Oh god I forgot about Stephen Lynch. Even as a teen I felt awful every time I heard that song. Some of his other ones I found funny, though.
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…and wash your masks!
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Just did laundry yesterday, including our masks.
Also a shipment of brand new masks arrived this weekend.
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I met it in a lab–68 degrees–
And as dark as the innards of the big-ass fish that ate
Jonah
J-O-N-A
Jonah
Jo Jo Jo Jo Jonah
It jumped on my hand and as it went for my face
I asked how long it had been there; it said “28 days and I’m
Rona
R-O-N-A
Rona
Ro Ro Ro Ro Rona”
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Fun OT: recently saw an interview Dr. Demento did in the 80s in which he pointed out that the line he drew on his show was:
“dead puppies aren’t fun” = ok,
“dead puppies are fun” = not ok.
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Here in Germany, virologists are now recommending not to bother with disinfecting everything all the time on account of the coronavirus because apparently, the number of actual people who have provably contracted COVID-19 by smear infection is effectively zero (and that’s not because we’re so diligent disinfecters).
Instead, apart from the usual guidance of mask-wearing, distancing, and washing our hands, we’re supposed to air rooms very frequently (which is not necessarily a helpful suggestion given that, for example, many school classrooms windows cannot be opened widely enough for efficient airing; they have been designed that way on purpose to prevent students from jumping or falling out of them).
There’s also a big difference between being able to show that genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus exists on a surface and being able to show that this material is actually infectious. The consensus here is that you need a fairly large amount of fresh virus on a surface in order to be able to catch COVID-19 from touching it, so touching something that a COVID-19 patient has just coughed on directly and then immediately touching one’s mouth or nose is probably inadvisable, but touching random surfaces that have not been covered with active virus very recently very probably isn’t a huge problem. Stuff that has been sitting around for 72 hours is supposed to be completely safe.
Finally, there are lots of very nasty things that you can catch by smear infection that aren’t COVID-19. Norovirus comes to mind, and it’s particularly nasty because the standard alcohol-based “anti-viral” disinfectants we’re using against SARS-CoV-2 won’t kill it.
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@j9c What the study actually said was:
And those are real world temperatures and of greater concern. Though as others have noted smear infections are not a major threat.
A pity about all those minks that had to be slaughtered after catching coronavirus - thought to have been transmitted via human contact. It is worrisome though, that if the virus takes hold in the animal world that it is going to be around a long long time.
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In any case, I’m so glad for many chain stores in Tijuana enforcing the pandemic rules, making people mask up in the store, use antibacterial gel, and wiping down shopping carts. It may be the wild west outside, but there are people who are taking this seriously in the stores.
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They were only counting infectious virus particles, not just the RNA, which was very good.
At 20 degrees Centigrade, which is the temperature at which the virus was most robust, they said “We obtained half lives of between 1.7 and 2.7 days at 20 °C” - so the amount of infectious virus halves every 1.7 to 2.7 days. That means that it degrades quickly, but under less hot conditions some virus can hang around a long time. But it’s less and less dangerous as more and more of it is deactivated in the environment.
Since the less virus there is, the less likely you’ll get infected by it, and the less severe the disease will probably be if you do get infected, this fits the experience that’s been reported that picking up the virus from a surface is pretty unusual. Possible, but unusual.
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My goodness, she’s still alive?!?!?
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I’m torn between celebrating a now obscure reference actually being noticed and the dubious joy of creating brow-wrinkling confusion and self-doubt.
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My thoughts, exactly.
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As they say, winter is coming… to some parts of the world. Maybe they should think about replicating those tests at lower temperatures.
I think it’s wholesome to belittle this thing, to compensate a bit for all the fear it has been spreading.
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