Helping Health Services With the Coronavirus
As the Coronavirus grows, it will come into competition for health resources with the current flus, and with other critical medical needs. We can lessen the stress on the system by using the same prevention methods on the flus that we use on the Coronavirus.
We can also lessen the number of flu cases by getting everybody vaccinated. Since the symptoms of a temperature and a cough are the same in both, easily preventing flu cases with the vaccine means that less screening, testing, and hospitalizations will be needed for the flu. This will open resources for the more vulnerable Coronavirus cases. Not getting the flu also means that you don’t have to risk Coronavirus exposure in doctor’s offices or hospitals. You also will not have to miss work and pay, as businesses start quarantining protocols.
Flu and Coronavirus cases can end up causing pneumonia. We can all get pneumonia vaccines, especially for children, seniors, and those with compromised immune systems, like diabetes, asthma, and smoking. Here are the CDC guidelines. All people with compromised immune systems need the vaccine. The 23 vaccine contains all of those in the 15, except one.
Masks are especially useful for people with colds or the flu, since even simple ones can catch most of the droplets in a sneeze or cough. Coughing into a small, round elbow pit seems like it couldn’t even catch half of the droplets. This should be tested. Coughing or sneezing into your hand catches more, which you then pass on to everything that you touch. Even coughing rags in the old days are suspect. Solution: stay home.
I am even upset with my local theaters who have replaced the option of using paper towels in the bathrooms with blow dryers. The blast is so strong, that germs and virus drops probably get sent flying. That should also be tested.
Then the standard: wash hands with soap and water if possible, or hand sanitizer if that is the next best. Avoid shaking hands. Avoid touching your face or eyes.
The hard part is how to ask people with colds or coughs to leave the lecture. It helps that many talks in lifelong learning are taped and on the web, and the University talks are presented live on the web, and then stored there.
In Physics, we have worldwide research groups, and have for decades held meetings over the web. This is being adopted by businesses, and makes sense just to give people an easier life and save money.
If they manage to test out a vaccine by the next Coronavirus season, get the vaccine.
Hopefully, the decline in flu illnesses and deaths, already 15,000 this year, will more than offset those from the Coronavirus, making the combination less of a burden. There are still the 30,000 deaths a year with people who don’t have health care, and the 40,000 gun deaths a year to work on.
