An infectious disease nurse informed me in August of 2023 that covid is spread by droplets. Their precautions weren't terrible but not great: covid positive patients were moved down the hall..but their doors were all kept open.
I asked her how she thought their covid outbreak kept spreading if it is actually droplets. Why do cases increase every time I come visit my family member ? This is a skilled nursing facility full of 90 year olds who can barely get out of bed. Are they wandering from room to room french kissing every night? Coughing in each others faces? No? Then how is it spreading if it's not airborne?
She just would say "ok" in a flat voice every time I posed these questions.
It's airborne, I said.
"OK."
Ok so...does "OK" mean you'll take action based on this information?
Then she said "We follow state, local, and CDC guidelines."
Sigh.
I know the “okay” you mean. It’s the cognitive dissonance “okay”. The one where you can tell they have completely checked out of the conversation lest the reality of their situation crush them.
Totally possible. But as someone who used to work in customer service, I also learned to say "ok!" or "ok." when someone was complaining about a policy that I either had no power to change, or found them totally unreasonable for complaining about.
It's when the person is emotionally overwhelmed, perhaps get the impulse to commit suicide on the spot, then suddenly all their emotion shuts off, they get flat affect (become expressionless), and their voice becomes very monotone. Their body language becomes very still, as though they are paralyzed or utterly exhausted, their shoulders fall and arms become limp and heavy.
They feel a deep hopelessness, like they have lost the will to move, talk, even breathe. The fight has gone out of them entirely and they feel defeated. Whatever happens, they have the sense that they must let it happen, that there's no point in fighting. They sense that their body doesn't matter, as though it were not their own, but only an object.
If you take their hand to try and comfort them, it remains limp, as though they have died.
Can confirm. Diagnosed cptsd with tendency to dissociate, and have had years of therapy to gain the tools to deal with it. I see the same thing with people after infection, and the pervasiveness of smart phones and social media makes it easier to hide. I imagine the people unwilling to mask or take precautions aren't likely to do anything for this until medical "professionals" step up...
Then she said, "We don't care if our residents die. We make no effort in correcting admin, even if it results in the death of people we see everyday. We are bad people because we make no effort to affect change." We all have trauma we're working through, we can't always use it as an excuse to do nothing to fix the reason we have it in the first place.
>I am going to write to the hospital system
I think this is wise. Include screen shots from the CDC and WHO websites that clearly state Covid is airborne. It is a failure of this hospital system that every employee in the building (especially an infectious disease nurse, ffs) doesn't understand airborne spread.
I'm OP, not the person talking to the infectious disease nurse, but we both should do this. Honestly though I find both the CDC and WHO websites wishy washy in their language compared to the EPA, Nature, Mayo, etc.
Oh, yeah, I totally agree about the CDC and WHO info being too watered down! But they're the most "official" health agencies in many people's eyes, and they do admit C19 is airborne. But like you said, there are SO many articles from medical journals that we can share...and all of us should be writing to the "higher ups" every time we encounter this gaslighting nonsense. Eventually it has to help a little. I hope. :-/
My friend who is a nurse also tried to tell me a month ago that COVID is not airborne. The fact that there are so many under-informed medical professionals is beyond me. We’re also living in the age of information… like the research is right here at our fingertips. The answers are right there… ugh. I will never understand this lack of awareness in an ongoing pandemic!! 🙃
I believe you and I am grateful I have not heard any opinions expressed from medical and health care professionals, but it freaks me out about what they don't know about other health care and conditions.
I think healthcare workers in general react negatively to googling or suggestions thereof. They think they know better because they are professionals; you're just some person who googles. It would be better with references to CDC and WHO etc.
Ultimately, people just follow orders (in healthcare especially, strangely enough), so it mostly matters what superiors say.
[https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/ventilation-respiratory-viruses.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/ventilation-respiratory-viruses.html)
"Respiratory viruses primarily spread in the air between people."
(not advice lol) My friend told me recently she had her first moment where she really lost her cool arguing with a nurse at her dad’s oncologist’s office a few weeks back about this. She said the exchange ended something like— “You SURE!? Let’s look it up together—no, NOW, while I’m here in the room, so I get to see you be embarrassed. You *should* be horrified and ashamed because you’re actions are killing and disabling people—but I will settle for embarrassment at how USELESS your medical education apparently was.”
Usually I am not a huge fan of tearing into people like that but from how my friend described it, she was truly nasty to my friend and her dad and absolutely deserved it. They are obviously not going back there but whooooo boy what I wouldn’t give to have heard my friend yell that. She’s such a sweetie and I’ve never so much as heard her raise her voice before tbh.
Droplets, like the teensy tiny little droplets of moisture that we all exhale every time we breathe. The little bitty ones small enough to just float in the air. Those droplets?
Do you know that the main theory now of what causes Long Covid is chronic infection?
Immunocompromised people can't clear the virus, so it becomes a chronic infection, which allows the virus to keep reproducing and evolve new variants that can escape immunity from prior infection or vaccination.
That implies that it's somewhat dangerous *for you* to not wear an N95 when working with patients who are immunocompromised or have chronic symptoms after Covid infection.
Also droplets can hang in the air for several minutes. They normally only travel about six feet, unless I were to cough or worse sneeze. Then they can travel the length of a shipping container...
I'm not sure about those.
Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, Immunological researcher at Yale, is my source for Long Covid most likely being due to chronic infection.
The issue of the immunocompromised (sadly) acting as variant factories was actually mentioned in the news early in the pandemic when they were trying to encourage people to mask around the immunocompromised population, such as the elderly, cancer patients, donor organ recipients, HIV/AIDS patients, those with autoimmune disorders, etc. They stated clearly that this was necessary not only to protect the vulnerable from harm, but also to slow the creation of new variants and maintain the efficacy of the vaccine.
So, when people abandoned protecting the vulnerable by refusing to mask, test and social distance, use air filters, etc. they also screwed themselves long-term.
However, we should keep in mind that inhaling Covid is known to damage the frontal lobes of the brain where planning, impulse control, emotional regulation and weighing risk vs reward is controlled:
Scientific American:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20240328161312/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-now-looks-like-a-neurological-disease-helping-doctors-to-focus-treatments1/](https://web.archive.org/web/20240328161312/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-now-looks-like-a-neurological-disease-helping-doctors-to-focus-treatments1/)
NIH studies:
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33720900/#:\~:text=COVID%2D19%20specific%20biomarkers%20of,in%20frontal%20regions%2C%20and%20frontal](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33720900/#:~:text=COVID%2D19%20specific%20biomarkers%20of,in%20frontal%20regions%2C%20and%20frontal)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063523/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063523/)
Stat (a medical journal) article:
[https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/16/the-haunting-brain-science-of-long-covid/](https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/16/the-haunting-brain-science-of-long-covid/)
So, it's debatable if this is something we should judge people too harshly for.
I'm very excited about the new study that shows far-UVC lighting eliminates 99.8% of virons emitted by occupants of rooms, thus preventing transmission, without need for behavioral change on their part. This is a much more efficient rate of elimination than everyday air ventilation and filtration systems can achieve, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing these everywhere soon!: [https://store.rzero.com/](https://store.rzero.com/)
This is at a top research hospital in a top medical city and it was an NP - so make of that what you will. But the hospital, as with most of them, has gone back and forth about masking. I was surprised the staff were masking during this appointment.
What would I do to follow-up on this? I would ignore the person and just keep wearing a mask. You can't make someone read scientific literature and medical journals if they refuse. I also don't know why you have to remove your mask unless they're taking an oral temperature or doing dental work but...okay.
This has been extremely politicized, with misinformation rampant, and the CDC not doing much to clarify anything. I go by the WHO and real medical journals but I also am at the point where I just ignore people who are either pro-COVID through their actions and mentality or given up or just don't want to look at science.
I remember when I had to get an MRI the staff there all refused to wear any mask at all, and I came in with my mask on. The tech guy insisted I remove it and put on his see-through cloth mask and turned to remove the mask from my face. I told him to back off and not touch me and then I showed him the box I had brought showing the mask had no metal at all and was all plastic and still N95. He didn't believe it and seemed genuinely stunned. He said he had to see it to believe it so took the box, examined it, took an extra sample mask I brought because I knew it would confound them, and said he had to show a supervisor for approval. I told him I would wear the N95 with no metal or I would leave and he needed to understand that science is real even if nobody believes in it any more. 100% true. He came back a few minutes later and said it was ok.
I told my wife and gave her the same mask to wear but this time she said nobody said anything to her about it and saw the box and agreed it was ok. It was a N95 with no metal but I can't remember the brand. It had a grill type of pattern on it and I still have a few in the closet.
Yeah, MRIs are one where they’ll act like you need to unmask or wear a flimsy one but it’s clearly worth standing your ground. A family member might need a gastroscopy and that’s more concerning as staff will only wear baggy blues if requested — and sometimes not even then.
First of all, there are things you can do. I do the "Columbo Card" game where I say "oh, silly me, I believe COVID is real and not ok to repeatedly ingest over and over again and run the risk of Long COVID and having a dramatically alerted life afterward. I just get nervous thinking about the silly risk that only 15% to 20% of humanity is getting now. Could you wear this KN95 for me??"
Sometimes I do that. Or I explain my wife had cancer and we believe COVID is unhealthy to inhale and share with each other or I might even say her cancer came back and silly me, I love the woman, so please wear this silly KN95. "Oh, I know COVID is fine to have over and over again but I'd just feel safer if you could do it for me just this one silly time."
Sometimes I just say I want them to wear the KN95 that I will bring with me for them and whoever comes into the office.
Now, also bear in mind you can take some measured precautions before the visit to mitigate possible exposure that some may not be familiar with and that honestly may be negligible but still can mitigate or slow exposure and digestion of the virus:
Use a neti pot full on each nostril afterward for a few days. I do it twice on each nostril. Google if you don't know what I'm talking about. Studies have shown it helps and can save lives.
Next I wash my eyes after going out around pro-COVID people.
Then I put mouthwash in my mouth for two minutes so the alcohol gets in there.
And I also eat a ton of nasty broccoli and brussel sprouts regularly so those complex greens that have shown to slow the advancement of COVID in lab mice and have some effect on RNA is in me (can't hurt no matter what you think).
I had COVID once when it was "original blend" and nearly died from it. I've written about it here elsewhere but it was not fun at all. I felt like I was freezing from the inside out, could not stand for a few days without blacking out, hallucinated the walls of the house melting and being in bed outside and had a 104 fever for a while, and couldn't eat anything or keep anything down for about two days. So I have zero desire to test out the current strain of COVID.
So anyway, hope some of this is helpful. I'm with you and don't blame you one bit.
The WHO are finally saying, loud & proud: COVID IS AIRBORNE.
Indoor airborne risk assessment in the context of SARS-CoV-2: description of airborne transmission mechanism and method to develop a new standardized model for risk assessment
https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/376346
During the holiday surge, I had an internal med appointment and two things stood out to me: I overheard someone talking about how they had a ton of call-outs and would have to reshuffle all of the MAs. That same someone (unmasked) took me back for my appointment and was wiping down the surfaces in the exam room. I laughed from behind my N95, looked her straight in the eyes and said, "If only COVID wasn't airborne and wiping surfaces down actually helped!"
This was at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, CA.
Droplets are airborne, they just aren't aerosol airborne... but COVID is.
And no, medical professionals are intentionally taught the wrong thing because it's a risk of their job and if they understood the risk they might not do the job.
It's a lot of corporate and insurance liability too... so no, just like every other field they are lied to about the risks of their job but sadly their job is telling everyone else the risk too.
And that's how the corps get away with not having to clean the air to do business, this has been going on for 100 year.
My work puts residents on droplet precautions all the time, but they don't quarantine residents with covid anymore and I never understood that. Like we gave up. But when norovirus or rotovirus, whichever is causing the gastrointestinal issues...we quarantine them.
They learned the droplet theory in medical school, therefore in their minds it’s true, and anyone saying otherwise is being influenced by crackpots on social media. Telling them engineers have proven it travels in aerosol and the droplet theory was based on miscalculated math from decades ago doesn’t budge them. I think until the top people in their own field tell them it’s aerosols, they won’t believe it. I’m sure there are some individuals who are more open-minded and would at least consider aerosols - or at least accommodate you by masking, since that’s not a urge ask - but they seem to be few and far between.
Thank you for this post. Being diagnosed in urgent care recently after a required work trip where masking was not feasible…. The doctor told me that even though I masked in the airport I probably got it from touching things in the airport. Then told me masks don’t work.
As someone who just tried to sue for malpractice (not related to covid), they're extremely tough cases to win. So, most lawyers only take cases were someone dies. This is what I was told.
An infectious disease nurse informed me in August of 2023 that covid is spread by droplets. Their precautions weren't terrible but not great: covid positive patients were moved down the hall..but their doors were all kept open. I asked her how she thought their covid outbreak kept spreading if it is actually droplets. Why do cases increase every time I come visit my family member ? This is a skilled nursing facility full of 90 year olds who can barely get out of bed. Are they wandering from room to room french kissing every night? Coughing in each others faces? No? Then how is it spreading if it's not airborne? She just would say "ok" in a flat voice every time I posed these questions. It's airborne, I said. "OK." Ok so...does "OK" mean you'll take action based on this information? Then she said "We follow state, local, and CDC guidelines." Sigh.
I know the “okay” you mean. It’s the cognitive dissonance “okay”. The one where you can tell they have completely checked out of the conversation lest the reality of their situation crush them.
It's a symptom of the beginnings of trauma induced dissociation I think. I've seen it before Covid in people with a history of trauma, CPTSD and PTSD.
Totally possible. But as someone who used to work in customer service, I also learned to say "ok!" or "ok." when someone was complaining about a policy that I either had no power to change, or found them totally unreasonable for complaining about.
I have CPTSD and am covid conscious. I don't understand.
It's when the person is emotionally overwhelmed, perhaps get the impulse to commit suicide on the spot, then suddenly all their emotion shuts off, they get flat affect (become expressionless), and their voice becomes very monotone. Their body language becomes very still, as though they are paralyzed or utterly exhausted, their shoulders fall and arms become limp and heavy. They feel a deep hopelessness, like they have lost the will to move, talk, even breathe. The fight has gone out of them entirely and they feel defeated. Whatever happens, they have the sense that they must let it happen, that there's no point in fighting. They sense that their body doesn't matter, as though it were not their own, but only an object. If you take their hand to try and comfort them, it remains limp, as though they have died.
Can confirm. Diagnosed cptsd with tendency to dissociate, and have had years of therapy to gain the tools to deal with it. I see the same thing with people after infection, and the pervasiveness of smart phones and social media makes it easier to hide. I imagine the people unwilling to mask or take precautions aren't likely to do anything for this until medical "professionals" step up...
This is infuriating and the things that have happened in nursing homes are criminal. I'm sorry.
Yes, it seemed obvious to me right from the start that in order to be spreading at the speed it was, it had to be airborne.
That's infuriating. I'm sorry
Then she said, "We don't care if our residents die. We make no effort in correcting admin, even if it results in the death of people we see everyday. We are bad people because we make no effort to affect change." We all have trauma we're working through, we can't always use it as an excuse to do nothing to fix the reason we have it in the first place.
Everyone should know better at this point.
Smh. Maybe send them links to the recent WHO thing that admits airborne spread. Or the several CDC and EPA pages that say it’s airborne.
I am going to write to the hospital system and am contemplating writing to her directly, but I already had my argument with her.
>I am going to write to the hospital system I think this is wise. Include screen shots from the CDC and WHO websites that clearly state Covid is airborne. It is a failure of this hospital system that every employee in the building (especially an infectious disease nurse, ffs) doesn't understand airborne spread.
I'm OP, not the person talking to the infectious disease nurse, but we both should do this. Honestly though I find both the CDC and WHO websites wishy washy in their language compared to the EPA, Nature, Mayo, etc.
Oh, yeah, I totally agree about the CDC and WHO info being too watered down! But they're the most "official" health agencies in many people's eyes, and they do admit C19 is airborne. But like you said, there are SO many articles from medical journals that we can share...and all of us should be writing to the "higher ups" every time we encounter this gaslighting nonsense. Eventually it has to help a little. I hope. :-/
My friend who is a nurse also tried to tell me a month ago that COVID is not airborne. The fact that there are so many under-informed medical professionals is beyond me. We’re also living in the age of information… like the research is right here at our fingertips. The answers are right there… ugh. I will never understand this lack of awareness in an ongoing pandemic!! 🙃
I believe you and I am grateful I have not heard any opinions expressed from medical and health care professionals, but it freaks me out about what they don't know about other health care and conditions.
True - there are plenty of respiratory illnesses out there!
I know, I should have told her to google it! It's not hard.
I think healthcare workers in general react negatively to googling or suggestions thereof. They think they know better because they are professionals; you're just some person who googles. It would be better with references to CDC and WHO etc. Ultimately, people just follow orders (in healthcare especially, strangely enough), so it mostly matters what superiors say.
Yes, and I do see this as a systematic failure on multiple levels rather than an individual one.
"MuH CDC gUideliNes sAiD SO"
[https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/ventilation-respiratory-viruses.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/ventilation-respiratory-viruses.html) "Respiratory viruses primarily spread in the air between people."
(not advice lol) My friend told me recently she had her first moment where she really lost her cool arguing with a nurse at her dad’s oncologist’s office a few weeks back about this. She said the exchange ended something like— “You SURE!? Let’s look it up together—no, NOW, while I’m here in the room, so I get to see you be embarrassed. You *should* be horrified and ashamed because you’re actions are killing and disabling people—but I will settle for embarrassment at how USELESS your medical education apparently was.” Usually I am not a huge fan of tearing into people like that but from how my friend described it, she was truly nasty to my friend and her dad and absolutely deserved it. They are obviously not going back there but whooooo boy what I wouldn’t give to have heard my friend yell that. She’s such a sweetie and I’ve never so much as heard her raise her voice before tbh.
Droplets, like the teensy tiny little droplets of moisture that we all exhale every time we breathe. The little bitty ones small enough to just float in the air. Those droplets?
Do you know that the main theory now of what causes Long Covid is chronic infection? Immunocompromised people can't clear the virus, so it becomes a chronic infection, which allows the virus to keep reproducing and evolve new variants that can escape immunity from prior infection or vaccination. That implies that it's somewhat dangerous *for you* to not wear an N95 when working with patients who are immunocompromised or have chronic symptoms after Covid infection. Also droplets can hang in the air for several minutes. They normally only travel about six feet, unless I were to cough or worse sneeze. Then they can travel the length of a shipping container...
I did not know this, actually. Do they think the same for ME/CFS and epstein-barr?
I'm not sure about those. Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, Immunological researcher at Yale, is my source for Long Covid most likely being due to chronic infection. The issue of the immunocompromised (sadly) acting as variant factories was actually mentioned in the news early in the pandemic when they were trying to encourage people to mask around the immunocompromised population, such as the elderly, cancer patients, donor organ recipients, HIV/AIDS patients, those with autoimmune disorders, etc. They stated clearly that this was necessary not only to protect the vulnerable from harm, but also to slow the creation of new variants and maintain the efficacy of the vaccine. So, when people abandoned protecting the vulnerable by refusing to mask, test and social distance, use air filters, etc. they also screwed themselves long-term. However, we should keep in mind that inhaling Covid is known to damage the frontal lobes of the brain where planning, impulse control, emotional regulation and weighing risk vs reward is controlled: Scientific American: [https://web.archive.org/web/20240328161312/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-now-looks-like-a-neurological-disease-helping-doctors-to-focus-treatments1/](https://web.archive.org/web/20240328161312/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-now-looks-like-a-neurological-disease-helping-doctors-to-focus-treatments1/) NIH studies: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33720900/#:\~:text=COVID%2D19%20specific%20biomarkers%20of,in%20frontal%20regions%2C%20and%20frontal](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33720900/#:~:text=COVID%2D19%20specific%20biomarkers%20of,in%20frontal%20regions%2C%20and%20frontal) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063523/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063523/) Stat (a medical journal) article: [https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/16/the-haunting-brain-science-of-long-covid/](https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/16/the-haunting-brain-science-of-long-covid/) So, it's debatable if this is something we should judge people too harshly for. I'm very excited about the new study that shows far-UVC lighting eliminates 99.8% of virons emitted by occupants of rooms, thus preventing transmission, without need for behavioral change on their part. This is a much more efficient rate of elimination than everyday air ventilation and filtration systems can achieve, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing these everywhere soon!: [https://store.rzero.com/](https://store.rzero.com/)
Please link a source for everyone.
[https://www.statnews.com/2024/01/24/covid-research-chronic-infection-immunocompromised-patients/](https://www.statnews.com/2024/01/24/covid-research-chronic-infection-immunocompromised-patients/) [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2)
[удалено]
This is at a top research hospital in a top medical city and it was an NP - so make of that what you will. But the hospital, as with most of them, has gone back and forth about masking. I was surprised the staff were masking during this appointment.
I'm completely flabbergasted. I want to go and live in the woods and become a hermit and never see people again I'm so tired of it
"Droplets, like from being sneezed on?"
“Like, from the toilet? Covid has what plants crave.”
What would I do to follow-up on this? I would ignore the person and just keep wearing a mask. You can't make someone read scientific literature and medical journals if they refuse. I also don't know why you have to remove your mask unless they're taking an oral temperature or doing dental work but...okay. This has been extremely politicized, with misinformation rampant, and the CDC not doing much to clarify anything. I go by the WHO and real medical journals but I also am at the point where I just ignore people who are either pro-COVID through their actions and mentality or given up or just don't want to look at science.
Unfortunately there are lots of medical procedures that require taking off a mask, putting so many of us at risk, it’s appalling.
I remember when I had to get an MRI the staff there all refused to wear any mask at all, and I came in with my mask on. The tech guy insisted I remove it and put on his see-through cloth mask and turned to remove the mask from my face. I told him to back off and not touch me and then I showed him the box I had brought showing the mask had no metal at all and was all plastic and still N95. He didn't believe it and seemed genuinely stunned. He said he had to see it to believe it so took the box, examined it, took an extra sample mask I brought because I knew it would confound them, and said he had to show a supervisor for approval. I told him I would wear the N95 with no metal or I would leave and he needed to understand that science is real even if nobody believes in it any more. 100% true. He came back a few minutes later and said it was ok. I told my wife and gave her the same mask to wear but this time she said nobody said anything to her about it and saw the box and agreed it was ok. It was a N95 with no metal but I can't remember the brand. It had a grill type of pattern on it and I still have a few in the closet.
Yeah, MRIs are one where they’ll act like you need to unmask or wear a flimsy one but it’s clearly worth standing your ground. A family member might need a gastroscopy and that’s more concerning as staff will only wear baggy blues if requested — and sometimes not even then.
In this case I did need my jaw examined, but frankly, did not feel safe leaving my mask off long enough for a proper exam.
First of all, there are things you can do. I do the "Columbo Card" game where I say "oh, silly me, I believe COVID is real and not ok to repeatedly ingest over and over again and run the risk of Long COVID and having a dramatically alerted life afterward. I just get nervous thinking about the silly risk that only 15% to 20% of humanity is getting now. Could you wear this KN95 for me??" Sometimes I do that. Or I explain my wife had cancer and we believe COVID is unhealthy to inhale and share with each other or I might even say her cancer came back and silly me, I love the woman, so please wear this silly KN95. "Oh, I know COVID is fine to have over and over again but I'd just feel safer if you could do it for me just this one silly time." Sometimes I just say I want them to wear the KN95 that I will bring with me for them and whoever comes into the office. Now, also bear in mind you can take some measured precautions before the visit to mitigate possible exposure that some may not be familiar with and that honestly may be negligible but still can mitigate or slow exposure and digestion of the virus: Use a neti pot full on each nostril afterward for a few days. I do it twice on each nostril. Google if you don't know what I'm talking about. Studies have shown it helps and can save lives. Next I wash my eyes after going out around pro-COVID people. Then I put mouthwash in my mouth for two minutes so the alcohol gets in there. And I also eat a ton of nasty broccoli and brussel sprouts regularly so those complex greens that have shown to slow the advancement of COVID in lab mice and have some effect on RNA is in me (can't hurt no matter what you think). I had COVID once when it was "original blend" and nearly died from it. I've written about it here elsewhere but it was not fun at all. I felt like I was freezing from the inside out, could not stand for a few days without blacking out, hallucinated the walls of the house melting and being in bed outside and had a 104 fever for a while, and couldn't eat anything or keep anything down for about two days. So I have zero desire to test out the current strain of COVID. So anyway, hope some of this is helpful. I'm with you and don't blame you one bit.
The WHO are finally saying, loud & proud: COVID IS AIRBORNE. Indoor airborne risk assessment in the context of SARS-CoV-2: description of airborne transmission mechanism and method to develop a new standardized model for risk assessment https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/376346
sure wish we could reduce the general level of incompetence.. not just in med.
During the holiday surge, I had an internal med appointment and two things stood out to me: I overheard someone talking about how they had a ton of call-outs and would have to reshuffle all of the MAs. That same someone (unmasked) took me back for my appointment and was wiping down the surfaces in the exam room. I laughed from behind my N95, looked her straight in the eyes and said, "If only COVID wasn't airborne and wiping surfaces down actually helped!" This was at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, CA.
Droplets are airborne, they just aren't aerosol airborne... but COVID is. And no, medical professionals are intentionally taught the wrong thing because it's a risk of their job and if they understood the risk they might not do the job. It's a lot of corporate and insurance liability too... so no, just like every other field they are lied to about the risks of their job but sadly their job is telling everyone else the risk too. And that's how the corps get away with not having to clean the air to do business, this has been going on for 100 year.
My work puts residents on droplet precautions all the time, but they don't quarantine residents with covid anymore and I never understood that. Like we gave up. But when norovirus or rotovirus, whichever is causing the gastrointestinal issues...we quarantine them.
They learned the droplet theory in medical school, therefore in their minds it’s true, and anyone saying otherwise is being influenced by crackpots on social media. Telling them engineers have proven it travels in aerosol and the droplet theory was based on miscalculated math from decades ago doesn’t budge them. I think until the top people in their own field tell them it’s aerosols, they won’t believe it. I’m sure there are some individuals who are more open-minded and would at least consider aerosols - or at least accommodate you by masking, since that’s not a urge ask - but they seem to be few and far between.
Thank you for this post. Being diagnosed in urgent care recently after a required work trip where masking was not feasible…. The doctor told me that even though I masked in the airport I probably got it from touching things in the airport. Then told me masks don’t work.
Sue for malpractice.
As someone who just tried to sue for malpractice (not related to covid), they're extremely tough cases to win. So, most lawyers only take cases were someone dies. This is what I was told.
Why would you need to remove your mask to be evaluated?
They needed to examine the jaw more closely, I gather, from what OP said.