Are we disconnecting from reality?

Auguste Meyrat writes in part in American Greatness,

...The promise of the tech age and the ubiquity of smartphones and the internet was that it would arm people with relevant information and rational courses of action. Rather, it has done the opposite—magnifying doubts and fears about everything and everyone.

...And yet, for all their distrust of the media, people still seem inclined to believe the pundits and clueless scientists over their own experience.

This then leads to a lack of context. Everything seems new and unprecedented, and therefore unknown and scary—except that this isn’t true. Pandemics have always existed, and there are proven ways to deal with them that don’t involve shutting down the economy and putting everyone under house arrest.

...Moreover, the average age of those who die from Wuhan virus is 77 and mainly poses life-threatening risks to those over 60 (earning it the nickname “The Boomer Remover”) or those who suffer from other health problems, which made up 99 percent of the victims in Italy. It is understandable for those who are elderly to fear this disease, as they should fear all diseases, but it makes little sense for everyone else immediately to self-quarantine for a month or more only to still catch the virus right after the quarantine ends.

...With people fearing the worst and struggling with math, it is only normal that logic will also fall away. Nothing makes sense. Crowds can lead to the spread of disease, so people congregate at stores to panic buy. Only specific locations (mainly those with large elderly populations like retirement homes and churches) have experienced fatal outbreaks of the Wuhan virus. Yet every place is closed, including schools, amusement parks, restaurants, and bars. Only certain people are at risk of having the Wuhan virus, so everyone and their pet should be tested for it. The abandoned shops and ongoing panic may encourage looting, so cities should release their prisoners and stop arresting vandals. And of course, the Wuhan virus originated in the Wuhan province of China, so it’s racist to refer to this fact.

Read more here.

How we can beat viruses with something as simple as soap!

In Market Watch, Palli Thordarson is an expert in supramolecular chemistry and the assembly of nanoparticles, and he explains why soap and water is the best way to wash your hands to prevent virus attacks.

When you cough, or especially when you sneeze, tiny droplets from the airways can fly up to 30 feet. The larger ones are thought to be main coronavirus carriers, and they can go at least 7 feet. So, cover your coughs and sneezes!

Skin is an ideal surface for viruses
These tiny droplets end up on surfaces and dry out quickly. But the viruses are still active. What happens next is all about supramolecular chemistry and how self-assembled nanoparticles (like the viruses) interact with their environment.

Now it is time to introduce a powerful supramolecular chemistry concept that effectively says: Similar molecules appear to interact more strongly with each other than dissimilar ones. Wood, fabric and skin interact fairly strongly with viruses.

...For how long does the virus stay active? It depends. The novel coronavirus is thought to stay active on favorable surfaces for hours, possibly a day. What makes the virus less stable? Moisture (“dissolves”), sunlight (UV light) and heat (molecular motions).

The skin is an ideal surface for a virus. It is organic, of course, and the proteins and fatty acids in the dead cells on the surface interact with the virus through both hydrogen bonds and the “fat-like” hydrophilic interactions.

So when you touch a steel surface with a virus particle on it, it will stick to your skin and, hence, get transferred on to your hands. But you are not (yet) infected. If you touch your face, though, the virus can get transferred.

And now the virus is dangerously close to the airways and the mucus-type membranes in and around your mouth and eyes. So the virus can get in and — voila! — you are infected. That is, unless your immune system kills the virus.

If the virus is on your hands, you can pass it on by shaking someone’s else hand. Kisses, well, that’s pretty obvious. It goes without saying that if someone sneezes in your face, you’re stuck.

So how often do you touch your face? It turns out most people touch the face once every two to five minutes. So you’re at high risk once the virus gets on your hands, unless you wash off the active virus.

So let’s try washing it off with plain water. It might just work. But water “only” competes with the strong “glue-like” interactions between the skin and virus via hydrogen bonds. The virus is sticky and may not budge. Water isn’t enough.

Soap dissolves a virus’ structure
Soapy water is totally different. Soap contains fat-like substances known as amphiphiles, some structurally similar to the lipids in the virus membrane. The soap molecules “compete” with the lipids in the virus membrane. That is more or less how soap also removes normal dirt of the skin (see graphic at the top of this article).

The soap molecules also compete with a lot other non-covalent bonds that help the proteins, RNA and the lipids to stick together. The soap is effectively “dissolving” the glue that holds the virus together. Add to that all the water.

The soap also outcompetes the interactions between the virus and the skin surface. Soon the virus gets detached and falls apart like a house of cards due to the combined action of the soap and water. Boom, the virus is gone!

The skin is rough and wrinkly, which is why you need a fair amount of rubbing and soaking to ensure the soap reaches every nook and cranny on the skin surface that could be hiding active viruses.

To sum up, viruses are almost like grease-nanoparticles. They can stay active for many hours on surfaces and then get picked up by touch. Then they get to our face and infect us because most of us touch our face frequently.

Water is not effective alone in washing the virus off our hands. Alcohol-based products work better. But nothing beats soap — the virus detaches from the skin and falls apart readily in soapy water.

Supramolecular chemistry and nanoscience tell us not only a lot about how the virus self-assembles into a functional, active menace, but also how we can beat viruses with something as simple as soap.

Read more here.

Buy!

Clarice Feldman is a writer whom you can always expect to be thorough and comprehensive. She writes today in part in the American Thinker:

I’m phlegmatic by nature. It gives me an edge up when mass hysteria seems to take up so much space in the news and the pronouncements of Democratic leaders. Looking at the best information available to me, I find it beyond question that the President has taken the right steps to deal with this variant flu; that few people in this country will perish from it; that while there may be some economic consequences of the supply disruption from China, the fact that we’ve been decoupling ourselves from China under this administration means they are likely to be smaller and more short-lived than the market manipulators would have us believe.

1. What is the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and How Does it Compare to the Flu?

The most informative reports I can find on this are from Johns Hopkins Medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Director of the CDC.

CDC Director Robert Redfield this week said CDC official Nancy Messonier, (sister of Rod Rosenstein) misspoke when she said an epidemic outbreak of COVID-19 in this country was inevitable.

Redfield’s clarification is in accord with an editorial last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, which speculated that this virus “Could turn out no worse than a ‘severe seasonal influenza’ in terms of mortality.”

Citing an analysis of the available data from the outbreak in China, the authors note that there have been zero cases among children younger than 15; and that the fatality rate is 2% at most, and could be “considerably less than 1%.”

Those who have died have been elderly or were already suffering from another illness--as with ordinary flu. The underlying data suggest that the symptoms vary, and fewer than one in six of the cases reported were “severe.”

The authors note that coronavirus looks to be much less severe than other recent outbreaks of respiratory illnesses:

[T]he overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.

The vast majority of patients recover, and among those who are hospitalized, the median stay thus far is 12 days.

Coronavirus, they note, does spread easily, and the average infected person has infected two other people. That means the U.S. should expect the illness to gain a “foothold.” But they note travel restrictions on China (imposed by President Trump over the objections of some critics) “may have helped slow the spread of the virus.”

...In his press conference to transparently inform us of the situation and the best means to prepare for it (a conference CNN broke away from to cover a Bloomberg town hall), Trump detailed the health status of Americans confirmed to have the virus, our preparedness for it, confirming that “our great sanitation, access to excellent medical care, and good diet” doubtless play a role in recovery and make it less deadly than elsewhere.

...Maybe we should be bothered that we are running out of things to worry about. Nah. The Democrats and media are creative in finding new and more original ways to manufacture angst.

Read more here.