I am going to post how this virus has destroyed me as a HCW. I have a Dr. in pharm, with a specialty in infectious disease. I worked on the critical weird cases. I have practiced for 18 years. I knew about #covid on 12/29/19. This was me the week before I knew is was airborne 🧵 I started crunching the numbers Jan 7 2020. By the 14th I knew it was airborne. I started warning colleagues & hospital admin on the 27th. I was laughed at & criticized. Gaslighting at its finest. By Feb 5th I had to take my Covid info private due to professional harassment 🧵

🧵 So I have contacted @3M a # of times regarding a serious safety issue. Many users have experienced catastrophic failure w/ 9205 masks. An #N95 fail miduse is literally life threatening in professional situations. Why has @NIOSH not addressed this? It’s a simple fix. #HCWs I have reported the 9205 design flaw & so have numerous other practitioners. Why hasn’t @NIOSH or @OSHA_DOL acted?They have know that these break mid use, exposing us to dangerous pathogens. Yet @3M can’t seem to do the right thing & use braided elastic exclusively like the 9210!

So I want to explain some terms today & put things in perspective. You hear the term Ro or R naught. What it is is the measure of an average of how many people 1 infected person spreads a disease to. Covid was originally about R2.4, it has increased to an astounding R12+ with BA2 What does this MEAN? This means that the virus is getting BETTER at spreading with each wave. Improving the ability to infect us. What can happen next is a mutation increasing mortality, or the percentage of people it kills. Fun times! #CovidIsntOver plus.maths.org/content/epidem…

I promised I would provide a way to calculate room air exchange, using a simple MERV-13 filter & a box fan. The sweet spot seems to be 6 exchanges per hour. This means all the air in the room is moved through the filter 6 times in 1 hour. 1/6 #ProtectHCWs #ProtectKids #Covid #BA2 First we need to get the volume of a room. It doesn’t need to be perfect! But note units are important. We are using feet/inches here. Use this calculator & input the measurements, A, B, & C as shown in the graphic below. Order is NOT important 2/6 #Filter vcalc.com/wiki/KurtHeckm…

I want to share an analogy & call to #Hospitals to #ProtectHCWs. 2+ years yet hospitals leave workers open to PREVENTABLE death & disability. They need to held to task & REQUIRED to properly & fully protect their workers. Please join me & share this. #HCWs #Covid #LongCovid (1/3) #HCWs DESERVE government protections, as do patients! It is unethical for them to continue to skirt proper air filtration & personal protective equipment MINIMUMS. @OSHA_DOL are you listening? #OSHA #P100 #respirators #Ventilate #HEPA #LongCovid #CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp (2/3)

Let me tell you a story. By Jan 7, 2020 I knew this was airborne based on the spread occurring in China. By the 21st I had calculated an Ro of 2.4 (turned out to be pretty damned accurate). By the 23rd I called on my fellow healthcare professionals to ensure they had N95s Or better yet P100 respirators. Then the backlash started. On the 27th I was openly mocked online by an ID doc I had worked with. It snowballed. I was trying to get anyone to listen. I was treated like I was nuts. All I was advising was to stock up on PPE & be prepared

I think it’s time to revisit masking with #BA2 & how contagious it is. I am upgrading my recommendations to a P100 @3M respirator. They are less likely to suffer structural damage, meaning I have had them in use for 1 year at a time. That 100 is for 100% an N95 is 95% blocking Note do NOT use @amazon they have a huge issue with #CounterfeitMasks. The @US_FDA doesn’t seem to be doing their job & cracking down while Bezos lounges on his yacht. I have samples of counterfeit 3M masks I bought off of Amazon. I confirmed with 3M DIRECTLY. So this is serious

I have been asked a number of great questions! So let’s go through each point of my “Care & Feeding of an #N95 #Mask”. Bending or crumbling breaks apart the polypropylene fiber bonds, the magic fiber that filters out & traps the virus using electrostatic charge. @DrEricDing 1/12 Electrostatic charge is like a magnet for the virus. #N95 masks do not rely on layers to filter. 90% of their viral filtering ability is due to this electrostatic charge! If you damage this charge the masks become about as effective as a cloth mask. 2/12 nature.com/articles/d4158…