Going to keep cleaning for the Easter bunny over here 🥰
Wondering how we can get more educators and admins in the know about COVID transmission. I truly hope most educators would #MaskUp if they understood airborne transmission and how well masks work.
/1
Poking through the #uLead2022 hashtag is super depressing if you care about COVID safety and you think educators should know a bit more than they’re demonstrating about safety, transmission, precautions.
/2
Ultimately the failure of our governments for not communicating and educating well on airborne transmission.
But at some point, the facts are our there and adults who are responsible for children’s safety can’t hide behind public health ineptitude anymore.
/3
PHAC issued a statement on the role of aerosols on Nov 12, 5 months ago. The WHO posted about airborne transmission on Dec 23, almost 4 months ago. @CBCQuirks had a segment on airborne transmission late Oct. The White House and EPA started clean air challenge mid-March. /4
There comes a point when adults responsible for the safety of children during the school day no longer have plausible deniability re: knowing how COVID transmits, that masks work even if they’re not required, and how harmful some ‘mild’ COVID cases are. /5
And yet it remains professionally risky to advocate for COVID precautions.
If your job was to protect people from a disease, and there was a huge public breakthrough from another nation clearly delineating how to stop transmission, wouldn’t you be singing from the rooftops about it?
/1
If your province was still stuck on #dropletdogma and was using outdated information to try to fight the pandemic, and information came out strongly from a trusted ally that differed significantly from your approach, wouldn’t it be a BIG DEAL for your CMOH and DoH?
/2
I feel the silence on this makes them
complicit. Why no public acknowledgment of the huge change from the US?
One month ago on March 17, the EPA came out with its clean air in buildings challenge.
Filter replacement day!
This is my oldest HEPA filter unit that I got at a pharmacy long before COVID. I also had another one pre-COVID but it stopped working (different brand). I wouldn’t buy this one again today but I happened to see the replacement filter at the pharmacy.
Right now at home we run this one (had been in my bedroom but just moved it to a kid bedroom), a Honeywell tower I got in Dec, a small Honeywell we got in Nov when kid was exposed/had covid, and a CR box. I plan to build another CR for kitchen/dining.
For this drugstore unit the filter was $20-30 (can’t remember exactly) and gets replaced once a year. The HEPA with 1 filter in it was $99 at the drugstore yesterday. I likely paid a similar price years ago.
If you bought a new HEPA - the filter is likely wrapped in plastic!
I wish NB would even allow all with positive rapid to confirm on PCR. I’ve seen 3 accounts this week of NBers who had faint positives on rapid and then a negative PCR. False positives supposed to be very rare on rapids. Definitely continue to treat rapid positive as true +ve. /1
Likely huge use of rapid tests in NB at the moment and there will always be strange occurrences. The more we test the more rare situations will happen. Still it’s frustrating. Felt confident last summer since PCR was for all. This summer will we really have a sense of safety? /2
We’ve been so fortunate in the maritimes to have two fairly ‘normal’ summers. I am not counting this summer’s chickens yet.
NS makes PCR available for all after a positive rapid if you weren’t eligible before. Wish NB did that too :( wish NB had rapid tests broadly available./3
I'm going to go through Dr. Moriarty's document that models future outcomes for NB. I know many of us use mobile devices now more than full-sized screens, and seeing these numbers can be hard on mobile. I'm going to screen grab the NB ones but you can always check the original./1
Here's the link to her google document where she's been projecting information nationally and keeping track:
Now, the NB stuff.
I have been meaning to highlight this for a while but again, hard to do on mobile, so I'm finally on the computer. Here's how the table starts. Click to expand to see it fully. For the next tweets, I've hidden other rows so we will just see NB. /3
Hey! NB! We can't open up safely without *effective* mitigation measures in place. NB govt is yet to acknowledge that COVID is airborne. The dominant route of transmission is through the air. Not getting hit directly with a wet sneeze. Not touching something. By breathing it in!
What would help us open up safely? Emphasis on airborne precautions! What does that look like? *Continuing to wear masks - respirators if possible - during high viral activity.
*Making testing widely available again! So that we know what's going on with cases. /2
*Education and support on improving ventilation. Most buildings have poor ventilation! We've built them to be energy efficient but not to ventilate well.
*CO2 monitors, displays so that public, students, employees can gauge indoor air quality and can add ventilation- open window
Since Jan 4, I have contacted 25 NB charities and organizations encouraging them to obtain xN95s to distribute in their communities. Access to respirators, including kids' sizes for the 4-11s, can help reduce COVID transmissions and keep us all safer. /1
At least 3 of the organizations I contacted have ordered xN95s and made them available to at least their staff, if not for free with their vulnerable populations. And the Chambers of Commerce in NB have been really responsive, promoting respirators sold locally. Thank you! /2
Can you help me get respirators to more NBers? If you can take a few moments to reach out to a local group or org to ask them to obtain respirators and give them out, that would be wonderful. They can order respirators from @masks4allCanada or other @CAPPEM2 producers. /3