Dr. @DrFiliatrault of @Protect_BC is introducing "Covid in the House: Protect Your Loved Ones" and is making a land acknowledgment. First guest today is a professional mechanical engineer @joeyfox85, with a decade of HVAC experience & is a school board engineer. #bcpoli
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85 Our second guest is @amandalhu who is a Clean Air advocate & certified filter technician. They will help us to understand what we can do in the home to prevent others being infected in the home when a house/family member is infected. It can be done!
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@DrFiliatrault talking about the reasons to avoid infection rather than giving in: risk of long-term damage to any organ system in the body as well as the risk of long-covid.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@DrFiliatrault is reminding us that, as discussed in our prior briefing with experts @kprather88 and @jljcolorado, Covid is airborne. Simply breathing and talking are aerosol generating procedures, & Covid can hitch a ride on those aerosols you produce.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@DrFiliatrault reminding us that while airborne particles are in greater density close to a person, particles can concentrate far from the source and hang there, if you spend a lot of time in a space, esp if it's small, you risk infection even if the room has been vacated.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado Engineer @joeyfox85:
Masks are the best line of defence! Respirators (like N95) are best and are actually more functional. Surgical masks are far better than cloth masks but not as good as N95s. Choose a comfortable respirator - many diff types of N95. Just find one that fits.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado Caveat with this chart is that it was designed for earlier and less transmissible variants but it still applies.
It's not true that an N95 needs to be fit-tested.
Non-fit-tested respirators (N95) still vastly outperform cloth masks and surgical masks
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado Another myth about N95s is that they are one-time use. They're not - even 3M says you can reuse masks, as long as you haven't damaged or dirtied them too much. This makes them more affordable. If you still can't afford N95, there are other options. Surgical masks acceptable..
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado Now @joeyfox85 is talking about ventilating your living space. 2 types:
natural ventilation, ie bringing fresh air into your house (windows)
and
mechanical ventilation.
To boost natural ventilation, turn on bathroom/kitchen fans & open a window, or...
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado If your house has a furnace, you can use the furnace's air circulation system to filter the air. You can replace the furnace's filter with a MERV13 filter, which does a good job of filtering furnaces out of the air. Some houses also have an HVAC system - it too has a filter.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado Now we're hearing from @amandalhu on filtration. A mask as a filter for your face, but to filter the air in spaces, a cost-effective way of doing this is to build your own Corsi-Rosenthal box. You need 4 MERV 13 square filters, a square box fan, some duct tape & cardboard.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado .@amandalhu It seems intimidating at first to build your own air filter, but it comes together really easily! Please remember air filters have a direction - make sure that the arrows point inwards to the centre of the box. Air will go in thru the filters, out through the fan...
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado .@amandalhu - There are actually many different ways to build a Corsi-Rosenthal box (C-R box) - you can even build a triangular one with fewer filters! There are many resources online to help you find one to build - see Clean Air Crew and others.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado The more filtration (say, MERV13 vs MERV11) and the more filters you use, the more filtration you get. The more filtration you can get, the better. Put the filter as close to the person who's infectious as possible.
There are also commercial versions available; more $$$$ tho.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@marwa_zaatari How do make an isolation room in a house or apartment? The weak point is the bathroom, which is a shared room. The sick person isolates in the BR. The red cloud is emanating from the infected person. They should mask as much as poss, & in those shared spaces. Others also wear N95
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@marwa_zaatari Open as many windows as you can in the sick room. If you have a fan that can blow air out a window, that's also helpful. If you have a filter near the person, that also helps. Keep their door closed, and block the bottom of their door with a towel/blanket. But when door opens...
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@marwa_zaatari While the sick person exits their isolation room, others should go out or on a balcony. While that's going on, make sure all extraction fans in the home are turned on. Do vent rooms the infected person has been in for at least half an hour, before you unmask. @joeyfox85 agrees.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@marwa_zaatari@joeyfox If you don't have mechanical ventilation in your home, but need to move air from green zone to red zone & not other way around, do this with windows and fans.
The window is key because if you create negative pressure in a room, you can draw bad exhaust from appliances into room.
It will depend on whether you can create negative pressure in that room, and exhaust its air to the outside.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@marwa_zaatari@joeyfox Humidity does 3 things: 1. The virus doesn't live well at 40--60% humidity - it does well at both ends of the spectrum. 2. Your immune system also does poorly at v low humidity 3. Low humidity increases aerosols in the air because it reduces droplet size thru evaporation
This is not its main use. It's more for measuring public spaces, but it's a measurement of the ventilation of the space generally.
@DrFiliatrault@joeyfox85@amandalhu@kprather88@jljcolorado@marwa_zaatari@joeyfox@amandalhu saying that she actually prefers to keep the spaces isolated from each other. The only danger would be if the isolation room had no window, & your gas appliances could suck carbon monoxide etc. into the neg pressure room. Then you need air from green zone to enter red
NEW: Please read this open letter co-written by @Protect_BC's @DrFiliatraultby and other signatories on the threat of a tripledemic this fall. Thanks to @BurnabyNOW_News for running this. 1/x
"If provincial authorities don’t catch up to the best practice preventative measures being taken elsewhere, we are on track for a disruptive and deadly repeat of last fall."
Recall that the number of children who died during last fall's tripledemic jumped considerably.
"Disruption of education, severe disease, chronic long-term health damage & death resulted, much of which could have been minimized with preventative measures. If what we did last year to protect Canadian children failed, why would we get better results doing the same in 2023?"
This study has some stunning findings: even among those who had COVID but no symptoms, there is tissue damage.
It suggests that we will see massive amounts of chronic diseases among people who had COVID infections in the future. 1/5 icemsg.org/2023/08/03/an-…
This why Dr. Akiko Iwasaki has said we need to treat COVID as soon as possible with anti-viral agents such as Paxlovid. 2/5
5,000 Deaths may have been averted during the Omicron wave in the Winter of 2022 if more Paxlovid had been used. 3/5 cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/5000-…
Treatment with Metformin, a common diabetic drug resulted in a “42% reduction in [COVID] ER visits/hospitalizations/death through 14 days; a 58% reduction in hospitalizations/death through 28 days, and a 42% reduction in Long COVID through 10 months.”
This is great news for BC because most people in BC do no qualify for the anti-viral COVID medication, Paxlovid, which can lower the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID as well as decrease the incidence of Long COVID.
While other provinces expanded their Paxlovid criteria to save lives, BC's May 2023 Paxlovid guidelines remain the most restrictive in Canada with no change to the age restriction of 70 for vaccinated, non-immunocompromised and non-indigenous people.
About 4,800 US lives could have been saved during the winter 2021-22 SARS-CoV-2 Omicron wave if 5% of COVID-19 patients had taken the antiviral drug Paxlovid, estimates a modeling study published in the March 2023 JAMA Health Forum.
Why age 70? Age 50 is the inflection point when there is a significantly increased incidence of death and hospitalizations from a COVID infection. In BC one of the highest age groups for ICU admissions during Omicron has been the age 60-69 category.
Welcome to our live tweeting session. We're so excited to be joined by Dr. Eastabrook today! She is a Maternal Fetal Medicine subspecialist & will talk about risks to pregnant people & fetuses. We'll wrap up with resources to protect yourself.
"Often times conditions are unmasked in pregnancy. People can be vulnerable during this time, especially to respiratory illnesses."