This will be a tricky week coming up, so let’s briefly chat about how to best protect yourself for Halloween, voting, and the coming season of holidays.
When making choices about what you will be doing during the holiday season, it is important to recognize when you will be outside of your bubble. Bubbles are defined as the people you come into more than fleeting contact with, so while your coworker you share an office with is definitely in your bubble, the people you pass by in the grocery store are not. It was recently found that spending as little as 15 minutes with someone who is COVID-19 positive can allow the virus to spread, even when that 15 minutes is spread across a significant period of time.
A corrections officer spent an estimated 17 minutes of time with COVID-19 positive detainees over an 8 hour shift and became ill. [link] Upon further review by the CDC, the officer was found to have been wearing a mask through the times of interactions, but sometimes the detainees did not which is the likely reason SARS-CoV-2 was able to spread. There has also been increasing evidence that resistance to SARS-COV-2 decreases over time, meaning that someone with a mild case of COVID-19 at the beginning of the year could now get sick in the fall wave. [link]
The Swiss cheese model from James Reason is a great way to think about how we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from SARS-COV-2 as no one method will stop the virus 100% of the time, but a combination of several layers of protection such as mask use, distancing, handwashing, and more which each provide a layer of coverage becomes more effective than any single layer by itself. The key to this strategy is to make the best use of all the layers. For instance, wearing a mask properly, where it covers both the nose and mouth, creates fewer holes in the cheese than wearing a mask as a chin diaper.
By using all of the mitigation tools you can be better prepared to engage in choices with more risks. This is important as we begin the holiday season with large indoor events like office parties and more frequent family gatherings. The idea is to mitigate chances for the virus to transfer, meaning limiting chances for SARS-CoV-2 to get into or spread through your bubble.
Halloween
Trick or treating is a fine tradition and as it is usually outside and done with small groups it can be a safer activity to do so long as proper precautions are taken. First, don’t trick or treat with anyone outside of your bubble. If your kids already go to school and walk home with the neighbors kids then they’re in your bubble and it is safer to group with them than someone you haven’t seen for weeks. Next, make sure everyone who can is wearing a mask. By wearing a mask you decrease the risk of spreading virus if you unknowingly have it and decrease the risk to yourself of breathing the virus in if someone around you is spreading it. [link] Finally, sanitize the candy wrappers before eating the candy within. Some candy bars can easily be eaten without having your moth touch the wrapper, but it still brings something potentially contaminated close to your mouth. So resist snacking while trick or treating this year, just to be safe.
For those staying home to hand out candy, try to create an environment where people will not be congregating together, such as a front door, and don’t set out a bowl for kids to dig through and grab from. While COVID-19 is mainly spread through the air, it is also possible to spread the virus through touching the same objects. While some people have made candy slides and candy catapults, a table out front you can wipe down with pieces of candy out to take can also work. Just make sure to wipe down the table every so often to kill any lingering virus.
Voting
Voting is one of the most patriotic things you can do and it is a key step to a thriving democracy. For note, other patriotic activities are serving in the military or government and paying your taxes. However voting usually comes with lines and waiting inside buildings with a lot of other people. Thankfully this year many people have instead chosen to vote early, but there is still an expected surge on Election Day to head to the polls and vote.
If you need to vote, please do so! Just be save while you do it. Being safe means:
- Keep your 6 ft distance away from other people
- Wear your mask while standing in line
- Use hand sanitizer after touching surfaces a lot of other people have touched
- Inquire with your county officials for alternatives if you don’t feel well
The last thing we need is for someone in the early stages of COVID-19 to get in line and spread it to their fellow Americans!
Rising cases across US
Current cases are rising in a majority of US states and the pattern is very different from what was seen earlier this year. The current wave isn’t affecting the largest cities in the US and the first one did, instead the spread is throughout rural parts of the country that may not have had large numbers of cases earlier this year. COVID-19 has turned from a big city and statewide problem into an isolated area where we see counties now with full ICUs that are starting to create field hospitals to deal with the rising cases. [link]
As much as we want the pandemic to pass, not enough people are taking precautions to prevent spread. In El Paso the top places where SARS-CoV-2 is being spread is from visiting stores (37%), eating at restaurants (23%), and visiting Mexico (19%). [link] Large indoor gatherings that occur at stores, times spent without a mask, and foreign travel have always been recognized as sources of SARS-CoV-2 and El Paso is just one of many communities feeling the impact. In other parts of the nation family gatherings have also found to be a major source of spreading our current plague. [link] One sick person can infect their entire family over dinner. This means that we’ll be facing more challenges as we head into November and December, chock full of events where families gather.
If we take strong action now to shut down the spread of COVID-19, we will be in a better place to see our families for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Without taking precautions and practicing restraint, expect to see a large winter wave.
Have a happy (and safe) Halloween!
-Your friendly neighborhood Scientist
PMP in the Lab 