Winning the War against COVID-19
-- Denis
This article is a result as I was sleepless last weekend thinking about how I can best contribute back to my beloved community and friends. I came from Wuhan 20 years ago and am a US citizen now. I witnessed firsthand how the disease broke out 3 months ago, how hard my family members fought against it, and how the worst case of a city turned around. Just try to share what I learned over the course and make some practical recommendations easy to follow. But I am not a healthcare professional.
First thing first. Let’s do a self evaluation of your risk level.
Do you and your family members seldom get cold or flu in the past few years?
If yes, congratulations, you already have a super strong immune system and/or very good hygiene habits.
Are you safe then?
Maybe not. My brother and sister in Wuhan fell into this category, thought they were super safe, but both got infected from different sources and were hospitalized for up to 25 days. (They are fine now.) You are truly safe when you closely contact very few people each day. No contact, no chance to get the virus. Period. Otherwise, you are at risk. Male 60+ years old or people with existing health conditions are at higher risks.
Why is this disease a big fuss and different from the flu?
Yes, it’s no more than just a big flu. But 10+ times more deadly. No medicine or vaccine available yet.
Secondly, it’s super more contagious than most other diseases. The tricky part is that its incubation period can be up to 14 days. 80% of patients will get minor symptoms like a cold or totally no symptoms at all initially. They get significantly more chances to infect more. Roughly 15% of released patients in Wuhan got back to the hospital.
Most doctors, governments and people went through denial, confusion, fear, panic and finally rationality. During this inevitable back and forth fussy period, you may count on knowledge and basic judgment to save yourself.
How do you get your household members prepared for this?
All viruses are extremely easy to kill outside of your body. Once they get into your body, they will turn into part of your body cells and some will become extremely difficult to cure. The following will help you to stay away from the disease or help you to care for infected family members if you have to:
- The first defense line is simply washing your hands a hundred times everyday. Stock up hand sanitizers, soap, liquid soap, medical gloves and hand lotions for sensitive skins.
Disinfectant sprays and wipes are needed to clean up highly used areas like counter and door knobs. - Do you need medical face masks or not?
This is very controversial. The bottom line is, for exactly the same reason why doctors need facemasks in addition to gloves, you need to do something more than just washing your hands.
Go back to the very basic facts about this disease: you don’t know whether people around are in their incubation period or not. You may get infected from droplets spread out by them. (The virus cannot be transmitted by air.) The droplets can travel up to 2 yards. Whether you will be able to get any facemasks now or whether they should be used by the most needed are another set of questions.
Then what are the best alternatives?
Basically face masks only protect your nose and mouth from the tiny contagious droplets spread out by infected people. Even self made ones may help to improve the chances. If you cannot prevent the droplets from getting in, you can effectively wash them out within 2 hours after exposure. Nose Washer and Antiseptic Mouthwash will be extremely helpful.
- UV lamps are another way to kill viruses. We use them to kill viruses on jackets and high traffic eating areas.
When do you need to take a Coronavirus test? And so what?
If you cough continuously, get a fever, or even mild diarrhea, you may want to get tested. It’s very common that you may need to wait a long time before being tested, the test results are not accurate or there will be all kinds of rumors around. Mathematically testing multiple times on positive results will significantly increase the accuracy of the results. Some patients find the first week with really minor symptoms. The second week is critical to tell whether it will keep minor or not. Watch out your situations carefully. Use your own best judgment on basic facts.
Ultimately this is pneumonia and people die from lack of oxygen. You may want to get a Blood Oxygen Saturation Monitor to see how critical your situation is. Anything below 92~93% is a critical condition. To prepare for even more challenging situations, I’d recommend an oxygen generator. It may be overkilling for most people. Anyway it’s nice to have one for the elderly, weak and sick.
Last but not the least: There is no need to panic.
Ultimately you can count on your immune system to win over this disease. Stay positive to boost up your immune system. The mortality rate is only 2~5% according to various statistics. Warmer weather will help to curb the disease. South Asian countries report significantly less cases compared to the north Asian ones. The US is way less populated and is at way lower risks accordingly.
If you find it useful, please feel free to make it better, comment on it, spread it out with or without my permission. I may update it from time to time. This article is written partially in memory of my dad, who lost his battle against it a month ago. He will be happy if his son is using this experience to contribute a tiny bit helping the society winning this war. All profits from the amazon links will be donated back to fight with diseases.