By Dr. Stuart Weiss, Intelligent Crowd Solutions

Dr. Stuart Weiss, FACEP, FAAP, CBCP

Dr. Stuart Weiss, FACEP, FAAP, CBCP

July 6, 2020
Today's topics: Mexico may actually build a wall on our southern border! Governor Noem - shame on you. SARS-CoV-2 may spread in aerosol particles and why its important.

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Mexico may build a wall after all
There is an interesting article in the Washington Post today. It seems that there is a loud push to close down our southern border and slow down cross border travel. But here is the twist. It's not coming form the White House, it's coming from the governors of the Mexican states closest to our southern border. The Mexican governors now see Americans as the biggest risk to increasing infections in Mexico. So Mexico may finally build a wall on our southern border. And who can blame them. Although numbers are hard to compare, southern states in the US have significantly higher rates of infection than the Mexican border states. So now Americans are not welcome in Canada, Mexico and the European Union. We have the largest coronavirus epidemic in the world with several states having a percentage of people infected above 1%. It gets very hard to extinguish an infection when it gets above 1% of a population.

I feel like every day I am writing about the same gloomy picture but its important that you understand the direction we are heading in. We are almost at 60,000 new cases a day. According to Scott Gottlieb, former head of the FDA from 2017 to 2019, that translates into around 700,000 new cases per day (this is due to low testing rate and his estimate that only 1 out of 12 cases are detected). Between 32 and 40 states are seeing increasing case counts (depending on which counting service you follow) and 14 are holding steady. The south and southwest are in the worst shape and are heading to shutting down part of their economies again.

Governor Noem in South Dakota doesn't get it

I was appalled to watch Governor Kristi Noem speak about the gathering at Mount Rushmore this past Friday. She said that there would be no social distancing at the celebration and if people were uncomfortable, they should just stay home. Here is the problem with that statement. The 4000 people who did attend and sat shoulder to shoulder without face coverings, all went home and most of them probably did not self isolate for 14 days. So they took whatever they caught at the gathering and will then spread it around their communities. So even if folks stayed home due to the risk, they may still come into contact with people who attended while in the grocery store. Irresponsible leaders like her are leading us to a worse virus situation. Instead of making the celebration a safe one by requiring face coverings and having people social distance themselves so they can "have celebrations of American independence" she chose to put people in her state at risk. Its time for all of our leaders to follow the science.

SARS-CoV-2 is an airborne risk

Today, 237 scientists from around the world signed onto a research letter that said that there was ample evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads via respiratory aerosols. While their conclusion has supported what I have been saying for many weeks now, the World Health Organization is still not accepting that conclusion. When you look at evidence ranging from the church choir practice outside Seattle to the well documented cases in a poorly ventilated restaurant in China to the many studies showing virus or viral remnants far outside CoViD-19 patient rooms (in hallways, on far away surfaces, etc.) its seems fairly obvious to me that there is a aerosol component to this disease.

This is important because of the precautions being recommended for indoor spaces. Small aerosol particles can hang around in stagnant air for hours (one early study estimated 3 hours or more) before settling to the ground. Face coverings will not help much with these small particles, although they may help a little. The biggest help is having events outside where the light small particles can float up and away or making an indoor environment as close to outside as possible by bringing in loads of outside air, not recirculating air and possibly adding UV disinfecting units to the HVAC system. Another way to deal with indoor environments is Upper Room UV disinfection. Once the aerosol contribution to disease spread is fully appreciated and understood, it will help operators of indoor venues better design systems to keep people safe while indoors.
Be well and take care of yourself. There are storm clouds on the horizon.

--Dr. Stu

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