New Tips for Gathering 100% Safely for the Holidays

Two new tips:

- I thought it went without saying, that if you’re sick, don’t come inside a building with other people - any kind of symptoms that could be covid-19 (see Dec. 13th post). However, it seems that people are not thinking of this any more, and still showing up with a sniffle or a fever. I had a couple of technicians come to my house for a chimney cleaning a few weeks ago. “You don’t have any symptoms, do you?” I asked. One of them admitted he had a sniffle, which he had had for a few days. Turns out it wasn’t needed for him to come into the house, and they did their work from the roof. But if I hadn’t thought to ask …

- Finally, it IS possible to gather with 100% safety, or as close as we can get. Actually, there are different versions of this—here’s my personal one: It takes at least a week of preparation before the actual gathering, and I realize many people will not be able to do this. For those who are able: you spend at least seven days of staying home and isolating from other people. Five days just isolating—no contact with other people outside your bubble, except if you’re outside in the fresh air. On day 6, you get a PCR test, and as soon as you get a negative result you can consider yourself safe to gather together with others who have done the same thing. (You DO need to continue to isolate up until the time of the gathering.) Here at the Keene hospital, we have been getting PCR results on the next business day. If the delay is longer where you are, take that into account and bump up your PCR test to day 5, or allow longer than seven days as needed.

And reminders of the tips I mentioned in my Nov. 22 video:

- Lots of fresh air to dilute any virus present! Outside of course is best, but if you’re inside, open windows to keep the CO2 level less than 600 ppm as measured by an ACCURATE carbon dioxide meter.

- If you have HEPA air purifiers, run them in addition to the open windows, and keep the CO2 less than 750 ppm. (Purified air should be at least 15 cfm per person.)

- Our own practice is for each of us to do the BinaxNOW test on the morning of the gathering. (The CDC echoed this recommendation on Dec. 6th.)

- Real N95 masks for people close together, inside.

Could We cut our covid-19 cases in half simply by not doing indoor restaurant dining?

Looking back, that’s what happened. Somebody finally did a study on this question. Of course they are careful to not actually say that we should close restaurant inside dining. But you can use this study to inform your own personal practices. And note that we in Cheshire County still have close to the nation’s highest community spread rate for covid-19. Here’s an excerpt from their press release:

“Closing indoor dining during the first two waves of the pandemic was associated with a 61% decline in new COVID-19 cases … compared with cities that reopened indoor dining ... according to recently published data from experts at the Dornsife School of Public Health. The team looked at data from March to October 2020 in 11 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Atlanta and Dallas. The results were published last month in the journal Epidemiology.”

As far as we know, major news organizations have not picked up this story. We got it from a Milwaukee newspaper.

Here’s a link to the Dec. 6th press release from Drexel University:

New Data Shows Public Health Benefit to Closing Indoor Dining

Drexel.edu

A Christmas Message

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!

We have had lots of interesting blog posts lately! Here is a review of a few of the topics over the last week and a preview of what’s coming up in the next few days:

Some of the topics in the last week …

- NH and Cheshire County covid rates remain scary high (Dec. 8). It’s astonishing to me that the positivity rate is around 20%. So when you’re waiting in the line of cars for your PCR test at the hospital, there will be someone with covid-19 in one out of every five cars! Remember that earlier in the pandemic, they always wanted the positivity rate to be 5% or below?

- Important background info to our reports (Dec. 9). The full WHO recommendations including their fresh air ventilation rate. Our complete guide to HEPA air purifiers which remove the virus from the room air. And full info on the BinaxNOW home test including false negatives and positives.

- A current list of covid-19 symptoms to watch for (Dec. 11). It’s no longer simple, looking for a cough or sore throat or fever as the leading symptom. It could be a headache, or a feeling of unusual fatigue. When in doubt, test!

And in the days ahead …

- New tips for gathering 100% safely for the holidays.

- A research study that found that more than half of the covid-19 cases in the test cities were linked to inside dining in restaurants. Published Dec. 6th, this has received little play in the national news.

- Due to our first-in-the-nation level of covid-19 virus in our community, we have revised our company policy on covid-19 safety, and we’ll share this with you.

9 Omicron COVID-19 Symptoms Infectious Disease Experts Say You Shouldn't Ignore - Good Housekeeping

by Zee Krstic - December 11, 2021

The most common symptoms for COVID-19 infections, including those caused by Omicron, as listed by CDC officials are below:

• Fever or body chills

• Cough

• Sore throat

• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing

• Fatigue, or muscle or body aches

• Headache

• Congestion or runny nose

• Nausea or vomiting

• Diarrhea

Any of these symptoms — in any order — may appear within 2 to 14 days after being exposed to SARS-CoV-2. They may be all equally severe or present different severities depending on the symptom.

See the following link for the full article:

Omicron Variant Symptoms Breakthrough COVID

Good Housekeeping

Simple Air Filtration of Virus

HEPA filters, such as the ones in air purifiers, are 99% efficient at removing virus particles from the air. However, such filters cannot simply replace the one-inch filters you may have in your furnaces or other fan-forced heating units. Reason? They are TOO good, have TOO much resistance to the flow of air, and will mess up your heating unit, possibly making it hazardous.

The safe and partly-effective thing to do is to replace your standard one- or two-inch filter with a "MERV-13” filter. Just slide out the old one, slide in the new MERV-13 filter, and you will get around 40% efficiency at virus removal - and only a little extra pressure drop, so that your unit will probably work just fine. They’re also great for wood smoke and air contaminants from pets and other sources. Just remember that you will need to replace a MERV-13 filter more often than you are used to, something like twice as often.

MERV-13 filters became instantly popular last year in the early months of the pandemic, and were completely sold out for quite a while. Now they are readily available, if not at your local hardware store, then from many online sources.

Not to promote Amazon, and we’re not getting any commission, but this is what we use at our office.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CR9K33K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Appendices now added to “Improving COVID-19 Safety within Buildings - A Do-It-Yourself Guide for Building Operators”

We've added a PDF of the Appendices that accompany this originally posted document under "Resources" on our website. You can also click the link below to view each.

The originally posted document includes information on the meters we have for sale.

Improving COVID-19 Safety Within Buildings - A Do-It-Yourself Guide for Building Operators (PDF)

Appendices to Improving COVID-19 Safety Within Buildings - A Do-It-Yourself Guide for Building Operators (PDF)