YIKES! I accidentally Deleted the Flu Thread!

Folks, I am SO SORRY - I accidentally deleted the ENTIRE flu thread...Totally messed up, I was NOT intending to delete the thread at all...I can't get it back either. My bad. Please, someone re-start it.

US declares public health emergency for swine flu.

So why are the cases in Mexico so much more serious than the cases which have been found in the U.S.?

I have a feeling N95 masks are about to be sold out at every Walmart in the country.

If you're shopping for some, they make N95 (P95, etc.) masks that have a one-way flap valve, so it's a lot easier to exhale. It's really worth having that if you're doing anything physical or getting hot. The only real downside is that you can't put them on an infected patient to protect others.

If you're going to the trouble of wearing a mask, you really should be wearing eye protection as well.

Looks like the world is already a month in on what could be the real deal.

http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosu...-of-events.html

Don't know, and I don't know whether they are actually more serious than the ~20 reported cases in the US. I haven't seen an analysis of the cases in Mexico, but a few factors to remember:

- reporting. In Mexico you may see fatalities reported more accurately than cases of swine flu. The top level impression from US media is 100% of those infected in Mexico have died from this flu strain, when in all probability there are a number of un- or under-reported cases of swine flu, of which the reported fatalities are a smaller fraction.
- treatment. Basical health can be sketchy, not everyone can get adequate basic treatment for the flu.
- its a small sample set, but this flu seems more serious in younger folks. Very young quite often can't complain or show serious symptoms until the flu is relatively advanced.

Take heart from the reports on US infections, this seems treatable at home with basic flu treatments.

Can whomever posted the 3 links that included this one:

http://www.newfluwiki2.com/frontPage.do

Please post them again!

ETS'ers are probably familiar with this site but just in case here it is again.

Promedmail

Fifty lashes with a wet noodle for you martinfocazio. Stuff happens. So much for any illusions we had that you were perfect. LOL. No problem.

I'm getting good information, from someone who knows the science and updated several times a day, at:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/

Reading down several days should give you a feel for how the story has unfolded. Most posts include links to in-depth sources.

The latest, as of Sunday evening:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/04/swine_flu_what_you_dont_know_h.php

I have to admit that I'm rather surprised with how quickly this situation has changed just over the weekend. It's one thing for TV news to repeat this story to death, which we all expect these days, but going from quick reports in the news of isolated cases one day to constant news coverage, and finally to "US declares health emergency" the next day is unusual.

I hope people realize that the declaration of a health emergency (at least this one in the US) is primarily a procedural thing at this stage, like how the governor of a state declares an area to be a disaster zone so that various emergency funding and resources can begin to be mobilized, and not because the situation is critically dangerous, like if Homeland Security's terror alert were raised to red.

Looking at the empty streets of Mexico City now, I can only think how unlucky a blow to business it will be here in the US if people here stay home, even if this swine flu episode fizzles relatively quickly. Malls, retail districts, bars and restaurants, sporting teams, public transit systems--they could all take a really big financial hit that could send many businesses under, considering the precarious situation that many businesses are already in. We're just ramping up and heading towards the busy summer season, so depending on how this situation develops, it could be a bad summer for a lot of industries or countries.

I'm not particularly worried about the disease itself at this moment since we're still so early in the process and there are still so many questions, but I do worry about the economic impact since so many of us are already dancing on thin ice.

Still watching, still cautious, getting slightly more concerned.
This still has a fairly low fatality rate, less than 1% I think.

The effects on the world economy will likely be pretty big though.
With the SARS outbreak the economic cost was way out of line with the severity of the outbreak and that makes me suspect the same thing will happen this time.
Airlines, tourism, hospitality, and other travel were the industries that took the biggest hits with SARS.

I see from reports that it has made it to most of the North American continent and as far as New Zealand. I have not heard any reports if it has got into Russia, Asia or India.

BIG EDIT: I was quite wrong on my guess at the fatality rate. After looking at it again it seems to be about 8% in Mexico and 5% over all.

Follow this link to see a map of the places being affected.

That is a great link. I never thought to check maps.
So it seems to be spreading with people flying back from their spring break holidays?
Still nothing out of Asia or India, could that be because they didn't travel, or are they just not reporting it?

Nice link, but who is authenticating the reports of swine flu? In any outbreak there are alot of suspected cases that will end up un-related. A fair number of the reported cases in Mexico so far can be attributed to things other than swine flu.

And geo-tracking the flu is probably not so necessary, unless you think they can stop a pandemic in its early tracks. If this flu is human transmittable, it will get around, it will be in your neighborhood and your zip code before you know to track it.

Remember the STOP acronym when lost?

This might be appropo here before panic sets in.

Rumour has it various survivalist websites are discussing what

effect Lysol has on assault rifles.

Yep, we just sold out over the weekend.

What I find fascinating about the media reaction such as the news media to the Swine influenza outbreak is the way this is being portrayed as a purely Mexican issue. It would appear that on the main outbreak was centred around the huge industrial scale pig farms in the area operated by a subsidiary of a large US corporate interest in the La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico. Movement of pigs from La Gloria area to other sites in the southern US states would explain the disease vector in the early weeks of the outbreak of the swine flu. Yet there appears a complete lack of interest by the news media in what might ultimately be the root cause of this outbreak, which could lead to a world wide pandemic.

http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosu...-of-events.html



How do you get the bird flu gene into old swine flu to create this new Swine Flu virus - feed rendered birds with bird flu imported from the far east to sick pigs in central America with old style swine flu on an industrial scale. I honestly really wouldn't be surprised.

I forgot which forum I found these on...

A google map for new strain (multiline link... sorry):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=p&msa=0&msid=106484775090296685271.0004681a37b713f6b5950&ll=32.639375,-110.390625&spn=15.738151,25.488281&z=5

And Healthmap at: http://healthmap.org/en Just select influenza for the map display.

Reports from Mexico City are scary, but cases in the US are not so scary. This is definite watch closely event but not quit the run to the cave scenario proposed on other forums.

-Tommy

Business has been rather slow this year.

I wonder if I should set up a stand by the off-ramp to the airport.

Big sign, with bold red letters:

Swine Flu Epidemic!
What is your life worth? Your children's?
Be smart, not sorry!
NIOSH Certified Masks -- $5.00
[Lemonade too, weather permitting]
[Psychiatric help $5.00, free mask with every consultation]

:-)

(P.S., I hope this is still funny a month from now.)

Agreed...

"Twitter is great for watching uninformed panics unfold live."

twitter [swine flu] search

http://xkcd.com/574/

I was quite wrong on my guess at the fatality rate. After looking at it again it seems to be about 8% in Mexico and 5% over all.
If this does spread widely it will have serious economic consequences for a lot of the countries who get it.
So far it is next to nothing though, 100 dead out 6 billion is not even a blip. Normally influenza kills about 50,000 a year around the world.

Does anybody have any more accurate numbers?

Center for Disease Control, Influenza pages
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/fluactivity.htm

CDC Human Swine Influenza Investigation,April 26, 2009 12:45 ET
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/investigation.htm

CDC Health advisory pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/pdf/HAN_042509.pdf

World Health Organization, Influenza pages,
Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/en/

WHO Swine Influenza pages
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

Anyway, other than trying not to get sneezed on, washing our hands, and not hanging out in crowds of sick people, there is not much else we seem really able to do about it as individuals.

Except maybe being ready to provide basic health care if we or our dear ones do get it.
So for most of us this next is likely the most important page from CDC.

Interim Guidance for Swine influenza A (H1N1): Taking Care of a Sick Person in Your Home, April 25, 2009 18:30 EDT
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/guidance_homecare.htm

This document provides interim guidance and will be updated as needed

Now for a bit of history to put it into perspective.

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

That is why there is so much fear about this.
We are even more crowded together now and the result is the effect could be even worse than the Spanish Flu. This Mexican Flu has already shown itself to have just as high of a mortality rate.
______
Oh No, now I am starting to really think about this.

Afternote:
Wikipedia now has a page up for this and it has quite a list of links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_Flu

(The Wiki page seems a bit rushed so if it seems unclear take a look at the discussion page on it too.)

One of my co-workers just left for a vacation in Mexico on Saturday. Wonder how that's going.

Try to keep a bit of perspective Martin.
They only have about 1,500 cases of it. Mexico city alone is more than 20,000,000 people.
Your co-worker will likely have a great time, and is still more likely to get run over by a bus than get swine flu.

Edit: BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/8018428.stm
Readers in the areas affected by the swine flu outbreak have been sending their accounts to the BBC since the first cases were reported.

Actually, this particular subtype of the swine flu identified in the US cases is reportedly completely new and has never been found in pigs or people before. So no one really knows what to expect with it.

There was an interesting little factoid I read this morning that I didn't know. There were "only" eight cases identified in New York, but that's only because the Health Department team sent to take swabs at that high school got stuck in traffic, and by the time they arrived, school had already let out for the day so most students were already gone. So far, I don't think we really know the health status of the rest of the students who went on that trip to Mexico. Anyway, little bits of information like this are just another reminder to me that what we read in the news is often--actually, usually--not the whole story, even if the facts within the story itself are accurate.

This has been "tinyurl'd" to: http://tinyurl.com/flugmap/

Note: This link was originally posted by Themalemutekid

I agree but it is still so early in this incident that I think that any pronouncements at this point are mostly speculation at best. The only outlets reporting any particular pig farms as the source seems to be the blogosphere and I have learned to take anything reported on a blog during a rapidly developing story with a huge grain of salt until confirmed by more reputable sources although I can certainly see the logic in the reasoning.

Its in Scotland now.

This is about a mile from my house... http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2009/04/ohio_health_officials_confirm.html

I just got over a nasty respiratory illness, and now I am wondering if that's what I had. Heavy congestion, bad cough, low energy, etc.

Currently they are testing 6 people in belgium.

No way to know, but probably best to call your doctor, and seeing about getting swabbed and checked for the virus. If your Doctor doesn't know, contact your public health agency for info. If you were infected, they'll want to know, and keep an eye on whoever else you interacted with recently (friends and family).

WHO has raised their Pandemic Alert to Phase 4 out of 6.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/phase/en/index.html

From http://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic/phases.htm:
Interpandemic period

Phase 1 : No new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans. An influenza virus subtype that has caused human infection may be present in animals. If present in animals, the risk of human infection or disease is considered to be low.

Phase 2: No new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans. However, a circulating animal influenza virus subtype poses a substantial risk of human disease.

Pandemic alert period

Phase 3: Human infection(s) with a new subtype but no human-to-human spread, or at most rare instances of spread to a close contact.

Phase 4: Small cluster(s) with limited human-to-human transmission but spread is highly localized, suggesting that the virus is not well adapted to humans.

Phase 5: Larger cluster(s) but human-to-human spread still localized, suggesting that the virus is becoming increasingly better adapted to humans but may not yet be fully transmissible (substantial pandemic risk).

Pandemic period

Phase 6: Pandemic: increased and sustained transmission in general population.

Notes: The distinction between phases 1 and 2 is based on the risk of human infection or disease resulting from circulating strains in animals. The distinction is based on various factors and their relative importance according to current scientific knowledge. Factors may include pathogenicity in animals and humans, occurrence in domesticated animals and livestock or only in wildlife, whether the virus is enzootic or epizootic, geographically localized or widespread, and other scientific parameters.

The distinction among phases 3, 4, and 5 is based on an assessment of the risk of a pandemic. Various factors and their relative importance according to current scientific knowledge may be considered. Factors may include rate of transmission, geographical location and spread, severity of illness, presence of genes from human strains (if derived from an animal strain), and other scientific parameters.

According to what I'm reading you need to take most of the reporting, an particularly those maps, with a grain of salt. Quite a few of the number listed as 'swine flu deaths' have not been confirmed as such and a considerable number are being listed simply because someone died of an unknown disease, respiratory disease or unclassified flu.

Point being that people die. That death from an unknown disease is pretty common. That tuberculosis, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases are common. That even when the focus is further narrowed to just flu there is always some background of one of the more common flu types going around. It comes down to some people simply finding out how many people have died in an area and then assuming all of them expired because of swine flu without spending much time to specify how certain the reports are.

Effects Measure has a good riff on this:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/04/swine_flu_what_did_you_expect.php

Your best defense is still to avoid crowds, avoid touching your face, frequent hand washing, and, if you think it will help to keep your hands away and/or you go out into the public, wearing a N-95 or better mask.

And, please, if your feeling sick, don't try to tough it out and go to work or continue as if nothing is wrong. Stay home.

If you do buy masks consider buying masks with an exhalation valve. They are much more comfortable for long term and hot weather use. The most durable and comfortable I have found are the Mouldex brand with the exhaust valve.

On another discussion group I was on someone suggested walking in to work, sneeze, and say "oink".

Gotta try that one tomorrow...

It's fun to have a laugh at the expense of the easily-frightened....

I found myself today, applying for 4 weeks holiday taking the whole of June off work.

These were false alarms.

One of the sad realities of a long lived forum is the changing roster of active posters. A doctor in Singapore explained away many fears of modern pandemic outbreaks some time back. I will have to find his illuminating posts.

These events always produce a spike in forum activity and new members.While we moderators ask everyone to keep the threads manageable, do NOT fear posting on the subject.

As an aside, testing found positive evidence for AVIAN influenza
today in L.A. county. The story was all but forgotten in the media's ambulance chasing.

My mother just soaked my apartment in Lysol disinfectant after watching the news. I had to sit outside with my cat for 30 minutes watching Bats hunting insects. I think we both caught colds.

LOL. Lucky there's no bat flu going around.

The poster was trusbx, a MD in Singapore during the bird flu scare. Just do a search for influenza and read his several informative posts.

John Barry who wrote the accessible account of the 1918 flu pandemic has a worthwhile op-ed in the NY Times this morning, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/opinion/28barry.html?_r=1.

It sums up the relative importance of the current swine flu outbreak and what we *might* expect next, in terms of mutations etc, based on historical precedents. I say might because nothing is certain here, every outbreak follows its own course. But the column is brief and worth a look. Nothing to panic over. We'll get through this. Etc.

I am really glad nobody is blowing this all out of proportion.

California Declares State of Emergency Over Swine Flu

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100...ency-swine-flu/

New York City Health Commissioner: 'Many Hundreds' of School Students Sick With Suspected Swine Flu

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518262,00.html

WHO stage 5 is fast approaching I fear, yet some folks are still thinking about the bottom line

U.S. Warns China, Other Countries Not to Ban Pork

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/28/warns-china-countries-ban-pork/

Sarcasm with a touch of irony.

(I am regarding it as a pretty serious event myself, but I am not counting it as a species extinction event.)

There really isn't anything new of substance to report since yesterday except the current tally of the cases, which is not as critical as actually identifying who is getting infected. It's basically a waiting game at the moment as health officials track down cases and their contacts and labs do their work, which both take time. The lab testing can take days to get back a result, which is why there's such a disparity between the number of suspected and confirmed cases, especially from Mexico.

It's not so worrying--or as worrying, I guess I should say--if the tally keeps climbing as long as all the cases either went to Mexico or were people who had close contact with someone who had been in Mexico recently, like family members, close friends, or classmates. If that's the case, then concentrated efforts to minimize further transmission would likely contain it and let the various outbreaks burn out on their own. Basically similar to what happens when there's a flare up of meningitis at your local college campus but health officials can keep it from spreading to the wider community at large.

Things go to the next level if we start discovering a lot of random people infected in New York or San Diego and these other places with little or no apparent exposure to anyone recently in Mexico or one of their close contacts. At that point, it becomes apparent that the flu has the ability to spread efficiently throughout a community and not just among close contacts. But even then, it could still remain relatively mild and benign and not end up killing many people at all.

Someone was saying yesterday or Sunday on the TV, which I agree with--that at this point, it's something we should let the public health officials freak out over, but it's not yet at the point where most of us need to freak out over.

As I pointed out a lot of the numbers being bandied around are less firm than they appear to be.

A lot of the reports from poorer nations and Mexico in particular are still classified as ILI, Influenza, Like, Illness. Some unknown number have a flu-like disease with muscle pain, fever and coughing. The very worse cases, and hypochondriacs, are showing up at hospitals. This throws off the count both ways.

Even when it is pretty well known that a person has the swine flu if they die there is still a question of how to list the death. In LA two died that had swine flu but one had lymphoma and the proximate cause of death for the other was, pending death certificate, pneumonia.

Determining the actual cause and assigning blame is not as simple as just counting the bodies.

On the up side, as one commentator pointed out, 'as long as you can still count the bodies it isn't really a pandemic'.

Count them heck, so long as you still have enough people left to bury the dead it isn't really a pandemic.

What is really concerning me is that it would appear the outbreak is only a 4-6 weeks old and yet it would appear there is already death rates figuring in the hundreds. If you assume that the period of time for the influenza virus takes is approximately 7-10 days or possibly 14 days before symptoms are servere enough for people to present for medical treatment. (A newly wed couple here in Scotland returned from Mexico on their honeymoon and it was five days to a week before becoming symptomatic, in which they had returned to their jobs over that period, where they could have unknowningly infected dozens of others, who will present their symptoms in the next week or so).

If you then take into account the geometric rate of person to person infection etc, then the 200 deaths as reported in some media circles with possibly 1000 infections giving a mortality rate of possibly double digit percentages, then this is truely frightning especially considering the time constant of the expansion of deaths. i.e it may well take 2-3 weeks before the initial infection of the virus to death.

It may well be the case that in the next 1-2 weeks the death rates could by in the thousands across most of the globe and tens of thousands by the end of May.

It's far more likely that people who now know about the virus will take steps to avoid getting it and those who have already been infected will be treated with one of the several courses of treatment that are effective in countering the virus.

It's not like there's no effective treatment modalities out there. And needless to say, the chances of people NOT being becoming aware of the risks grow smaller all the time with the use of things like the Web, social networking sites, Twitter, et al.

JohnE

Actually, the news that bothers me - one of my daughters teachers is a confirmed case of swine flu

(I live right at Ground Zero for it - that NYC High school? less than 1/4 mile from here - the NYC school for the autistic kids? about 1/2 mile)

More news.
"Pig industry responds to swine flu outbreak" (28 Apr 2009)
http://www.pigprogress.net/news/pig-industry-responds-to-swine-flu-outbreak-id2886.html

Swine flu is not from pigs!
http://www.pigprogress.net/news/oie-swine-flu-not-traced-back-to-pigs-id2891.html

First US death in Texas, young child.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php

zpo2, that's an interesting webpage that I haven't seen before. For those not interested in clicking on the link, it basically discusses the link between Vitamin D (a deficiency of it, actually) and infectious disease or general health, too.

Believe me, I have been interested in this recent surge in Vitamin D research, but I think the jury is still out. We are truly still scratching the surface of a whole world of processes that vitamin D is involved with. Vitamin D (which really shouldn't be called a vitamin, like the way Pluto isn't really a planet anymore) acts like a powerful hormone and turns on and off the expression of hundreds of genes and modifies the expression of thousands.

There is a lot of interest in Vitamin D among scientists and it is exciting stuff, but I think it's very important to also listen to alternative opinions when so little is still known. The prevailing paradigm that has recently emerged is that we humans have been vitamin D deficient in the developed world and that this lack of vitamin D is causing various diseases of modern living.I have provided the link to one essay below which cautions us not to wholeheartedly jump on that paradigm just yet.

It is a scientific article and a difficult read, but an important one IMHO since you don't see many alternative opinions to the prevailing paradigm. The link is to a pre-print version but it appears to be the same as the actual published article that I have read. You don't even have to go to a university library to read it!

Marshall TG: Vitamin D Discovery outpaces FDA decision making.
BioEssays Volume 30, Issue 2, Pages 173-182, February 2008
http://trevormarshall.com/BioEssays-Feb08-Marshall-Preprint.pdf

There very well may be a link between vitamin D and pandemics. I'm not totally pooh-poohing that idea. I'm just saying that we still need to keep an open mind about vitamin D and its role in health since we know so little and it is such a complicated web of biological processes that it is involved with.

The child who died in Texas was a Mexican toddler who had been airlifted to Texas for treatment. The child acquired the disease while in Mexico.

WHO pandemic level is now at Phase 5

Now wait a second, according to WHO as reported in the minute-by-minute news coverage this is a pandemic -- run in circles, scream and shout. . . Went to the gym and worked out today, nobody seemed concerned and this is San Diego, we have our share on the map.

Houston's popular blogger, SciGuy, wrote:
If so, that's good news for me living on the Gulf Coast (despite repeated flooding recently).

I did buy some N95 masks once I saw heavy chatter on Twitter; 2 masks/box, and bought 2 boxes for <$5. They're mostly for hubby, since I'm currently doing the homemaker thing. I don't regret buying them. They were cheap, and I knew they wouldn't be available much longer. Hopefully we'll never use them, but should we see the worst happen, at least we'll have some protection better than painter or paper masks.

Shreela now has dust masks for other emergencies like smoke or dust from storms.
Are we all prepared for dust and smoke?

"Warm fuzzy nice nice. What good is science if nobody gets hurt?"
- Chrome Dome

Clinical research and experience, notably with the recent SARS epidemic, heavily suggests that N95 masks offer a considerable degree of protection against transmission influenza. The virus typically isn't "free floating" by itself, and it's size is greatly enlarged by the droplet or aerosol particle it's riding in, making the masks more effective in actual use than the size individual virii would suggest. Moreover, they are great for containing the virus when worn by infected persons.

With N95 masks, the face seal is the killer. I don't have much luck with them at all; must be my big melon. (A full-face P100 respirator is my choice for "all-in" situations.)

I wonder, though, given a perfect face seal: AFAIK, flu viruses don't travel solo, but hitchhike in droplets of moisture etc. These are much larger, and the filter medium should catch them. Ditto an infected person -- they should decrease the viral load being released.

For individuals looking for 100% protection, that may not be matter much. But across an infected population, it may (?) tip the balance in favour of a great many individuals.

All in theory, of course.

[EDIT: the two posts above have beat me to the punch.]

Careful, Izzy. I think that this is one of those situations where a little knowledge taken in isolation can lead to an incorrect conclusion. Jeff already covered it, but basically, people sick with the flu don't sling bare, individual virus particles around when they cough or sneeze, so the size of one virus particle is not that important.

Influenza generally is transmitted through "large" droplets when someone coughs or sneezes, and those are generally in the 10 micron range. Large enough to be trapped by the 0.1-0.3 pore size of your average N95 respirator. Smaller, aerosolized particles are also possible, but the predominant transmission method is thought to be through these droplets. And even aerosolized particles will likely be larger than the average pore size of the filter.

Unfortunately, trying to protect yourself involves more than just sticking an N95 on your face. I've said it in the past, but without the knowledge and training to know how to put it on and make sure it fits properly, know what situations to use it in, know when it's safe to take off, know how to take it off so you don't accidentally infect yourself, know when to change a mask, etc., having an N95 could just provide a false sense of security. A person might put themselves at greater risk, like being among a crowd of people, because they think the mask protects them when in fact, it really isn't because, for example, it doesn't fit properly.

There is still little or no good evidence that masks provide any significant protection to the general public (as opposed to trained healthcare workers). For average folks, strategies like hand washing, cough etiquette, avoiding crowds, etc. are going to be more effective overall in helping control any outbreak in your community since they go the heart of disrupting the habits that get us infected. And knowledge is not something that you can run out of, like you can with masks.

Jeff mentioned another important point--masks can help keep sick people from infecting others. In Mexico City, where soldiers are giving various types of masks to people, the logic may be to minimize the risk of infected people from spreading the infection, rather than trying to protect the healthy from getting infected. Or it could be more of a psychological benefit to receive a mask, but to me, I think the comfort of having a mask is outweighed by the feeling of seeing everyone else around you with a mask on.

Spot on, Arney. Another thing to keep in mind is that the droplets distributed by coughing or sneezing remain airborne for quite a while. This is why wearing an N95 mask could save lives or at least limit the extent of the outbreak.

A lot of people don't really understand how it all works. N99 masks are standard in health care and so far, they have an excellent track record from what I've been told. N95 is also considered plenty adequate for lower-risk scenarios - meaning the general population that is not required to handle infected patients on a regular basis.

N95 masks are very effective at what they do but unfortunately, they don't come with a detailed user manual. First, they don't last forever and need to be replaced regularly. If you sweat a lot and especially in hot and humid weather the life span is going to be short. Obviously, getting a good fit is critical as well. For instance, I have a beard. Not the mountain man survivalist style - I keep it trimmed pretty short. But still, it means I won't be getting a good fit with any mask unless I shave clean. Lots of little things to keep in mind...

All the hype aside, the situation right now is still far from critical. But I'm not ashamed to say I just bought a few N95 masks when I went to the hardware store to get some other supplies I needed. Who knows, I'll use them up eventually anyway and if for some reason we are ever required to wear safety masks in public it's comforting to know I have some backups stashed at hand. Because if it ever gets that bad, the existing stocks will be depleted rapidly.

BTW, maybe someone will find this useful:
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/dtopics/infectioncontrol/ppe/ppen95.html