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O tempora, o mores!

My art club met today for the first talk in two years. It was downright touching seeing the old dears again.

Mostly old ladies. The occasional old gent. A few didn’t make it through, but you expect that every year. The demographic of the art club is, if anything, older than the history society I work for.

The mask etiquette was hilarious. Some old bats wore them standing up but took them off when they sat down. Some old biddies wore them sitting down and took them off when they stood up. Several leaned over to me, waggled her mask in hand and hissed, “are we doing this?”

By the end, everyone was maskless and having a high old time.

I don’t think a single one of them is afraid of covid. They behaved as people transported to a foreign country: unsure of the customs of this strange new land and desperate not to offend.

If they think they can use fear to lock us down again, they have another think coming.

Comments


Comment from Drew458
Time: October 12, 2021, 1:49 am

(oops, too many links. Go look things up yourself)

Just so everyone knows …

cigarette smoke particle size. 0.1um – 0.8um, mostly 0.15um – .6um
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0021850219305919-fx1_lrg.jpg

SAR Cov-2 virus particle size. 0.1um – 0.5um

influenze virus particle size. 0.1um (which is 100nm)

So if you’re wearing a mask, and you can smell it when somebody has a cigarette, then your mask will not stop the coronavirus or the flu virus.

As the influenza virus is the same size as the smallest coronavirus, people who claim that last year’s absence of flu was because everyone was wearing a mask are obviously mistaken. If the masks worked well enough to stop the flu, there would be no coronavirus pandemic.

If you’re wearing a mask, and your glasses fog up, or it slips around on your face, then it’s so poorly fit it won’t stop anything smaller than a chicken.


Comment from Drew458
Time: October 12, 2021, 1:56 am

PS nice quote there, Cicero.

But for art club, shouldn’t it be “Oh tempera”?

Or “Oh tempura” at the sushi restaurant? Mores tempura please!

I never could resist a wretched pun.


Comment from Mitchell
Time: October 12, 2021, 2:50 am

The masks are sofa king stupid.

On the plus side, this blog got me to try the air fryer that was lurking untouched in the pantry for the last three years. I tried a couple items from that recipe teacher guy somebody linked – amazing! I promptly bought a double-basket version. Thanks Stoaty!


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: October 12, 2021, 9:29 am

Deniers!
Science has proven again and again that Covid operates mostly at a height of approximately 5 feet and above in the local terrain for a distance of 6 feet in all directions from your body’s respiratory orifices.

Science has indeed proven that sitting maskless at a table in a restaurant is minimally dangerous, but standing and/or walking about without one is almost certain death.

And science has also proven that if you don’t have a mask, pulling your t-shirt up over your nose and chin will provide absolute protection until you can cover up with a proper mask. Better you suffer a temporary armpit wedgey than catch Covid and end up being turned away from a hospital because all the Ivermectin poisoned idiots and rural city gangland gun shot victims are clogging up every hospital ER/ICU in a 500 mile radius. Especially if President Biden isn’t available to call the ER desk on your behalf to see why you can’t be admitted RTF now.

And if, God forbid, you DO end up on a respirator, for the sake of all that’s holy and the survival of mankind, make sure your last words as you lay there intubated and knocking softly on Death’s door are a final tragic plea to other unvaxxed people, saying you wish you had gotten the vaccine and they should get it as soon a possible, after which you may tragically expire.

As for last year’s heroic Doctors and Nurses and grocery store clerks, working without benefit of vaccine because such was not available, they are now persona non grata if they refuse to be vaccinated and they should be shunned and punished in every devious way imaginable, their livelihoods and physical well being should be threatened and they should be forcibly vaccinated for the good of all mankind.


Comment from Carl
Time: October 12, 2021, 1:12 pm

Drew468 “As the influenza virus is the same size as the smallest coronavirus, people who claim that last year’s absence of flu was because everyone was wearing a mask are obviously mistaken. If the masks worked well enough to stop the flu, there would be no coronavirus pandemic.”

My understanding is that most (but not all) of the Covid-19 or influenza particles are carried in relatively large respiratory droplets, the transmission of which (inward and outward) can be greatly reduced by wearing a mask, especially an N95 one. The smaller aerosol virus particles can float around in the air for some time but the masks do help with both coronavirus and flu.


Comment from Teej
Time: October 12, 2021, 4:33 pm

aissii…!


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: October 12, 2021, 6:00 pm

I think I have mentioned jalaneti and nasal lavage before, so I won’t bore you all by repeating my history again. Instead I will jump to highlights. And there is a wealth of information on the internet now about jalaneti. I apologise for the length of my post.

I am vaccinated, but JavaMan is not. He has taken other vaccinations, and recently I insisted that he get a fresh tetanus shot because he keeps skinning his hands and forearms while working in the garage and garden.

But to keep me happy (If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobdy happy … ), JavaMan agreed to do a neti everytime he comes home from being out in public, and to rinse his mouth and gargle with Listerine Mint mouthwash—which is 21.6% alcohol. He is faithful to do this, and I do it also when I have been out.

We use a 1% saline solution which I mix myself, which also contains bicarbonate of soda. (The pre-made packets make me sneeze violently; I must be allergic to something in the mix.) The body’s natural salinity is .9%, so the saline solution I make is benign and doesn’t sting, and I have included the “sodium” of the soda into the calculation for a 1% sodium solution. But the soda adds a kicker to the solution.

The soda slightly alters the pH of the nasal mucosa, making the the mucosa an inhospitable surface—which keeps rhinoviruses from latching on at the cellular level. The window of opportunity for a rhinovirus is about 8-12 hours. If you can rinse out the rhinovirus before then, you have an excellent chance of not getting sick. And the alcohol in the mouthwash—similar to the way alcohol works in hand sanitizers—ruptures the shell of the rhinovirus, killing it.

JavaMan is rarely sick, and in our 51 years of marriage, he has never had the flu. I would not tell you that jalanei will keep you from getting Covid, but I consider it another important weapon in the fight. In the 20 years that I have been a devotee of the practice, I’ve had perhaps three colds, but two of those events may have been a reaction to tree pollen. Both made me equally miserable.

I always use a gallon of distilled water to mix my neti water: 6 teaspoons of ordinary table salt, and 1 teaspoon of soda, measured carefully. I crease a piece of waxed paper and spoon the salt and soda along the crease so I can keep count, then use the paper like a funnel to pour into the jug. I warm 2 cups about 102 degrees (in my microwave), and in the beginning I used an oral thermometer to test and learn the feel of the warmed water. Too cool is unpleasant and too hot is even worse. You can mix a stronger solution, and many do, but don’t go over 3x stronger.

If you can’t buy or order a neti pot, you can use a baby bottle. Drill a hole in the bottom of the baby bottle and cut a red-hot-sized hole across the nipple. Put your finger over the hole when you fill the bottle and take your finger off so the water will siphon into your nose. You can teach children how to do this with a premie-sized baby bottle.

There is an abundance of scholarly and medical articles on the internet about nasal lavage and covid, but you can bet you will never see anything in the main-stream media.

Best wishes, Deborah


Comment from Drew458
Time: October 13, 2021, 1:11 pm

Deb HH – there are some studies that support your nasal rinse, which is a slight bit hypertonic (having a higher salt level than the 0.9% your body fluids have). And keep doing the mouthwash and gargle. While I feel that a 0.6% solution of povidone iodine in saline (via a nasal misting bottle) is a better nasal lavage, and that Original Listerine or a 1% povidone iodine oral rinse is a superior germ killer, anything that will shift the pH (baking soda) in your nose and mouth, or will dissolve the lipid coating of the virus (eg alcohol) will certainly help. Hypertonic saline also seems to fight the darn thing too.

Here’s one that’s completely unrelated, but will make you see red. March 2020: Two nursing homes in Spain stopped the ‘rona in their very elderly patients with just OTC antihistamines and common antibiotics.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=243683
that page links to the paper, published at NIH January 2021.

Carl – the vapor droplet theory fails with evaporation. Ok, maybe a mask stops the bigger droplets. But once they’re on the mask they dry out, leaving the virus behind, which then comes right on through. That’s my opinion.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: October 13, 2021, 7:06 pm

@Drew458—thank you for your information and the link. I will research using povidone iodine.

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