Wearing a mask, making air flow better (like opening a window) and avoiding large groups of people for this peak time are good ways to help avoid COVID, Flu, RSV and be healthier during and after the holidays.
“As of Monday, Weiland projected that there were nearly 1 million active COVID infections in the U.S. each day, with 1 in every 340 Americans becoming infected daily, and 1 in every 34 currently infected.”
#Novavax vs mRNA vaccine
This thread explains how @Novavax is different from the #Moderna and #Pfizer #mRNA #vaccines and describes some of the benefits such as broadened #variant recognition, more durable #immunity, and fewer side effects.
This is an awesome thread explaining all of the above + recommendations for primary layers of protection like ventilation, filtration, and masking.
Notable:
What about people who had mRNA doses previously but want to consider Novavax? There have been several studies now that found mixing the two, getting mRNA and then Novavax actually gave better results than just mRNA on its own.
One study found that getting Novavax as a booster after mRNA "may enhance the persistence and durability of vaccine-mediated immunity compared to mRNA options" ...with slower decay rate compared to an mRNA booster dose and less side effects than mRNA boosters
While vaccines are important, they should be the last layer of protection to rely on in case all the other layers fail and you get exposed. Vaccines should not be the one and only layer governments all seem to be currently relying on.
Tricia awoke to a disorienting and terrifying reality, shrouded in darkness and silence. As consciousness slowly returned, a wave of panic swept over her. She felt an unfamiliar weight encasing her entire body, restricting even the slightest movement. The realization struck her — she was encased in a body cast, rendering her completely immobile.
The muffled sound of her own breathing reached her ears, a stark contrast to the eerie silence that enveloped her. The earmuffs clamped over her ears seemed to seal off the world, leaving Tricia in an isolated realm of sensory deprivation.
Her attempts to open her eyes proved futile; they were sealed shut with tape, cutting off the visual connection to her surroundings. The absence of light plunged her into an unsettling abyss, amplifying her sense of vulnerability and disconnection.
A foreign sensation in her throat grabbed her attention — a tube was inserted, stretching down into her lungs. The mechanical rhythm of a ventilator became apparent as it forced air into her lungs and then out again. Each breath felt intrusive, a reminder of her dependence on the machinery for survival.
The catheter inserted into her urethra added another layer of discomfort and violation. The awareness of its presence, as well as the sterile, clinical environment surrounding her, intensified the feeling of helplessness. Tricia's mind raced with questions, but the inability to communicate, move, or even perceive her surroundings left her trapped in a nightmarish void.
In this surreal and nightmarish state, Tricia grappled with the unknown, her senses stripped away and replaced with an overwhelming sense of confinement. The combination of physical restraint, sensory deprivation, and the invasive medical apparatus plunged her into a disconcerting realm, where time seemed to lose its meaning, and the boundaries between reality and the terrifying unknown blurred into a haunting dreamscape.
Just swapped out the filters on our 1st Corsi-Rosenthal cube, and what a difference! Dusty old filter above, minty fresh one below.
This particular filter box spent 10+ months on low inside our house, catching tons of wildfire smoke, PM2.5, and COVID-19 aerosols, as well as pollen, dust, and mold. Glad all that's on THERE and not in our lungs!
I highly recommend building your own CR box for your home, school, work, mutual aid meet ups, etc. All you need is 4 MERV-13 filters (sold at most hardware stores), a 20" box fan, scissors, cardboard, and duct tape.
It ends up costing about $75-100 - much cheaper and performs a lot better than a lot of fancy air purifiers. Building it with 2 people takes about an hour (mostly to measure and cut out the weird shroud thing), and swapping in new filters is much faster.
Check out the Clean Air Crew website to get started on your own! We protect each other! 💪😷✨
The low-tech cooler is a project I developed with the global design agency, Entreautre. We started with a simple principle inspired by traditional practices: a porous terracotta container filled with water.
Thanks to a ventilation system (WEEE), the airflow in contact with the wet surface allows water to evaporate in order to produce cold air.
To achieve an interesting effect, we sought to increase the wet wall surface in contact with ventilated air as much as possible. Ceramic 3D printing allowed us to test complex volumes such as differential growth. The natural process of differential growth was also a coherent aesthetic to produce a manifesto product in order to share the vision behind the process.
The process
I designed this structure with the software Grasshopper. It's a visual 3D programming language linked to Rhino 3D that allows the achievement of complex and parametric pieces that couldn't be done with traditional CAD programs.
I learned the software by myself to achieve the program in order to print the final shape. This shape came from all the different constraints I was confronted with:
The material: The lining thickness, the porosity.
The method of conception: Height, material volume contained in the printing pipe, printing time, clearance angle.
The metrics of minimal performances: Structure resistance, water volume, surface exchange between ceramic airflow and water.
I worked with Luc Dauphin, a mechanical engineer, and Bastien Pyon, Fablab's CEO, who guided me in dealing with those constraints.
The 3D printing machine is an exclusive machine designed by the Dutch artist, Olivier Van Herpt. The one that we used is the only one that exists outside his studio. It works like a traditional 3D plastic printer, where a piston extrudes the terra-cotta as a thin filament layer by layer.
The government of Premier Doug Ford is looking to change some of the rules governing long-term care homes, including slapping higher fines on facilities that don't have air conditioning in place by this summer, CBC News has learned.
Homes that are not complying with the province's requirements for air conditioning in all resident rooms could face fines of up to $25,000 starting in mid-May, according to proposed new regulations from the Ministry of Long-Term Care.
Until now, the biggest fine handed out against a non-compliant home has been $1,100. Two homes were fined that amount last August: McCormick Home in London and Vision Nursing Home in Sarnia.
Other proposed changes would remove or loosen the educational or training requirements for certain staff. [...]
The posting says the proposed changes respond to recommendations from "a range of stakeholders, including the voices of residents and families."
The posting says changing the job qualification rules would give homes more flexibility in hiring without compromising residents' safety or quality of life.
For instance, the current regulations require cooks and other food service workers to hold minimum levels of education and training. The changes would allow homes to hire food service staff who don't have those qualifications but have relevant work experience. [...]
How optimizing indoor humidity can help stop the spread of Covid and flu
Recent CDC guidelines for indoor air quality disregard the benefits of humidity. But research shows it can kill viruses and help thwart infections.
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We really do have "the tools": N95+ masks, HEPA filters, ventilation — and humidifiers too (in addition to the other layers of protection like vaccination, paxlovid, etc.)
It's just surreal to see how the CDC & govt swerve mentioning them. You could say they avoid it like... the plague 😒