Covid is going to be with us for a long time—and then there’s all the other pathogens out there. As some scientists have warned us, we’re entering a “pandemic era.” Let’s talk about what we’re doing to protect ourselves and our families, and what we’re learning. From reliable air filters to mask recommendations, share your tips, stories, and questions here. I’ll do the same.
We've been trying to research another good air purifier to add to our kid's school. We wound up going with a wall-mounted HEPA filter from Rabbit Air (the MinusA2). It's pretty expensive, but we wanted something we could mount higher than your standard air purifier to help boost air circulation, based on what we've been reading about ventilation, etc. It has good reviews. The clean air delivery rate (CADR) is a little lower than floor units, but it's supposed to purify 6,000 cubic feet of air in 30 minutes. In addition to masking and distancing (except for school), we're also doing Copper Rescue and Enovid for our noses. Since we're still the only people we know who mask, heading into a horrendous viral season, we're having to get creative and try things out. We'll see how these additional measures help.
A quick disclaimer: The jury is still out on Enovid and Copper Rescue. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. Evovid is backed by research. It’s not available in the U.S. because the FDA/CDC isn’t convinced it's effective or safe enough, but it’s available in other countries and has been approved for use. My family has adopted them both as a last resort, since nobody around us is taking precautions. They’re not a substitute for masks, vaccines, distancing, ventilation, or air purifiers. Anyone under 12 should not be using either one of them. Finally, I don’t accept money for recommending products or services. There’s an easy way to tell. Most bloggers and podcasters who recommend products will send you to a special affiliate link with a different URL from the standard site. I never use affiliate links.
We moved from Connecticut to South Carolina. Fewer people wear masks, but we are able to do more outside. We now homeschool our daughter and my wife started an outdoor homeschool cooperative by the beach that runs all year long. I think the hardest but most important thing we do is show our daughter how to deal with peer pressure. Most people around us think we're crazy, just a bunch of northern liberals overreacting and they stare when we wear masks to go inside places. We have to show our daughter how little we care about the opinion of others in order to do what we believe is in the best interest of our health. Your writing helps remind us that we may be odd, but we ain't stupid.
Dec 6, 2022·edited Dec 6, 2022Liked by Jessica Wildfire
Invested in an Aranet4 CO2 Monitor to gauge shared air. I wear my KN95 mask indoors outside my home. I don't eat in restaurants, and avoid gatherings that are with larger groups indoors, especially those centered around eating (Thanksgiving, etc). I test before seeing people, even outdoors. I ask folks to test before seeing me, though many will not. I've set boundaries that many don't like or understand, but I want to stay healthy and avoid Long Covid. I'm up to date on all boosters and thankfully am privileged to work from home and not have a ton of exposure risk for work or family. Unfortunately, I think it'll be a long time before we travel any measurable distance again, certainly not by plane. We missed so many trips we had hoped to take in the last few years, but it's not worth it to me to wind up potentially disabled.
We're medically vulnerable for many reasons, so we recognized early that we were on our own with preventative strategies. The goal was always to not get sick in the first place.
My husband was going to the Cleveland Clinic in late 2019, and we believe, in retrospect, he caught it ( had all the symptoms before most of us even knew what they were) it hit him hard for months and months.
Determined not to get it again. We both do pickup and online shopping for almost everything. We wear well fitted elastomeric n95 or p100 respirators every time we're ever out, which isn't often. We use a nose spray with iodine before donning mask.
We see people outside. No inside dining, gym, restaurants, hairdressers. We only go for medical appointments where offices are masked.
We've skipped ER visits for stitches and a serious spider bite because we couldn't risk sitting in a crowded area for hours with infectious, unmasked people everywhere.
We're lucky we can do this, and unlucky we have to. Pretty certain infection for either of us would be disastrous.
I'm vaccinated and boosted. Husband is not because he has a condition that makes vaccines useless and another condition that makes vaccines dangerous.
It's not fun. No one loves wearing a mask or living like a recluse. I miss a lot of socializing and just being in crowds. But when I contemplate the possibility of disability or worse, I feel we're on the right track.
More than anything, we're hopeful there will soon be a better vaccine available and more effective treatments. We're playing the long game. We recognize that dealing with the damage even mild acute infections cause isn't worth a party or a dinner inside.
I used to travel a lot before the pandemic--enough to garner elite status--but I haven't been on a plane since the pandemic began. Now that there are no mask mandates on any public transportation, is an N95 or KN95 mask enough to protect me if I'm sitting next to someone with COVID? I know people who have travelled with COVID but haven't worn a mask because "it's uncomfortable." I have fully vaxed friends who traveled by plane, took off their masks to eat or drink, and after arriving home, tested positive for COVID, infecting others in their household. I feel betrayed by the government, the airlines, and people who just don't care about those of us who are older and immunocompromised. I don't have to travel, but if I did, I don't know what I'd do. Mask? Goggles? Hazmat suit?
I only leave the house to go to work where I mask and eat dinner outside. Luckily, I work in a factory on second shift (3pm-11pm) that has 40 ft ceilings and constant airflow with everyone spread out. No socializing except with my wife and son, and my best friend since childhood is my supervisor, so I see him everyday at work. I have had all vaccinations up through the bivalent booster. All my shopping is done online and groceries are delivered. At home, I have 4 small/medium HEPA filters running. Still COVID free (as far as I know), and since I already have kidney damage, asthma, and am on 2 blood pressure medications, I want to keep it that way as long as possible.
N 99 anytime I enter a building you probably won’t ever see me gathering with people again I will never eat inside of a restaurant I think as time goes on they’re going to slide the word COVID-19 into the background in order to make us try to forget they’re not connecting the dots we know Covid is out there yet they’ll see some celebrity die and they’ll go. Oh that’s too sad or a neighbor will die oh that’s too bad or a young mother? Oh my gosh what a shame but they’re not looking at the effects that Covid has if you get Covid ,within the next 12 to 18 months after your initial infection cancers are popping up children are dying from Different organ failures, so are adults so as long as I live the rest of my life, I will wear a mask inside of any store I go into which is very few. I will take all the precautions for the remaining portion of my life as I take now in hopes to God that I can live a little bit longer for my children .
I had the privilege of working from home for the first two years and my husband had always worked from home. We were pretty isolated until we got our first vaccine shots. Then we did a few things cautiously but every time the numbers start to go up, we curtail any activities that would expose us. This year seems particularly hard because everyone we know has gotten it and act like it's no big deal. I'm exhausted trying to explain the fact that I'm not just avoiding the initial infection so much as Long Covid and the damage it could do to my brain or vascular system. I don't want to take the risk. They say health is the most important thing but I see too many folks thinking that they are invincible. You are only lucky and fortunate until the day you are not. Keep masking and taking care of yourselves folks. We are entering a new future and we aren't all in this together. That's just bullshit and we all know it.
This thread is so inspiring, thank you all. We are a family with two girls, 1 and 6. Three years ago I was touring the world playing music, and for the last three I’ve been an unexpected homeschool dad in dystopia. The only ones we know masking, not visiting restaurants, stores, or non-essential indoor visits. Partner works from home, and as a wedding DJ, fully N95’d up with HEPA fans blazing in me at events with a strong preference for semi-outdoor venues. The irony of being as careful as we are while also having that as my job is not lost on me, but I am fully welcoming being observed as “the freak” if I’m able to still work a safe as I can be with all the tools of privilege available to me. With Covid given to us in the summer from a family member who lied about quarantining before terms of an agreed upon meet up, and it awakening mono for the last 4 months as a result of activated Epstein Barr, nothing is worth that again.
Like many of you, the mourning of community and collectivism of care is something I fully grieve, and daily work hard on knowing there was before, and there is now.  Not comfortable on planes until God knows when with no safety mitigation put in place, we have been exploring the purchase of a class B van to adventure safely on our own terms avoiding hotels and restaurants. Again, I fully recognize this is not a privilege many have the luxury of entertaining and so I’m very thankful that there might be an answer in showing my kids the world safely in that way, albeit a world that doesn’t care enough to take the basic measures of public safety at the moment.  And I say at the moment, because of more and more I fully believe that they will be a reckoning where everyone who isn’t acknowledging our current reality is going to have to learn how to do this all over again due to an even more hardcore variant, or other. Maybe then we will try something different. Love and solidarity in your care of self and others to all.
I am still isolating. I do not go out except to exercise (I work from home) and I make sure to take routes where there is a lower chance of encountering people. I live alone, don't know anyone where I live, and have not seen my family or friends since just before covid. I don't know if or when I'll see them (or anyone else) again. The loneliness is becoming harder and hard to manage. I do not have the resources to manage a long-term disability and, frankly, I just do not want to get sick. Most of my friends understand my position. My family, less so.
All shopping is done online and groceries are delivered or picked up curbside. Anything that can be transferred into a different container, including all cold/frozen foods, are repackaged before being put in the fridge/freezer or pantry. For things that don't necessarily go in a container (eggs, fresh veg), they go in a basket in the fridge that nothing else touches to wait until I feel ok using the food. This is all done wearing gloves. Non-perishables that can't be transferred (canned good, etc) are left for at least a week (I buy pretty far ahead) and sprayed with Lysol before use.
There are some medical issues I need to have addressed but have put off for years due to not feeling safe indoors. Now, it's even worse, because even a lot of medical offices are acting as if covid is over and not requiring masks. I need to go to the dentist as well and I don't know how I'm going to manage that.
I'm seeing some people mention nasal sprays and mouthwashes. I'd like more (evidence-based) information about those if anyone wants to link.
Everything I do is with covid mitigation in mind. I am heartened to read about others who are actually taking precautions for both themselves and others. It seems we are in the very small minority. No one is even talking about covid anymore. It's as if it no longer exists. This pandemic, and the non-response by both the government and by so many fellow citizens, has been and continues to be traumatic.
I never go into a public space with lots of people without a mask. It feels a little weird because so many people are not masked. But, I do voice over and acting, I get a cold or worse, I don't work. I have sinus problems so even a cold affects me for weeks!
We wear respirators indoors and out any time we're not at home--my spouse and I wear Breathes, our kiddo wears a FloMask.
We have a large and two mini Corsi boxes at home for times when people need to come in/over, or if one of us suspects we might be getting sick--but we only have outdoor visits with friends and fam in the backyard, so they're mostly for if we need a tradesperson to come fix something, etc.
I started working from home in March 2020, and moved from my old role (which was originally in-person, and came along with a ton of pressure to go back to the office) to a 100% remote one. I don't think I'll ever go back to a hybrid role--I really like WFH life, and I have very little trust in any institution to make its workplace safe for employees. I work in healthcare, which you think would be doing a good job, but absolutely not.
While my job is WFH, we do have a big annual summit that's in-person at a convention centre. But since I've been up front with my new team that I won't participate if it isn't safe, and that we have a responsibility to keep everyone coming safe, I've worked to put a heck ton of COVID precautions in place and make sure that the meeting is hybrid for folks who can't or won't attend.
My spouse was supposed to go back to work after taking parental leave in Fall 2019 and Winter 2020, but we all know what happened then. We decided to keep our kid out of daycare until he could be fully vaccinated, and by that point he was old enough for JK. He attended JK for about a month, outdoors only while we waited for his third Pfizer dose. And then, the week after he got his third dose, he caught COVID at school--outside, and masked. When the school refused to put any additional mitigation efforts in place we pulled him, so my spouse is homeschooling for the foreseeable future. We're fortunate that we've gotten used to living on one income since our kid was born four years ago, but homeschooling is definitely not my spouse's idea of a job he'd love to have. And yet, we don't feel like we have an alternative right now, so we're just trucking along best we can.
We're also fortunate that we have at least a little child care in the form of my parents, who are retired and able to make their activities very low risk so that we can safely have our kid spend some time with his grandparents. Everyone tests before that happens, which is imperfect but something.
We only travel by foot, bike, or car, including on vacations, which means that we either staycation or rent a cottage on a lake within a couple of hours of our place, which we're fortunate to have tons of options for. And we'll likely do a fair bit of camping this summer. But it does mean that we haven't seen our large extended family in France for three years, and I've spent only a few days with my sister in that same time, since she lives across the country and we've limited ourselves to outdoor visits when she's in town for work.
Our house was built in 1890, so it has great natural ventilation (designed for a wicked cross-breeze because they obviously didn't have AC), but we're having an ERV installed so that we know we're getting lots of fresh air into the house--our furnace doesn't currently pull air from outside.
We keep CO2 monitors clipped to our bags and skedaddle any time we're somewhere with terrible ventilation. And it helps us figure out places that we're okay with spending more time indoors even with one-way masking.
Outdoor family activities are thankfully plentiful and great around here. We spend lots of time at parks, the beach, and the wee zoo and farm run by our city. We also just bought a family membership for the big zoo--I have huge mixed feelings about zoos in general, but talking about those issues is good learning for our kid and it's a favourite (and safe) place for a little family adventure.
We don't eat out, even on patios. We'll get takeout to eat at home or on a picnic every once in awhile, but 99% of the time we cook at home. And that's been quite fun, since I'm a good cook and it's pushed me to work on building my repertoire in cuisines that we love but mostly ate out in the past (especially Korean, Japanese and Chinese).
And I'm on the board of a local non-profit that's going to be suing the government for failing to provide a safe learning environment in schools, and in the meantime is advocating for layered protections. It feels good to be doing something (hopefully) meaningful to make this shitshow better for other people.
I went through massive amounts of training during the cold war era on nuclear, biological and chemical attacks and what to do. It's not practical to run around in a MOP suit all day. I hated it every time we had to put one on due to a scare over a SCUD missile. Plus the other stuff they scared us with. Right now, all anyone can do is wear long sleeves, long pants/skirts, wear face masks every time you leave your house and disinfect when ever you return. During the hot, summer months, wear loose clothing much like the Arab world does to mitigate the heat. There are not enough military issue gas masks available for everyone so we will just have to do our best with what we have. The world is becoming more deadly to terrestrial life now because of what humans have and are doing to the biosphere. Now we have to live with the consequences, whether we were participants in the destruction or not.
I have the luxury of not going anywhere I don’t want to go (both my husband and I retired early during the pandemic). My children are college age and both attend a university, but both wear masks (kn95 and n95) everywhere.
My daughter has spent many weeks back home with us because her roommate has contracted multiple diseases over the last three years. She has air purifiers in her bedroom and the main living area of her apartment. The roomie doesn’t want one in her room (it’s noisy). We have an air purifier in every bedroom and one in the living room of our house. My husband and I wear a mask when in any “public” venue and we all test (RAT) when having anyone over, including when the kids come and go.
Both kids have maintained part time jobs in very public domains and attend in class classes. They have left classes and days on the job when someone is visibly ill and they can’t get away from them. They usually just say, they don’t feel well and leave.
We have eaten at restaurants with outdoor dining in both the EU and US, we try for seats up wind of others. I have been on four international flights and taken public transportation all over Europe and some US cities. I always wear an N95. I have started carrying extra masks, cough drops, and Delsum cough syrup (small bottles) when I am on public transport and offer all of the aforementioned to people visibly ill (ran out of supplies in October in Portugal). It is well received in the EU, not so much in the US.
I have always been a hand sanitizer and wet wipes person. My kids were trained when they could walk, to take their shoes off at the door and immediately wash their hands when they enter the house. They trained their friends when they started having friends over. We have all managed to stay well for the last three years, and I’m hoping it stays that way. 🤞
Omicron meant a permanent upgrade to the improved seal of P100 masks whenever I'm around others indoors, and also for extended close contacts outdoors. My N95s are now just for walking uncrowded sidewalks. My cloth masks and earloop-style KN95s/KF94s went into the trash this summer, so that I wouldn't ever be tempted to downgrade to masks that are now, sadly, not up to the job of preventing Omicron.
Now that no one else is masking here, there is one small upside: vented masks can be worn absolutely guilt-free in most situations. The vented masks reduce exhalation aerosols about as well (or as poorly) as a loose surgical mask, so my vented masks still affords unmasked others more protection than they're bothering to provide me. I save my unvented masks for medical visits, the rare delight of a "masks required" venue, and social/work meetings with people I care about.
Ok. I’ll go. Kn95 or n95 mask all indoor activities with public. Pick and choose those activities, for instance, currently no indoor basketball games with gkids. I did support them in outdoor soccer. Gave up university choir, gym, after hour film society in movie theatre, serving at homeless shelter. No bars, no restaurants unless outdoors and spaced. (Very rare though). I don’t mask with gkids unless they are sick. Risky I know but that’s where I fudge. Small circle of trusted like minded friends I entertain in my home mostly on the porch when weather permits - one couple at a time, unmasked. When I am unmasked with small circle of friends and gkids, I use Enovid nasal spray. (Reekooz website cheaper) Docs offices, ER, masked and Enovid. A couple of plane trips, double mask, Enovid. I’ve also used 100%silk scarf over my head/face on plane. Early on some research said 100% silk might be a helpful barrier. Don’t really know. At least people leave me alone. Lol. Attending church is disgusting to me. I have taken my devout elderly mother to make her happy in her last years but I can’t handle the hypocrisy there. No masks anywhere and every time we get the lecture about sanctity of life and protecting the most vulnerable among us. What a joke. Nobody wears a mask there except my mother and me. I’m the most pro life person there and I’m an atheist. Lol. Everybody sings. Ugh. It was crowded last week and with winter coming I won’t take her again for awhile. So far with the masking mainly and some very very good luck, I have not succumbed to an illness of any kind for 3 years.
Thanks for all your excellent, helpful, and entertaining writing!!!
We are a mid 70s couple with live-in older daughter/widow at home as full-time accounting student (mostly on-line). As much as possible I'm shelter-in-place. Use delivery services. Only in-person grocery shopping is very small Navy Commissary. Vax to max (5x so far). N95 masks. Just sent N95 masks to son & daughter in-law coming for Christmas (major concern). Haven't seen 98 yr old dad in over three years (major concern -- but he's doing well -- delivers meals on wheels!). MERV 13 filters in central HVAC with fan running 24/7. In it for the long-haul.
I purchased two HEPA filters (one Rabbit Air, one Bluair 2 that is being replaced today by a Coway Airmega (not because the Bluair is bad, but because the external prefilter is a cat hair magnet). I wear Draeger X-plore N95 respirators https://www.draeger.com/en-us_ca/Products/X-Plore-1700-NIOSH in all indoor locations, and outdoors too since it's flu season here. i had my third booster in October, bivalent Moderna. I stocked up on easy to prepare foods and supplies (toilet paper, cleaners) in case I take sick again. At least two months of food for me and the cats, and a water filter. I go to a few venues where I know the air filtration is good, and have given up eating out during cooler months. It's tough, because there are so many things I'd like to do. No travel. I haven't seen family memers in three years. Nothing is worth catching this thing again. Canada has gone to the stupid side, and it's going to be a bad winter.
N-95 in all public places. 3-M Aura preferred. My wife likes the CDN N-95 Eclipse Arc which fits her better. Moving toward elastomeric. Prescient-X Breathe seems to be a popular Canadian model. All vaccines up to date including bivalent. Hand sanitize regularly. RAT testing before very small family social activities. Flowflex is preferred brand due to use in film industry. Try to space social interactions by 3-5 days so that if someone is infected they might show symptoms. Cycle or walk to work to avoid public transit. Try to avoid environments with high CO2 readings if possible. No theatres, live music, large gatherings, conventions, parties etc. Work from home 3 days per week. Work from office two days. Corsi-Rosenthal at home and work. Request negative RAT from friends and family before interacting.
I'm surrounded by people who think the pandemic is over and who refuse to wear masks indoors. Our numbers in Los Angeles County (and Orange County) have been shooting up for a month now and it's beyond frustrating. I stay home a lot more than I care to because I prefer not to be attacked as a "Communist sympathizer" and I don't want their germs.
I'm so fortunate to have a profession that was hardly affected at all by the Pandemic. I'm a professional housekeeper and almost all my clients are immune-compromised. They either have serious health problems or are over the age of 90. When I work in private homes there are never more than two people in the house and they are isolated and very cautious. My efforts not to get Covid (so far) have been enhanced by my personal responsibility not to kill my clients and friends.
Like many here, I've gone to curbside grocery and pharmacy pickup and NO exposure to people indoors. On rare occasions I go to the library or a dollar store, fully N95-masked. Well, somehow I messed up anyway. I have a lung-specific flu that I picked up somehow. I've tested several times for Covid; it's not. I am well aware that it could just as easily have been Covid and am VERY annoyed.
Wife and I both work at home and avoid all indoor venues unless medically necessary. My parents bubble with us, and they also work at home and avoid all indoor venues unless medically necessary. Kid goes to school with a KF95 taped to her face and fake glasses, and we take her out for lunch every day so she doesn’t have to unmask at school. We only socialize outdoors with masks on, and even that not very often. I personally mask any time I set foot outside the house; the rest of my family doesn’t, but we do wear masks for taking the kid to the playground. I use Enovid spray twice daily. My wife and parents use it occasionally.
I got something last year when I wasn’t this careful, and it left me with a permanent irritation in my throat. I never tested positive for COVID, but I’m reasonably sure it was that. I honestly don’t want another go around at this.
Some extraneous but recent upgrades to other pandemic life changes (K/N95+ masking the moment I leave my apartment/car, not socializing indoors ever, not flying, mostly not entering stores except at very weird low-traffic hours like 30 minutes before a staff-masks grocery closes, etc.):
Relying heavily on outdoor options like farmers markets and food trucks when possible to buy produce, supplies, and meals that feel like a small treat. Includes masking at the open-air markets where it's impossible to distance. (The last grocery near me offering curbside recently ended the program so I have even more limited options!)
Eating at weird hours (i.e. dinner at 4pm) so I can sit on a restaurant/cafe patio and be the only person there. Mask if I have to order indoors/at a counter close to staff.
Researching/relying on rest areas when possible if I drive somewhere a bit far away from home. I'm a woman and I have a peeing funnel (the pStyle, which I recommend) to make it easier to pull over anywhere. Mask in any public restroom I am willing to use, which is pretty much limited to well-ventilated facilities at parks and the occasional portable toilet at a nature reserve. Cemeteries, parks and beaches tend to have free, unlocked restrooms the public can use without being questioned.
No longer stay in hotels, only cottages/cabins/fancy motels where I do not share indoor air/hvac. I have become skilled at finding nice remote spots to visit and enjoy nature, and I don't have to stay home 24/7/365.
Got into outdoor hobbies like bird watching to replace all the indoor options totally closed off to me now. Have a giant screen and projector so I watch movies at home like I used to at the cinema (only better curated stuff now!). Slowly becoming a better cook, years after everyone else figured this out. I guess I'll get there when it comes to baking bread!
Californian here so that factors into the privilege of mostly staying outdoors in all seasons.
Where do U.S. folks buy their Enovid? (And what makes you seek it out as a preventative?)
I've had 5 vaccinations, wear an N95 whenever I leave the house, and, if I have to be in a meeting, I also have a Smart Air portable HEPA that blows on my face and an X ONE far UVC. I believe the mask works to prevent 95% of transmission, but I'm not completely sold on the mini-HEPA or far UVC, so they're more like my magic charms. I also use Enovid spray before and after events as well as gargle with mouthwash directly after. So far, 2/3 of my kids and myself have remained Covid-free despite all of us going to work or school in person with mainly unmasked people.
Hard to add anything useful in respect to masks, but I have found that rolls of 12mm x 3mm self adhesive draught excluder, are a great hack for sealing unruly respirators or hard to wear nose bridges.
Alpha Solway XL masks (head & neck loops, N99%/ffp3) have no foam but are large enough to accommodate a beard or large/angular faces or to chew gum without breaking the seal, once the draught excluder hack has been used.
For the past month, I stayed in Tiya, a tiny town about 140 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa. In this town, with about five thousand people in it, where my grandparents were born, where my 93-year-old grandma still lives, when you enter into someone’s home, vapor coming from an olive tree penetrates your nose.
In someone’s home, in Tiya, usually there is some incense on the fire on which coffee is cooked, enveloping the inside of the room with a nice smelling smoke. Since the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to masking, the locals here burn the branch of an olive tree and use the incense as air purifier. The locals can’t afford to buy air purifiers for their home. When I talked to them almost all the locals I talked to, including my grandma, have not even heard of air purifiers. When you ask these locals why they are using incense every time people come to their home, they tell you it helps in getting rid off the virus.
I couldn’t find any scientific proof that the vapor coming from an olive tree kills germs and viruses in the air, but even my mama, who lives in Addis Ababa, uses the incense when family members (more than 2 or 3 people) come to her home.
The situation here in the UK is dire. It helps that we don't have family nor children so it's only us in the house without anyone visiting, but what a depressing thought to be happy about this. Barely any masks in sight, everyone is sick in a way or another, kids started to die from Strep A invasive infections, nurses and ambulance staff going on strike.
Thanks for your great column which is super informative &, perhaps more importantly, helping me keep sane in this time of overwhelming insanity! This thread of suggestions is also a great idea. Does anyone have any tips for a good air filter for travelling in Europe? I've been trying to get a SmartAir QT3 but there seems to be a hold-up in production.
Work from home, homeschooling (free virtual public charter), deliveries or curbside only. Will absolutely not get on a plane for any reason. No restaurants. A handful of friends with kids the same age who isolate at the same level we do. We do the occasional masked, outdoor playdate-or possibly without masks if none of us have had any public interactions within 2 weeks. Working on building a zero covid off-grid community. Have no desire to be a part of mainstream society anymore-a place of cold, uncaring and just downright sick (in all senses of the word) people.
We only socialize outdoors (masked a/o distanced) so I bought lots of different winter clothes and Under The Weather pop up pods for staying warm while hanging out outdoors.
Cheerful masklab masks for outdoor gatherings, and I'm trying out flomask for indoor doctor appointments and trips to the pharmacy. I made Corsi rosenthal boxes for my sister's classrooms, have switched entirely to online work myself, and found online replacements for almost all my social activities. I'm still looking for truly covid-cautious dentists.
I'm going to get an app about Revolution crowdfunded. Then, I'm going to lead the Revolution. Once in office, if I make it that far, I'm going to sequester all politicians and we are going to create better laws. I'm going to sequester them for months on end with no contact to the outside World, until we completely Reform everything. Any politician refusing to participate will be held in contempt of Congress and will spend the rest of their life in prison, with no contact to the outside World.
We will draft better laws about Banking, Credit, Housing, Real Estate, Education, Corporate Taxation, Corporate espionage, Cyber Warfare, Tax evasion, Fraud, Theft, deferred profits, Media, Land rights, Water rights, Air rights, Energy, Sustainability, Unions, Labor Laws, Healthcare, Defense spending, Secret Societies, Stock trading, Prisons, Courts, Policing, Non-Profits, Drugs, Transparency, Patents, and Trade. Among the better Patent laws, there will be laws that require Patents, data, and research regarding deadly pandemic viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi to be free and open source. Also, gain of function research will be completely illegal. I probably won't make it to the White Haus, but I'll gladly die trying. Some dreams are worth dying for and I will not go silently. Fuck Pfizer. Fuck Moderna. Fuck JP Morgan & Chase Co. Fucking Fuck Wells Fargo. Revolution is long overdue. I dare anyone to disagree with me. I dare everyone to do better. Here is my dream about how to Revolution: www.humbledeeds.com
I am so grateful to have found your blog and like-minded people paying attention and staying safe! Thanks for everyone sharing. I had not heard of copper rescue and Enovid, which I have now ordered both to add to my arsenal. Does anyone have any issues to report by using Enovid? I have read the clinical studies, articles, interviews and am pretty stunned by the optimistic outlook of this product! I am being forced back-to-office next week (3 days a week) after working from home since 2020. The fact they picked next week while we have post holiday and XBB surge is mind-blowing. And they are scheduling all kinds of social activities that encourage eating together! WTF!!! It is like all CEO's are bound together in the this mass gaslighting of "covid is over". I know I will most definitely be possibly the only masker at the office, but they are looking for forced socialization that I now will have to seriously up my protection game. I want to start using Enovid and it seems safe from what I read, but would love to hear if anyone here had any side effects / issues from using it? Thanks for sharing in advance!
And PS - for me, in addition to vax, masking, testing, air filtration, and social discipline/restraint - we also still alcohol wipe groceries and packages! I am a big believer that the vax-only approach is barely safe. I knew this when DELTA hit Summer of 2021 and when they reported the Provincetown, RI outbreak where all vaxxed people became infected. That was the moment I realized we would be perma-maskers. It is not sustainable to be vaxxed every 4-6 months, which seems to be the lasting period of vax effectiveness. But no one around me seems to believe this!
Hey yall- looking at best masks to wear when moving/sweating/working out. Wondering if something like masqd that includes reuseable filters is safe enough, or if I should just invest in more n95s? Id prefer not to do that due to waste (typically I circulate) and would appreciate knowing what others are doing. Any alternative recommendations are truly appreciated; thank you so much.
I've been hearing nothing in the MSM about what is happening in Japan. They only write about China.
At this time, Japan and South Korea have the highest infection and death rate from covid 19 in the world, possibly because they are counting the cases accurately.
This article is dated December 19. There is another article about apparently healthy Japanese children dying, on the same site.
I'm single & live with my elderly mother so I've been taking precautions from the get go. As time's gone on, my mitigations have been for myself as much as for her since I got Lyme Disease in July 2021 and the 3 weeks of doxycycline apparently didn't do a thorough job. The Covid booster unfortunately messed with the dormant Lyme which caused it to flare up for nearly a gd year. So I'm leaning heavily on N95s and keeping to my innate avoidance of people because I'm done with the shots (and wasn't keen on getting the booster anyway). Even though my coworkers prance about unmasked, the office is large enough so that I've managed to avoid getting it while most of them have caught it at some point or another. Because of my weird face shape, I wear a surgical mask under an N95 to fill out the small gaps. So far, so good for the past 1 1/2 years of that set up. If I can make it through the next 7 1/2 years of the Pandemicene (nice word btw), then I can bail on the job and retreat to my house on the hill & maybe enjoy a few years of retirement before complete societal collapse. But who tf knows anymore. I can't talk about any of this with my coworkers because they're hardcore vaxxed and relaxed to the point of getting infected and learning nothing from the experience. They'll just run out and get another booster as soon as they can so they can maintain their illusion of normal.
I'm in Minnesota in the Metro Twin Cities. Even with the more progressive urban population, I would estimate that 25% or fewer mask indoors, eg grocery stores and other shopping areas. Most medical offices still require masking; it seems that dentists have now moved to optional. They seem to believe that they "know how to handle infection control." Mayo Clinics was leading the way on mitigation efforts. I have colleagues that work there; easier this year when Omicron hit, some of their staff had become lax and almost every department was hit by COVID. I know people in SLP/ENT department; they've just thrown up their hands and say that "eventually everyone will get it, and then we'll be over it." I know too many people with "long Covid" symptoms; I refuse to accept just getting over it.
I am fortunate that I can limit social contact (no small kids or grandkids). I mask everywhere and try to stick to large indoor areas with ventilation (not adequate I know, but better than nothing). No one comes into the house without prior testing or masking. I was nonplussed in my recent dentist visit; their office has a mask optional policy now (our area is listed as medium risk by the CDC tracker now). I'm feeling that there is a lot of "giving up" and "just accept it" now, even from healthcare professionals who should know better. My small circle of clients and friends are still showing up with cases of COVID and mystery URI's. I don't think we've come up with any magic bullets yet for self-protection. Control of personal environment (as much as possible), limited social contact, masking with (N95 or NK95 or better), and updating boosters seems to be our tools for now.
I got a Coway filter to upgrade one in the living room that my cat had discovered how to sit on and turn off. The Blue 211 is excellent if you don't have cats. I gave it to my neighbor who has a dog. The Rabbitair filter is in the bedroom. The apartment has good air quality.
Excluding vaccinations, a properly fitted mask is without a doubt the most effective, in terms of cost and protection. Such a simple tool is so easily rendered useless without some basic but required guidelines.
Mask Type:
My wife uses the 3M Aura (#9205) and I use the 3M #9502 (good job 3M on using very similar number system?!).
> The light blue surgeon's type mask offer 5-10% protection at best, only if it's completely sealed - in other words they're useless.
> Leave out the KN95 (KN = made in China).
Mask Form - Get it right or you're at risk, don't underestimate importance:
An improper fitting mask makes it completely irrelevant. Ever tried swimming with a leaking scuba mask? Doesn't take long before you need to refit/fix. It's instantaneous with a mask. Many shapes and forms available to fit different face shapes.
Test Your Mask Fit:
Do some quick tests to learn how to fit them properly: in a bathroom, blow out a candle. Not ideal/perfect I know (and yes, some smoke particles and odour particles are small than 0,3micons) but if you can smell anything "quickly", chances are it's not a tight seal. See CDC YT for guidance:
In my opinion, outside vaccines and mask (obviously excluding not gathering at all with others), filers are just creating a dangerous false sense of security and possibly wasting effort and funds where they could be better focused.
For example and not to rain on anyone's parade, portable room air filters are too underpowered to make an changeable impact. The issue is not the filtration aspect. It's their very low capacity to move a lot of air through the filter quickly enough.
Let's take the 6000cuft unit listed above as a use case. It would take over 30 minutes for all the air of a regular classroom size to go through the machine. The first problem, this assumes the door is closed, no leaks anywhere, and no other air sources (which is not the case) to disrupt air movement of the filter machine.
Let's look at it in a complete nonsensical way/theory (my engineering teacher would have my head to even suggest such an idea). Again, perfectly sealed room with zero air movement except for what the air filter machine causes. Also, let assume the sky is pink and each little air molecule have their turn to go into the machine and out again just like water in a Jacuzzi tub. Well, in this unreal scenario, the air surrounding a student sitting at the back of the room would only start to breath filtered air in roughly 20-30 minutes. That's a very long time, plenty of time for a virus to do its deed.
There are plenty of videos that shows graphically the air movement in a room. You can't believe how quickly a particle moves from one side of the room to the other (don't forget, most rooms have ceiling vents mixing the air like a giant blender).
We've been trying to research another good air purifier to add to our kid's school. We wound up going with a wall-mounted HEPA filter from Rabbit Air (the MinusA2). It's pretty expensive, but we wanted something we could mount higher than your standard air purifier to help boost air circulation, based on what we've been reading about ventilation, etc. It has good reviews. The clean air delivery rate (CADR) is a little lower than floor units, but it's supposed to purify 6,000 cubic feet of air in 30 minutes. In addition to masking and distancing (except for school), we're also doing Copper Rescue and Enovid for our noses. Since we're still the only people we know who mask, heading into a horrendous viral season, we're having to get creative and try things out. We'll see how these additional measures help.
Links:
https://www.rabbitair.com/
https://copperrescue.com/
https://sanotize.com/virx-enovid/
A quick disclaimer: The jury is still out on Enovid and Copper Rescue. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. Evovid is backed by research. It’s not available in the U.S. because the FDA/CDC isn’t convinced it's effective or safe enough, but it’s available in other countries and has been approved for use. My family has adopted them both as a last resort, since nobody around us is taking precautions. They’re not a substitute for masks, vaccines, distancing, ventilation, or air purifiers. Anyone under 12 should not be using either one of them. Finally, I don’t accept money for recommending products or services. There’s an easy way to tell. Most bloggers and podcasters who recommend products will send you to a special affiliate link with a different URL from the standard site. I never use affiliate links.
We moved from Connecticut to South Carolina. Fewer people wear masks, but we are able to do more outside. We now homeschool our daughter and my wife started an outdoor homeschool cooperative by the beach that runs all year long. I think the hardest but most important thing we do is show our daughter how to deal with peer pressure. Most people around us think we're crazy, just a bunch of northern liberals overreacting and they stare when we wear masks to go inside places. We have to show our daughter how little we care about the opinion of others in order to do what we believe is in the best interest of our health. Your writing helps remind us that we may be odd, but we ain't stupid.
Invested in an Aranet4 CO2 Monitor to gauge shared air. I wear my KN95 mask indoors outside my home. I don't eat in restaurants, and avoid gatherings that are with larger groups indoors, especially those centered around eating (Thanksgiving, etc). I test before seeing people, even outdoors. I ask folks to test before seeing me, though many will not. I've set boundaries that many don't like or understand, but I want to stay healthy and avoid Long Covid. I'm up to date on all boosters and thankfully am privileged to work from home and not have a ton of exposure risk for work or family. Unfortunately, I think it'll be a long time before we travel any measurable distance again, certainly not by plane. We missed so many trips we had hoped to take in the last few years, but it's not worth it to me to wind up potentially disabled.
We're medically vulnerable for many reasons, so we recognized early that we were on our own with preventative strategies. The goal was always to not get sick in the first place.
My husband was going to the Cleveland Clinic in late 2019, and we believe, in retrospect, he caught it ( had all the symptoms before most of us even knew what they were) it hit him hard for months and months.
Determined not to get it again. We both do pickup and online shopping for almost everything. We wear well fitted elastomeric n95 or p100 respirators every time we're ever out, which isn't often. We use a nose spray with iodine before donning mask.
We see people outside. No inside dining, gym, restaurants, hairdressers. We only go for medical appointments where offices are masked.
We've skipped ER visits for stitches and a serious spider bite because we couldn't risk sitting in a crowded area for hours with infectious, unmasked people everywhere.
We're lucky we can do this, and unlucky we have to. Pretty certain infection for either of us would be disastrous.
I'm vaccinated and boosted. Husband is not because he has a condition that makes vaccines useless and another condition that makes vaccines dangerous.
It's not fun. No one loves wearing a mask or living like a recluse. I miss a lot of socializing and just being in crowds. But when I contemplate the possibility of disability or worse, I feel we're on the right track.
More than anything, we're hopeful there will soon be a better vaccine available and more effective treatments. We're playing the long game. We recognize that dealing with the damage even mild acute infections cause isn't worth a party or a dinner inside.
I used to travel a lot before the pandemic--enough to garner elite status--but I haven't been on a plane since the pandemic began. Now that there are no mask mandates on any public transportation, is an N95 or KN95 mask enough to protect me if I'm sitting next to someone with COVID? I know people who have travelled with COVID but haven't worn a mask because "it's uncomfortable." I have fully vaxed friends who traveled by plane, took off their masks to eat or drink, and after arriving home, tested positive for COVID, infecting others in their household. I feel betrayed by the government, the airlines, and people who just don't care about those of us who are older and immunocompromised. I don't have to travel, but if I did, I don't know what I'd do. Mask? Goggles? Hazmat suit?
I only leave the house to go to work where I mask and eat dinner outside. Luckily, I work in a factory on second shift (3pm-11pm) that has 40 ft ceilings and constant airflow with everyone spread out. No socializing except with my wife and son, and my best friend since childhood is my supervisor, so I see him everyday at work. I have had all vaccinations up through the bivalent booster. All my shopping is done online and groceries are delivered. At home, I have 4 small/medium HEPA filters running. Still COVID free (as far as I know), and since I already have kidney damage, asthma, and am on 2 blood pressure medications, I want to keep it that way as long as possible.
N 99 anytime I enter a building you probably won’t ever see me gathering with people again I will never eat inside of a restaurant I think as time goes on they’re going to slide the word COVID-19 into the background in order to make us try to forget they’re not connecting the dots we know Covid is out there yet they’ll see some celebrity die and they’ll go. Oh that’s too sad or a neighbor will die oh that’s too bad or a young mother? Oh my gosh what a shame but they’re not looking at the effects that Covid has if you get Covid ,within the next 12 to 18 months after your initial infection cancers are popping up children are dying from Different organ failures, so are adults so as long as I live the rest of my life, I will wear a mask inside of any store I go into which is very few. I will take all the precautions for the remaining portion of my life as I take now in hopes to God that I can live a little bit longer for my children .
I had the privilege of working from home for the first two years and my husband had always worked from home. We were pretty isolated until we got our first vaccine shots. Then we did a few things cautiously but every time the numbers start to go up, we curtail any activities that would expose us. This year seems particularly hard because everyone we know has gotten it and act like it's no big deal. I'm exhausted trying to explain the fact that I'm not just avoiding the initial infection so much as Long Covid and the damage it could do to my brain or vascular system. I don't want to take the risk. They say health is the most important thing but I see too many folks thinking that they are invincible. You are only lucky and fortunate until the day you are not. Keep masking and taking care of yourselves folks. We are entering a new future and we aren't all in this together. That's just bullshit and we all know it.
This thread is so inspiring, thank you all. We are a family with two girls, 1 and 6. Three years ago I was touring the world playing music, and for the last three I’ve been an unexpected homeschool dad in dystopia. The only ones we know masking, not visiting restaurants, stores, or non-essential indoor visits. Partner works from home, and as a wedding DJ, fully N95’d up with HEPA fans blazing in me at events with a strong preference for semi-outdoor venues. The irony of being as careful as we are while also having that as my job is not lost on me, but I am fully welcoming being observed as “the freak” if I’m able to still work a safe as I can be with all the tools of privilege available to me. With Covid given to us in the summer from a family member who lied about quarantining before terms of an agreed upon meet up, and it awakening mono for the last 4 months as a result of activated Epstein Barr, nothing is worth that again.
Like many of you, the mourning of community and collectivism of care is something I fully grieve, and daily work hard on knowing there was before, and there is now.  Not comfortable on planes until God knows when with no safety mitigation put in place, we have been exploring the purchase of a class B van to adventure safely on our own terms avoiding hotels and restaurants. Again, I fully recognize this is not a privilege many have the luxury of entertaining and so I’m very thankful that there might be an answer in showing my kids the world safely in that way, albeit a world that doesn’t care enough to take the basic measures of public safety at the moment.  And I say at the moment, because of more and more I fully believe that they will be a reckoning where everyone who isn’t acknowledging our current reality is going to have to learn how to do this all over again due to an even more hardcore variant, or other. Maybe then we will try something different. Love and solidarity in your care of self and others to all.
I am still isolating. I do not go out except to exercise (I work from home) and I make sure to take routes where there is a lower chance of encountering people. I live alone, don't know anyone where I live, and have not seen my family or friends since just before covid. I don't know if or when I'll see them (or anyone else) again. The loneliness is becoming harder and hard to manage. I do not have the resources to manage a long-term disability and, frankly, I just do not want to get sick. Most of my friends understand my position. My family, less so.
All shopping is done online and groceries are delivered or picked up curbside. Anything that can be transferred into a different container, including all cold/frozen foods, are repackaged before being put in the fridge/freezer or pantry. For things that don't necessarily go in a container (eggs, fresh veg), they go in a basket in the fridge that nothing else touches to wait until I feel ok using the food. This is all done wearing gloves. Non-perishables that can't be transferred (canned good, etc) are left for at least a week (I buy pretty far ahead) and sprayed with Lysol before use.
There are some medical issues I need to have addressed but have put off for years due to not feeling safe indoors. Now, it's even worse, because even a lot of medical offices are acting as if covid is over and not requiring masks. I need to go to the dentist as well and I don't know how I'm going to manage that.
I'm seeing some people mention nasal sprays and mouthwashes. I'd like more (evidence-based) information about those if anyone wants to link.
Everything I do is with covid mitigation in mind. I am heartened to read about others who are actually taking precautions for both themselves and others. It seems we are in the very small minority. No one is even talking about covid anymore. It's as if it no longer exists. This pandemic, and the non-response by both the government and by so many fellow citizens, has been and continues to be traumatic.
I never go into a public space with lots of people without a mask. It feels a little weird because so many people are not masked. But, I do voice over and acting, I get a cold or worse, I don't work. I have sinus problems so even a cold affects me for weeks!
We wear respirators indoors and out any time we're not at home--my spouse and I wear Breathes, our kiddo wears a FloMask.
We have a large and two mini Corsi boxes at home for times when people need to come in/over, or if one of us suspects we might be getting sick--but we only have outdoor visits with friends and fam in the backyard, so they're mostly for if we need a tradesperson to come fix something, etc.
I started working from home in March 2020, and moved from my old role (which was originally in-person, and came along with a ton of pressure to go back to the office) to a 100% remote one. I don't think I'll ever go back to a hybrid role--I really like WFH life, and I have very little trust in any institution to make its workplace safe for employees. I work in healthcare, which you think would be doing a good job, but absolutely not.
While my job is WFH, we do have a big annual summit that's in-person at a convention centre. But since I've been up front with my new team that I won't participate if it isn't safe, and that we have a responsibility to keep everyone coming safe, I've worked to put a heck ton of COVID precautions in place and make sure that the meeting is hybrid for folks who can't or won't attend.
My spouse was supposed to go back to work after taking parental leave in Fall 2019 and Winter 2020, but we all know what happened then. We decided to keep our kid out of daycare until he could be fully vaccinated, and by that point he was old enough for JK. He attended JK for about a month, outdoors only while we waited for his third Pfizer dose. And then, the week after he got his third dose, he caught COVID at school--outside, and masked. When the school refused to put any additional mitigation efforts in place we pulled him, so my spouse is homeschooling for the foreseeable future. We're fortunate that we've gotten used to living on one income since our kid was born four years ago, but homeschooling is definitely not my spouse's idea of a job he'd love to have. And yet, we don't feel like we have an alternative right now, so we're just trucking along best we can.
We're also fortunate that we have at least a little child care in the form of my parents, who are retired and able to make their activities very low risk so that we can safely have our kid spend some time with his grandparents. Everyone tests before that happens, which is imperfect but something.
We only travel by foot, bike, or car, including on vacations, which means that we either staycation or rent a cottage on a lake within a couple of hours of our place, which we're fortunate to have tons of options for. And we'll likely do a fair bit of camping this summer. But it does mean that we haven't seen our large extended family in France for three years, and I've spent only a few days with my sister in that same time, since she lives across the country and we've limited ourselves to outdoor visits when she's in town for work.
Our house was built in 1890, so it has great natural ventilation (designed for a wicked cross-breeze because they obviously didn't have AC), but we're having an ERV installed so that we know we're getting lots of fresh air into the house--our furnace doesn't currently pull air from outside.
We keep CO2 monitors clipped to our bags and skedaddle any time we're somewhere with terrible ventilation. And it helps us figure out places that we're okay with spending more time indoors even with one-way masking.
Outdoor family activities are thankfully plentiful and great around here. We spend lots of time at parks, the beach, and the wee zoo and farm run by our city. We also just bought a family membership for the big zoo--I have huge mixed feelings about zoos in general, but talking about those issues is good learning for our kid and it's a favourite (and safe) place for a little family adventure.
We don't eat out, even on patios. We'll get takeout to eat at home or on a picnic every once in awhile, but 99% of the time we cook at home. And that's been quite fun, since I'm a good cook and it's pushed me to work on building my repertoire in cuisines that we love but mostly ate out in the past (especially Korean, Japanese and Chinese).
And I'm on the board of a local non-profit that's going to be suing the government for failing to provide a safe learning environment in schools, and in the meantime is advocating for layered protections. It feels good to be doing something (hopefully) meaningful to make this shitshow better for other people.
I went through massive amounts of training during the cold war era on nuclear, biological and chemical attacks and what to do. It's not practical to run around in a MOP suit all day. I hated it every time we had to put one on due to a scare over a SCUD missile. Plus the other stuff they scared us with. Right now, all anyone can do is wear long sleeves, long pants/skirts, wear face masks every time you leave your house and disinfect when ever you return. During the hot, summer months, wear loose clothing much like the Arab world does to mitigate the heat. There are not enough military issue gas masks available for everyone so we will just have to do our best with what we have. The world is becoming more deadly to terrestrial life now because of what humans have and are doing to the biosphere. Now we have to live with the consequences, whether we were participants in the destruction or not.
I have the luxury of not going anywhere I don’t want to go (both my husband and I retired early during the pandemic). My children are college age and both attend a university, but both wear masks (kn95 and n95) everywhere.
My daughter has spent many weeks back home with us because her roommate has contracted multiple diseases over the last three years. She has air purifiers in her bedroom and the main living area of her apartment. The roomie doesn’t want one in her room (it’s noisy). We have an air purifier in every bedroom and one in the living room of our house. My husband and I wear a mask when in any “public” venue and we all test (RAT) when having anyone over, including when the kids come and go.
Both kids have maintained part time jobs in very public domains and attend in class classes. They have left classes and days on the job when someone is visibly ill and they can’t get away from them. They usually just say, they don’t feel well and leave.
We have eaten at restaurants with outdoor dining in both the EU and US, we try for seats up wind of others. I have been on four international flights and taken public transportation all over Europe and some US cities. I always wear an N95. I have started carrying extra masks, cough drops, and Delsum cough syrup (small bottles) when I am on public transport and offer all of the aforementioned to people visibly ill (ran out of supplies in October in Portugal). It is well received in the EU, not so much in the US.
I have always been a hand sanitizer and wet wipes person. My kids were trained when they could walk, to take their shoes off at the door and immediately wash their hands when they enter the house. They trained their friends when they started having friends over. We have all managed to stay well for the last three years, and I’m hoping it stays that way. 🤞
Omicron meant a permanent upgrade to the improved seal of P100 masks whenever I'm around others indoors, and also for extended close contacts outdoors. My N95s are now just for walking uncrowded sidewalks. My cloth masks and earloop-style KN95s/KF94s went into the trash this summer, so that I wouldn't ever be tempted to downgrade to masks that are now, sadly, not up to the job of preventing Omicron.
Now that no one else is masking here, there is one small upside: vented masks can be worn absolutely guilt-free in most situations. The vented masks reduce exhalation aerosols about as well (or as poorly) as a loose surgical mask, so my vented masks still affords unmasked others more protection than they're bothering to provide me. I save my unvented masks for medical visits, the rare delight of a "masks required" venue, and social/work meetings with people I care about.
Ok. I’ll go. Kn95 or n95 mask all indoor activities with public. Pick and choose those activities, for instance, currently no indoor basketball games with gkids. I did support them in outdoor soccer. Gave up university choir, gym, after hour film society in movie theatre, serving at homeless shelter. No bars, no restaurants unless outdoors and spaced. (Very rare though). I don’t mask with gkids unless they are sick. Risky I know but that’s where I fudge. Small circle of trusted like minded friends I entertain in my home mostly on the porch when weather permits - one couple at a time, unmasked. When I am unmasked with small circle of friends and gkids, I use Enovid nasal spray. (Reekooz website cheaper) Docs offices, ER, masked and Enovid. A couple of plane trips, double mask, Enovid. I’ve also used 100%silk scarf over my head/face on plane. Early on some research said 100% silk might be a helpful barrier. Don’t really know. At least people leave me alone. Lol. Attending church is disgusting to me. I have taken my devout elderly mother to make her happy in her last years but I can’t handle the hypocrisy there. No masks anywhere and every time we get the lecture about sanctity of life and protecting the most vulnerable among us. What a joke. Nobody wears a mask there except my mother and me. I’m the most pro life person there and I’m an atheist. Lol. Everybody sings. Ugh. It was crowded last week and with winter coming I won’t take her again for awhile. So far with the masking mainly and some very very good luck, I have not succumbed to an illness of any kind for 3 years.
Thanks for all your excellent, helpful, and entertaining writing!!!
We are a mid 70s couple with live-in older daughter/widow at home as full-time accounting student (mostly on-line). As much as possible I'm shelter-in-place. Use delivery services. Only in-person grocery shopping is very small Navy Commissary. Vax to max (5x so far). N95 masks. Just sent N95 masks to son & daughter in-law coming for Christmas (major concern). Haven't seen 98 yr old dad in over three years (major concern -- but he's doing well -- delivers meals on wheels!). MERV 13 filters in central HVAC with fan running 24/7. In it for the long-haul.
I purchased two HEPA filters (one Rabbit Air, one Bluair 2 that is being replaced today by a Coway Airmega (not because the Bluair is bad, but because the external prefilter is a cat hair magnet). I wear Draeger X-plore N95 respirators https://www.draeger.com/en-us_ca/Products/X-Plore-1700-NIOSH in all indoor locations, and outdoors too since it's flu season here. i had my third booster in October, bivalent Moderna. I stocked up on easy to prepare foods and supplies (toilet paper, cleaners) in case I take sick again. At least two months of food for me and the cats, and a water filter. I go to a few venues where I know the air filtration is good, and have given up eating out during cooler months. It's tough, because there are so many things I'd like to do. No travel. I haven't seen family memers in three years. Nothing is worth catching this thing again. Canada has gone to the stupid side, and it's going to be a bad winter.
N-95 in all public places. 3-M Aura preferred. My wife likes the CDN N-95 Eclipse Arc which fits her better. Moving toward elastomeric. Prescient-X Breathe seems to be a popular Canadian model. All vaccines up to date including bivalent. Hand sanitize regularly. RAT testing before very small family social activities. Flowflex is preferred brand due to use in film industry. Try to space social interactions by 3-5 days so that if someone is infected they might show symptoms. Cycle or walk to work to avoid public transit. Try to avoid environments with high CO2 readings if possible. No theatres, live music, large gatherings, conventions, parties etc. Work from home 3 days per week. Work from office two days. Corsi-Rosenthal at home and work. Request negative RAT from friends and family before interacting.
Get vaccinated! Stay up-to-date on your boosters!
I'm surrounded by people who think the pandemic is over and who refuse to wear masks indoors. Our numbers in Los Angeles County (and Orange County) have been shooting up for a month now and it's beyond frustrating. I stay home a lot more than I care to because I prefer not to be attacked as a "Communist sympathizer" and I don't want their germs.
Please check out the Corsi-Rosenthal DIY air filter. You can make one for $60; great STEM or STEAM project!
Science in Action: How to Build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box | College of Engineering
https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/science-action-how-build-corsi-rosenthal-box
I'm so fortunate to have a profession that was hardly affected at all by the Pandemic. I'm a professional housekeeper and almost all my clients are immune-compromised. They either have serious health problems or are over the age of 90. When I work in private homes there are never more than two people in the house and they are isolated and very cautious. My efforts not to get Covid (so far) have been enhanced by my personal responsibility not to kill my clients and friends.
Like many here, I've gone to curbside grocery and pharmacy pickup and NO exposure to people indoors. On rare occasions I go to the library or a dollar store, fully N95-masked. Well, somehow I messed up anyway. I have a lung-specific flu that I picked up somehow. I've tested several times for Covid; it's not. I am well aware that it could just as easily have been Covid and am VERY annoyed.
Wife and I both work at home and avoid all indoor venues unless medically necessary. My parents bubble with us, and they also work at home and avoid all indoor venues unless medically necessary. Kid goes to school with a KF95 taped to her face and fake glasses, and we take her out for lunch every day so she doesn’t have to unmask at school. We only socialize outdoors with masks on, and even that not very often. I personally mask any time I set foot outside the house; the rest of my family doesn’t, but we do wear masks for taking the kid to the playground. I use Enovid spray twice daily. My wife and parents use it occasionally.
I got something last year when I wasn’t this careful, and it left me with a permanent irritation in my throat. I never tested positive for COVID, but I’m reasonably sure it was that. I honestly don’t want another go around at this.
Some extraneous but recent upgrades to other pandemic life changes (K/N95+ masking the moment I leave my apartment/car, not socializing indoors ever, not flying, mostly not entering stores except at very weird low-traffic hours like 30 minutes before a staff-masks grocery closes, etc.):
Relying heavily on outdoor options like farmers markets and food trucks when possible to buy produce, supplies, and meals that feel like a small treat. Includes masking at the open-air markets where it's impossible to distance. (The last grocery near me offering curbside recently ended the program so I have even more limited options!)
Eating at weird hours (i.e. dinner at 4pm) so I can sit on a restaurant/cafe patio and be the only person there. Mask if I have to order indoors/at a counter close to staff.
Researching/relying on rest areas when possible if I drive somewhere a bit far away from home. I'm a woman and I have a peeing funnel (the pStyle, which I recommend) to make it easier to pull over anywhere. Mask in any public restroom I am willing to use, which is pretty much limited to well-ventilated facilities at parks and the occasional portable toilet at a nature reserve. Cemeteries, parks and beaches tend to have free, unlocked restrooms the public can use without being questioned.
No longer stay in hotels, only cottages/cabins/fancy motels where I do not share indoor air/hvac. I have become skilled at finding nice remote spots to visit and enjoy nature, and I don't have to stay home 24/7/365.
Got into outdoor hobbies like bird watching to replace all the indoor options totally closed off to me now. Have a giant screen and projector so I watch movies at home like I used to at the cinema (only better curated stuff now!). Slowly becoming a better cook, years after everyone else figured this out. I guess I'll get there when it comes to baking bread!
Californian here so that factors into the privilege of mostly staying outdoors in all seasons.
Where do U.S. folks buy their Enovid? (And what makes you seek it out as a preventative?)
I've had 5 vaccinations, wear an N95 whenever I leave the house, and, if I have to be in a meeting, I also have a Smart Air portable HEPA that blows on my face and an X ONE far UVC. I believe the mask works to prevent 95% of transmission, but I'm not completely sold on the mini-HEPA or far UVC, so they're more like my magic charms. I also use Enovid spray before and after events as well as gargle with mouthwash directly after. So far, 2/3 of my kids and myself have remained Covid-free despite all of us going to work or school in person with mainly unmasked people.
Hard to add anything useful in respect to masks, but I have found that rolls of 12mm x 3mm self adhesive draught excluder, are a great hack for sealing unruly respirators or hard to wear nose bridges.
Alpha Solway XL masks (head & neck loops, N99%/ffp3) have no foam but are large enough to accommodate a beard or large/angular faces or to chew gum without breaking the seal, once the draught excluder hack has been used.
For the past month, I stayed in Tiya, a tiny town about 140 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa. In this town, with about five thousand people in it, where my grandparents were born, where my 93-year-old grandma still lives, when you enter into someone’s home, vapor coming from an olive tree penetrates your nose.
In someone’s home, in Tiya, usually there is some incense on the fire on which coffee is cooked, enveloping the inside of the room with a nice smelling smoke. Since the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to masking, the locals here burn the branch of an olive tree and use the incense as air purifier. The locals can’t afford to buy air purifiers for their home. When I talked to them almost all the locals I talked to, including my grandma, have not even heard of air purifiers. When you ask these locals why they are using incense every time people come to their home, they tell you it helps in getting rid off the virus.
I couldn’t find any scientific proof that the vapor coming from an olive tree kills germs and viruses in the air, but even my mama, who lives in Addis Ababa, uses the incense when family members (more than 2 or 3 people) come to her home.
I'm based in the UK and I'm taking a "layered" approach:
- Daily Vit D, Ginseng, Ginko Biloba
- Strict oral hygiene with CPC mouthwash use
- 3m Aura when leaving home
- Viraleze nasal spray (https://lloydspharmacy.com/products/viraleze-barrier-nasal-spray-10ml): I'm unsure about the different types of sprays, i.e. Enovid vs Viraleze, the latter is the only one we can find here
- Recently purchased a Medicair Pro Mini air purifier for home (https://www.medicair.co.uk/air-purifier-mini); it's claimed to be "medical grade" H14 HEPA filter
The situation here in the UK is dire. It helps that we don't have family nor children so it's only us in the house without anyone visiting, but what a depressing thought to be happy about this. Barely any masks in sight, everyone is sick in a way or another, kids started to die from Strep A invasive infections, nurses and ambulance staff going on strike.
Thanks for your great column which is super informative &, perhaps more importantly, helping me keep sane in this time of overwhelming insanity! This thread of suggestions is also a great idea. Does anyone have any tips for a good air filter for travelling in Europe? I've been trying to get a SmartAir QT3 but there seems to be a hold-up in production.
Work from home, homeschooling (free virtual public charter), deliveries or curbside only. Will absolutely not get on a plane for any reason. No restaurants. A handful of friends with kids the same age who isolate at the same level we do. We do the occasional masked, outdoor playdate-or possibly without masks if none of us have had any public interactions within 2 weeks. Working on building a zero covid off-grid community. Have no desire to be a part of mainstream society anymore-a place of cold, uncaring and just downright sick (in all senses of the word) people.
We only socialize outdoors (masked a/o distanced) so I bought lots of different winter clothes and Under The Weather pop up pods for staying warm while hanging out outdoors.
Cheerful masklab masks for outdoor gatherings, and I'm trying out flomask for indoor doctor appointments and trips to the pharmacy. I made Corsi rosenthal boxes for my sister's classrooms, have switched entirely to online work myself, and found online replacements for almost all my social activities. I'm still looking for truly covid-cautious dentists.
I built an indoor filtration unit (Corsi-Rosenthal Box) out of (4) 20" MERV-13 filters and a box fan. See this for more:
https://cleanaircrew.org/box-fan-filters/
I'm going to get an app about Revolution crowdfunded. Then, I'm going to lead the Revolution. Once in office, if I make it that far, I'm going to sequester all politicians and we are going to create better laws. I'm going to sequester them for months on end with no contact to the outside World, until we completely Reform everything. Any politician refusing to participate will be held in contempt of Congress and will spend the rest of their life in prison, with no contact to the outside World.
We will draft better laws about Banking, Credit, Housing, Real Estate, Education, Corporate Taxation, Corporate espionage, Cyber Warfare, Tax evasion, Fraud, Theft, deferred profits, Media, Land rights, Water rights, Air rights, Energy, Sustainability, Unions, Labor Laws, Healthcare, Defense spending, Secret Societies, Stock trading, Prisons, Courts, Policing, Non-Profits, Drugs, Transparency, Patents, and Trade. Among the better Patent laws, there will be laws that require Patents, data, and research regarding deadly pandemic viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi to be free and open source. Also, gain of function research will be completely illegal. I probably won't make it to the White Haus, but I'll gladly die trying. Some dreams are worth dying for and I will not go silently. Fuck Pfizer. Fuck Moderna. Fuck JP Morgan & Chase Co. Fucking Fuck Wells Fargo. Revolution is long overdue. I dare anyone to disagree with me. I dare everyone to do better. Here is my dream about how to Revolution: www.humbledeeds.com
https://www.covidhealthimpacts.co.uk/
A great site breaking down the results of studies really well
I am so grateful to have found your blog and like-minded people paying attention and staying safe! Thanks for everyone sharing. I had not heard of copper rescue and Enovid, which I have now ordered both to add to my arsenal. Does anyone have any issues to report by using Enovid? I have read the clinical studies, articles, interviews and am pretty stunned by the optimistic outlook of this product! I am being forced back-to-office next week (3 days a week) after working from home since 2020. The fact they picked next week while we have post holiday and XBB surge is mind-blowing. And they are scheduling all kinds of social activities that encourage eating together! WTF!!! It is like all CEO's are bound together in the this mass gaslighting of "covid is over". I know I will most definitely be possibly the only masker at the office, but they are looking for forced socialization that I now will have to seriously up my protection game. I want to start using Enovid and it seems safe from what I read, but would love to hear if anyone here had any side effects / issues from using it? Thanks for sharing in advance!
And PS - for me, in addition to vax, masking, testing, air filtration, and social discipline/restraint - we also still alcohol wipe groceries and packages! I am a big believer that the vax-only approach is barely safe. I knew this when DELTA hit Summer of 2021 and when they reported the Provincetown, RI outbreak where all vaxxed people became infected. That was the moment I realized we would be perma-maskers. It is not sustainable to be vaxxed every 4-6 months, which seems to be the lasting period of vax effectiveness. But no one around me seems to believe this!
Hey yall- looking at best masks to wear when moving/sweating/working out. Wondering if something like masqd that includes reuseable filters is safe enough, or if I should just invest in more n95s? Id prefer not to do that due to waste (typically I circulate) and would appreciate knowing what others are doing. Any alternative recommendations are truly appreciated; thank you so much.
I've been hearing nothing in the MSM about what is happening in Japan. They only write about China.
At this time, Japan and South Korea have the highest infection and death rate from covid 19 in the world, possibly because they are counting the cases accurately.
This article is dated December 19. There is another article about apparently healthy Japanese children dying, on the same site.
https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2022121900260/
We've been using the Vitacore CAN99 ( https://shop.vitacore.ca/products/can99-9500 ). It provides N99-level protection, yet is 40% more breathable than a typical N95 mask. They also have an online store for U.S. orders ( https://shop.vitacore.com/ ).
Corsoi Rosenthal box = home made near hepa filter made using a box fan and filters
I'm single & live with my elderly mother so I've been taking precautions from the get go. As time's gone on, my mitigations have been for myself as much as for her since I got Lyme Disease in July 2021 and the 3 weeks of doxycycline apparently didn't do a thorough job. The Covid booster unfortunately messed with the dormant Lyme which caused it to flare up for nearly a gd year. So I'm leaning heavily on N95s and keeping to my innate avoidance of people because I'm done with the shots (and wasn't keen on getting the booster anyway). Even though my coworkers prance about unmasked, the office is large enough so that I've managed to avoid getting it while most of them have caught it at some point or another. Because of my weird face shape, I wear a surgical mask under an N95 to fill out the small gaps. So far, so good for the past 1 1/2 years of that set up. If I can make it through the next 7 1/2 years of the Pandemicene (nice word btw), then I can bail on the job and retreat to my house on the hill & maybe enjoy a few years of retirement before complete societal collapse. But who tf knows anymore. I can't talk about any of this with my coworkers because they're hardcore vaxxed and relaxed to the point of getting infected and learning nothing from the experience. They'll just run out and get another booster as soon as they can so they can maintain their illusion of normal.
I'm in Minnesota in the Metro Twin Cities. Even with the more progressive urban population, I would estimate that 25% or fewer mask indoors, eg grocery stores and other shopping areas. Most medical offices still require masking; it seems that dentists have now moved to optional. They seem to believe that they "know how to handle infection control." Mayo Clinics was leading the way on mitigation efforts. I have colleagues that work there; easier this year when Omicron hit, some of their staff had become lax and almost every department was hit by COVID. I know people in SLP/ENT department; they've just thrown up their hands and say that "eventually everyone will get it, and then we'll be over it." I know too many people with "long Covid" symptoms; I refuse to accept just getting over it.
I am fortunate that I can limit social contact (no small kids or grandkids). I mask everywhere and try to stick to large indoor areas with ventilation (not adequate I know, but better than nothing). No one comes into the house without prior testing or masking. I was nonplussed in my recent dentist visit; their office has a mask optional policy now (our area is listed as medium risk by the CDC tracker now). I'm feeling that there is a lot of "giving up" and "just accept it" now, even from healthcare professionals who should know better. My small circle of clients and friends are still showing up with cases of COVID and mystery URI's. I don't think we've come up with any magic bullets yet for self-protection. Control of personal environment (as much as possible), limited social contact, masking with (N95 or NK95 or better), and updating boosters seems to be our tools for now.
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
I'm a single Mom, so it's just my two teens and myself.
We all mask, my 19 year old and I are fully vaxxed and my 16 year old is waiting for the call back to get the next shot.
I'm in New Brunswick Canada.
As soon as the government lifted all restrictions, citizens went back to how life was pre covid, no masks, large gatherings etc.
My teens and I still know covid is among us.
My oldest is 26 and she's had covid twice. 😞
I got a Coway filter to upgrade one in the living room that my cat had discovered how to sit on and turn off. The Blue 211 is excellent if you don't have cats. I gave it to my neighbor who has a dog. The Rabbitair filter is in the bedroom. The apartment has good air quality.
Nasal spray:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210126005436/en/
Also, nasal sprays containing iodine kill the virus.
Mouthwash:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18367-6
NOTHING BEATS A PROPERLY FITTED N95/N100 MASK
Excluding vaccinations, a properly fitted mask is without a doubt the most effective, in terms of cost and protection. Such a simple tool is so easily rendered useless without some basic but required guidelines.
Mask Type:
My wife uses the 3M Aura (#9205) and I use the 3M #9502 (good job 3M on using very similar number system?!).
Approved Suppliers Here:
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part/n95list1.html
Save Your Money on:
> The light blue surgeon's type mask offer 5-10% protection at best, only if it's completely sealed - in other words they're useless.
> Leave out the KN95 (KN = made in China).
Mask Form - Get it right or you're at risk, don't underestimate importance:
An improper fitting mask makes it completely irrelevant. Ever tried swimming with a leaking scuba mask? Doesn't take long before you need to refit/fix. It's instantaneous with a mask. Many shapes and forms available to fit different face shapes.
Test Your Mask Fit:
Do some quick tests to learn how to fit them properly: in a bathroom, blow out a candle. Not ideal/perfect I know (and yes, some smoke particles and odour particles are small than 0,3micons) but if you can smell anything "quickly", chances are it's not a tight seal. See CDC YT for guidance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ8zZ31LLOw
Opinion portable filter machines:
In my opinion, outside vaccines and mask (obviously excluding not gathering at all with others), filers are just creating a dangerous false sense of security and possibly wasting effort and funds where they could be better focused.
For example and not to rain on anyone's parade, portable room air filters are too underpowered to make an changeable impact. The issue is not the filtration aspect. It's their very low capacity to move a lot of air through the filter quickly enough.
Let's take the 6000cuft unit listed above as a use case. It would take over 30 minutes for all the air of a regular classroom size to go through the machine. The first problem, this assumes the door is closed, no leaks anywhere, and no other air sources (which is not the case) to disrupt air movement of the filter machine.
Let's look at it in a complete nonsensical way/theory (my engineering teacher would have my head to even suggest such an idea). Again, perfectly sealed room with zero air movement except for what the air filter machine causes. Also, let assume the sky is pink and each little air molecule have their turn to go into the machine and out again just like water in a Jacuzzi tub. Well, in this unreal scenario, the air surrounding a student sitting at the back of the room would only start to breath filtered air in roughly 20-30 minutes. That's a very long time, plenty of time for a virus to do its deed.
There are plenty of videos that shows graphically the air movement in a room. You can't believe how quickly a particle moves from one side of the room to the other (don't forget, most rooms have ceiling vents mixing the air like a giant blender).
Povidone-Iodine 0.5% to 1.0% has been used as a nasal spray and mouthwash to kill Covid-19:
https://medhelpclinics.com/resources/advice-from-the-doctor/at-home-treatment-protocol-for-covid-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8130786/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/fullarticle/2775984
https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/Article/2022/February/Study-finds-nasal-spray-could-aid-battle-against-COVID
Based on recommendations of Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com I bought
https://www.blastone.com/product/gvs-p100-elipse-half-mask-dust-respirator/
Blastone claims it filters particles down to 1.3 microns with 99.7% efficiency.
It comes with a dollop of spite as it filters the inward breath only. Exhaling opens a valve.
I call it my ant-man mask.
I've heard that insects will inherit the earth.