emissions, by way of breathing (remember condensation on a mirror you discovered as a child?), coughing or sneezing, with their capacity to infect dependent on the amount of time that lapsed from emission to your walking through or standing in this cloud?

Not a problem when they test for temperature on entrance to a public space? No, SARS-CoV-2 could be contagious even when infected people are asymptomatic, which means, without them displaying symptoms like a fever! Science isn’t quite sure, but common sense asks: should we take that chance? (Click here for the relevant study)

Basic common sense and empirical science dictates that when breathing, coughing and sneezing, aerosols are expelled from the body at varying velocities? When inhaling the opposite occurs, with a vacuum or suction type result, which indiscriminately draws air from the immediate surroundings into the body?

Armed with this knowledge, the object would surely be to limit pathogen expulsion, where we might be contagious but asymptomatic, and likewise to limit inhalation of pathogens by avoiding cloud contamination?

This is a tall order in the absence of committing suicide by way of intentional asphyxiation? Thus we strive for maximal containment of pathogens through expulsion and limitation of attraction through inhalation by way of face masks, which have to be extremely uncomfortable and downright irritating to be somewhat efficient?

Yet I encounter people wearing only a Perspex facial shield! These are great at deflecting shrapnel and avoiding facial lesions and related discomfort, when working with cutting or abrasive tools. But as any artisan or any DIY enthusiast who has used one can testify, they contribute little to avoiding inhalation of dust and sawdust due to the open bottom and sides! Does this sound sort of common-sense-logical?

So, if the shield doesn’t keep out the visible dust it probably won’t keep in nor keep out the invisible pathogens? Covering your face with a hand clamped over your nose and mouth will be considerably more effective than the facial shield, but people are permitted to enter shops or wherever wearing only facial shields, supposedly acknowledged as masks, but you would probably be refused entry if you were using your more efficient hand! Slightly ludicrous, is it not?

Either the wearers of these shields, without masks beneath, are nonchalant towards their personal safety, that of others and SARS-CoV-2 in general, they don’t think or they really just aren’t very bright? But the fact that corporate decision makers, health and safety practitioners as well as the authorities seem to miss or avoid this fact is rather incredible?

Another astounding observation is people wearing face masks, but only covering their mouths and leaving their noses exposed! SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory illness to which tract both the nose and mouth are the primary points of aerosol entrance and exit? That should be common-sense-logic too – you tend to suffocate with both closed simultaneously?

What makes this observation more discomforting is the fact that in a recent article by Mark Derewicz published under the headline “Researchers map SARS-CoV-2 infection in cells of nasal cavity, bronchia and lungs” on the MedicalXpress website, with references to published scientific studies, the author claims: “The findings suggest the virus tends to become firmly established first in the nasal cavity…” (Link to full article)

Thus the conclusion on aerosol transmission is: create as much obstruction as possible for pathogens to cross, either way, without smothering yourself.

Surface Transmission

SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t seem to have the ability to infect one through the skin, in the absence of migrating from contaminated skin into the nose or mouth, which explains the whole hand sanitizing and don’t-touch-your-face drive.

Surgical gloves are, for me personally, a very uncomfortable option and unless you’re careful when removing them you could contaminate your skin in any case: by touching exposed skin with the outer side of the glove. Consequently I’m happy with a hand sanitizing regimen.

But surface or object focused sanitizing comes with its own challenges. If no one in your home is infected, the infectious potential in your home should be more or less, zero.

But, having been to the essential supply store, having possibly walked through one or more infectious clouds created by people wearing face shields, with exposed noses or not practicing adequate hand sanitizing regimens, the outer side of your mask, your exposed areas and even your clothing could logically be transporting pathogens?

One might like to believe that the potential in the shop is limited and equal to the infectious potential in your area or suburb, which isn’t a hotspot? Common-sense-logic: is absolutely everyone in that shop from that same area or is there just one person, or maybe even several people, who actually do come from some hotspot? Logically their mere presence raises contagious potential in that shop higher, possibly even to the level of their applicable hotspot!

But what of your bag of groceries, the place where you set it down in your car and at home and what of its contents: SARS-CoV-2 can survive on plastic for 72 hours and on cardboard for 24 hours?

So you, the plastic bag, tins, any plastic product packaging, cardboard cereal boxes and all paper packaging for meal, flour or sugar could all logically contribute to increasing your home’s once zero potential to some unknown but higher potential?

By reducing or eliminating chance you can reset the prior existing contagious potential of your home, by sanitizing your complete person, your complete purchase and the surface where you set your bag of groceries down. This being said, I would not suggest spraying or wiping paper packaging, or your person, down with surgical alcohol or chlorine as these could contaminate packaged contents or cause some varying degree of skin irritation and ultimately death, depending on the concentration, quantity and method of application used! If your home were to become contaminated somehow, a complete sanitization would obviously be required. (I shall focus on sanitization alternatives in a subsequent article)

Social Distancing

Social distancing is an obvious way of reducing chance when exposed to a heightened potential. With you and those around you all wearing a well restricting face mask, the efficacy of social distancing is obviously increased, putting you well out of range of any possible aerosol seepage.

What I do find ludicrously comical is replacing the handshake by an elbow bump. Why would I come to this conclusion? Well, I grew up being taught to cover your mouth and nose with your hand when coughing or sneezing. Due to obvious transmission of pathogens after doing so and touching something or someone, before washing your hands, this social prescript was changed, how? To coughing into the inside of your… elbow, and I don’t hear anyone advocating elbow washing or sanitizing?

So, I just coughed into my elbow a few seconds ago, without a mask, I encounter you after donning my mask and we do the officially promoted elbow-bump-thing and wham, your elbow or sleeve is potentially contaminated! Not quite an ingenious or well thought through suggestion at all, but promoted by people we may trust or look up to?

The above clearly confirms the absolute necessity for us to think, use our own common sense and logic, and not slavishly follow celebrity or authority based suggestions in ensuring our personal wellbeing? 

Vocational Survival

Going to work, like visiting a shop, logically increases the contagious potential that you are exposed to. In the next article I shall focus more on safety in the workplace, but for now I must beg you to consider the sustainability of your current job, if you still have one, or the sustainability of any potential employer, if you’re looking for one.

Yes, anyone unemployed is mostly hard up and will grasp at straws for survival, whilst for anyone having a job we can’t be too nonchalant either, due to the possibility that the real sustainability of our current income, in a recurring scenario similar to Lockdown, might be dubious. Your business or employer made it through this one, but how many repeats can they weather?

Last year I wrote a one-hour-read book Getting to Grips with Digitization, Digital Marketing and Influencers with the object of motivating business decision makers to create an expandable digital strategy by which they could gradually progress to a point of complete and seamless business digitization, because it makes futuristic sense? Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, dispelling my suggestion of a gradual progression and replacing it with an insistence on an immediate and complete transformation, a total reset!

So, in fighting for vocational survival we need to answer two questions with regard to sustainability. Can I function remotely, in the event of recurring Lockdowns? Does my employer or potential employer have the capacity, at least, to function during recurring Lockdowns and, if not, do they at least have the vision and genuine desire to reach such a capability in the foreseeable future? If not, keep what you have or take what you can get, but don’t relax, keep looking for something sustainable!

Rid Yourself of Debt

As far as is possible, rid yourself of debt. Your creditors will go into hiding to some extent during a hard Lockdown, but be sure that they’ll be out to extract proverbial blood from a stone as soon as conditions permit!

Payment holidays sound accommodating but are essentially a farce: the debt remains and interest keeps running against the balance! In the absence of legal time limits on varying debts, many creditors wouldn’t care too much whether you ever paid them off as long as they could continue to extract their interest from you and recoup their capital when you couldn’t pay instalments anymore – you died or had no source of income.

Contemporary financing is somewhat akin to a Ponzi scheme. It stays afloat thanks to payments received from debtors and some existing asset value relative to the amount owing by the debtor, but COVID-19 is threatening to pull the mat out from under it by devastating returns by way of interest payments and enormous capital losses (insufficient asset value compared to the value of the outstanding debt)!

If you’re scared, imagine the financiers? With upward of 20% of previously employed and economically active people now facing the prospect of no income at all, just imagine the amount of houses, cars, furniture, appliances, etc. being thrown on auction to the highest bidder? With so many objects for sale, but few people having the money to buy them, they are essentially worthless?

So, you absolutely have to hedge yourself financially somehow, by reducing debt wisely, whilst ensuring your personal sustainability.

Renewable Energy

We were lucky this time round that coal and electricity production continued through Lockdown. But imagine if most of the workforce in these sectors had been incapacitated or are incapacitated in future?

Maybe you have positioned yourself to work remotely, but without electricity that isn’t going to help much, is it? Experience shows that without electricity, connectivity through cellphone towers is extremely limited too which simultaneously destroys your remote functionality? This last mentioned contingency is, however, a potential which will be addressed in my next article. For now I only beg of you to focus on chance - doing as much as you can to ensure you and your immediate family’s ability to make it through with as little collateral damage as possible!

Food and Water

As with electricity, we were lucky this time round with food and water. What if, in a subsequent round, packaging plants and operations for processed or fresh produce were forced to close due to their being located in a so-called hotspot or incapacitation of staff? What if transport personnel are similarly neutralized?

Thus it would seem wise to ensure some amount of stocking up on non-perishable foods (for two to four weeks' supply), fresh water and a purification capacity as well as investigating alternatives like growing your own vegetables, including alternatives for proteins, not forgetting that by some supposed higher wisdom, the purchasing of seeds and pots for planting was prohibited on level 5 Lockdown?

Time to harvesting and space for planting and growing veggies tend to be somewhat debilitating in this regard, but maybe do some research on hydroponics, baby greens and microgreens last of which are apparently quite nutritious, can be grown in a much smaller space and with a quick turnaround time from planting to harvesting. (Please to see this link) 

Conclusion

There is little that you can do to avoid exposure to contagious potential, it’s out there and it’s a varying given fact. What you can do is to reduce your and your family’s chance of infection by:

-       Limiting exposure to unknown, external contagious potentials as far as possible;

-       Adhering to sensible preventative measures like wearing a mask; and

-       Practicing prescribed and common sense sanitization regimens in response to exposure to varying contagious potentials.

I’m sure you’ve been hearing economists advising people to reduce debt and increase saving capacity for as long as you can remember? Then it was nice-to-know advice, now it is need-to-follow advice!

Consequently obtaining renewable energy will be a major challenge for most of us, without increasing our personal debt. This is where innovation and creativity from business people and the community comes into play: researching and implementing locally based and controlled sustainable alternatives to fill possible voids somehow, whilst creating new small to medium enterprise opportunities for locals!

Providing to some extent in your fresh produce requirements seems generally plausible with sufficient will and creativity?

We can do this and in my next article we shall broaden our focus somewhat, to community level, in rebuilding a better and more sustainable future from the ground up!

Be innovative, be creative, keep safe and stay healthy!

-       The Influentcer

www.influentcer.com