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Ella Trickchair
Rollerskater and Fabric Manipulator
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Why we need masks for all
Okay, I am going to put myself out here: we need masks for all. If you live in a country that doesn’t have widespread use of masks in public, this one is for you.
Here is a graph of coronavirus trajectories by country. All those countries in blue have widespread public use of masks, in addition to other measures.
Obviously I am not basing all of this on a few countries that have managed to slow the spread. Here is a link to a summary of 33 scientific papers that show that masks (even handmade ones, we’ll get to that) reduce spread of infection for the general population. Many of these studies are themselves meta-analyses of data. The evidence is mounting that public mask usage is an important strategy to reduce COVID-19 transmission. I want to highlight this paper in particular which modeled that public mask usage could slow or even stop the spread of an influenza pandemic.
(The CDC and WHO still maintain that healthy people should not wear masks. Preserving them for healthcare workers is important, but that is a separate question from whether they work or not. It seems likely from the evidence presented above that they do help at least somewhat)
Of course, there is a nationwide shortage of masks in most countries. Medical grade masks must be reserved for healthcare workers (if you have some, look for local ways to donate them, many hospitals are accepting donations). So where do we get the masks for the public? We follow the lead of the Czech Republic and Taiwan and make our own. Here is a great summary of how the Czech Republic went from 0 to 100% public mask usage, in less than two weeks.
A person makes masks and a “mask tree” where neighbors could donate handmade masks to others. Note that masks (or anything really) can be effectively sterilized by heating above 70C (158F) either in the oven for paper masks or using regular cycle in your washer and dryer for cloth masks.
Studies have shown even basic household materials like t-shirts can be effective at blocking droplets that contain viruses.
Are they as good as n95 respirators? No. But outside of certain medical procedures, the disease mainly spreads through droplets, and these homemade masks are still pretty good (though not perfect) at blocking those. This goes both ways: the masks provide a layer of protection to protect you, but ALSO contain a lot of the droplets you could be spreading. Some people with the disease don’t have any symptoms at all, so wearing masks is also important to reduce the chance of infecting others.
Masks, like social distancing, don’t have to be 100% effective in order to help flatten the curve.
Here is a model from the Seattle area, which shows how small changes in social contacts can effect total case numbers. You can see that even reducing contacts 25% has a profound effect on case numbers after a few weeks. The same thing would be true if wearing masks reduced transmissions by just 25%.
I want to point out that as long as you don’t take risks you wouldn’t take otherwise and keep your hands off the mask, there is very little risk to doing this now as we wait for further scientific evidence. And the evidence is mounting that simple masks reduce risk and slow spread.
In the Czech republic, they went from no one wearing masks to 100% (it is now mandatory in public) in about 10 days. While the mandatory order to cover your mouth and nose is only a week old, they have seen a slower growth of cases than the rest of Europe despite lots of testing.
Basic masks can be made with just a t-shirt and scissors, no sewing required. This video shows you how, just wear your mask higher on your face than this guy. (Video is changed from original post to one that doesn’t require Facebook login)
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And a few more tutorials
DIY facemask with filter pocket from Maker’s Habitat (video)
Facemask with adjustable wire and filter pocket from Easy2Sew (video)
Craft Passion Face Mask Pattern (pattern & instructions)
A Dr Explains how to make a facemask from a HEPA filter (video)
Simple mask that can be made with a sewing machine, from Craft Passion
If you get good at making homemade masks, especially the ones with HEPA filters, some hospitals are now accepting donations of homemade masks as well. Check to see what is going on in your local area.
If the papers cited above are correct, wearing a mask now when you need to leave the house for essential chores will reduce the time it takes to bring our cases down, and public use of masks could be invaluable in keeping cases low when people start to go back to work.
We can change our culture from stigmatizing masks to expecting people wear them. It happened in the Czech Republic in less than two weeks. We can do it too.
If you have the time, please watch this video. It was the thing that really made all of this click for me, and it has a ton of great information. Here is a shorter video from the Czech youtuber who started the movement in his country which I also recommend watching & sharing.
Please reblog & add resouces, tutorials, or mask selfies! There are three main things you can do to help spread the word and normalize mask wearing: 1) share videos & other information on the topic; 2) take a selfie of you wearing a home-made mask; 3) spread the message, with hashtag #masks4all.
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Coronavirus Advice from Respiratory Therapist
BEST PROCEDURES TO STAY OUT OF THE HOSPITAL!!!
They are calling on Respiratory therapists to help fight the Coronavirus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting. So I’m going to share some commonsense wisdom with those that have the virus and are trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given, you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.
1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil. Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprofen, Advil etc. will exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don’t let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that take your Tylenol, not ibuprofen or Advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm and cover up with blankets, so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.
2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature so you must rehydrate yourself regularly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or Pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don’t do this and end up in the hospital, they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors
3. You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis. If you’re wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breathe through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dilation and help loosen the phlegm. Force yourself to cough into a wet washcloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.
4. Eat healthy and regularly. Got to keep your strength up.
5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.
6. Deep breathe on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don’t it becomes easy to develop pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That’s breathing in deep and slow, then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle. Blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breathe in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.
7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.
8. If you’re still dying, go to ER!
I’ve been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years and kept them out of the hospital, all are healthy and still living today. Thank you all for sharing. We’ve got to help one another.
Declan Stokes
Retired respiratory therapist
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Barbie Fashion Living Room Set (1983)
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“3 Defining Features of ADHD That Everyone Overlooks”
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My husband says she ate too much and not to make fun of her.
look at her. listen to this. watch the fucking tiny round paws. ( credit: @ineverwantedtobethisway )
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As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.
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I didn't know this! Useful information for our garden
Why are my plants turning yellow? If your vegetable garden or house plants have gone from verdant to flavescent, it could be a sign of health issues like too much water or too few nutrients. A new infographic offers tips for getting to the root of the problem.
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“This is Lazuli (her sister is named Lapis) and she is so obsessed with sinks that we had to buy one for her to use as a cat bed. When it’s hot she rarely leaves it.”
Photos/text by Madge Rucker
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°˖✧*• Shop, Patreon, Book, Mailing List *•. ✧˖°`
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For the LONGEST time I could not get the hang of deep breathing because trying to control my breathing at all would spike my anxiety. My therapist kindly advised I try fully exhaling first, and it worked!
Just passing this advice along in case someone needs it. ♥
°˖✧*• Shop, Patreon, Book, Mailing List *•. ✧˖°`
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My fiance told me this when I told him how my anxiety wanted me to avoid doing work for a certain client because I was afraid that I would let her down, but I was trying to push through it. I think I'm going to frame it to put in the office.
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THANK YOU! I haven't been able to find much if any info on a clean environment causing anxiety, just "clean and you'll feel so much better with a clean space" whereas I experience a discomfort when I my space is tidy. I want a tidy space that I can find things and have people over, but I get a discomfort when things are tidy. Thank you for putting it into words that I can relate to.
There’s not a system in the world that will keep this apartment clean
Have you ever had that experience where you put in a big effort, you do The Thing That You’ve Been Dreading™, and by rights you should feel good and proud and accomplished.
But you don’t. You feel terrible.
This used to happen to me constantly, especially around cleaning, and it still does sometimes if I don’t manage the fuck out of myself.
Mostly I skirt around the issue by taking teeny tiny baby steps, cleaning my apartment one object at a time, five minutes at a time, little bit by little bit. This gives me time to adjust, it keeps me from getting tired, and it doesn’t set off flashback after emotional flashback.
But I’m in a bit of a bind right now.
There’s an issue with my apartment, and I need to get my landlord in to my unit. So I’m under a time crunch. I can’t afford to take three months to clean up my place; but I also can’t afford to relapse. I gave myself a week, and even at that I feel guilty about not informing my landlord sooner. But the thought of having him in my unit in that state was sending me into full blown panic.
I’ve made a ton of progress, but I still have a bit more to do. I feel OK right now, but I know those finishing touches will be jarring. I still have some stuff piled up in corners, out of the way to allow me to clean the floors. But once those go back to their rightful places, it will be the cleanest it has been in at least a year.
And then the feelings will come.
I don’t really have a point. I guess what I want to say is this: Doing good things doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes you will feel terrible but that doesn’t mean you are terrible. How you feel about the world, about yourself, it’s not necessarily how things actually are.
Sometimes I feel terrible and sad and bad, too terrible to get up and clean. And, well, the truth is, that’s not really true. I can clean and feel terrible at the same time. It’s important information - I need to consider my feelings, acknowledge them, take them into account. I need to spend some time thinking about why I feel terrible, and if there’s something I can do to feel a teeny tiny little bit better. But some times it’s just Trauma Things™ and there’s nothing I can do in the present to force those feelings to go away. So I can choose to just let them be there, and gently, so gently, go on with my daily life.
I try to never force myself to do anything. It’s too triggering. Feeling forced, like I have no choice, it’s the surest way to set off a major emotional flashback and be out of commission for days. But I can negotiate, I can break tasks down smaller and smaller, I can find something that I feel good about. Maybe all I can do is bring my mug to the kitchen. Maybe all I can do is prepare a laundry basket of clothes ready to go in the washer. Maybe all I can do is fold my laundry and put it back in the basket instead of fully away.
The truth is that at my very core I don’t believe I deserve to live in a nice place. That I’m bad and I deserve to live like this. That I can never be good enough, can never clean well enough, can never be enough. I was taught that I’m a disgusting slob, so I live like one.
This is why cleaning up can feel so bad. The monsters in my head take one look around and start screaming at me, “You don’t deserve this. You’re a slob and you’ll always be a slob. Stop pretending.”
And until I can dismantle those core beliefs, until I can really and truly teach myself that, despite what I was taught as a tiny impressionable child, I am worthy - until then, there’s no system in the world that will keep this apartment clean. It isn’t a skill deficit - though it is also that - it’s a reflection of my inner world. The chaos outside reflects the chaos inside.
I’ve made so much progress, though there’s still a long way to go.
You’re doing OK, kid. Keep going.
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‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist
aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)
lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)
1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?
yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question
no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.
2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?
yes: next question
no: guess what? this is the real next task
3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?
yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.
no: next question
4) do I know how to start the task?
yes: next question
no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.
5) do I have everything I need to start the task?
yes: next question
no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.
6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?
i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.
i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?
the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?
I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)
i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?
no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead
7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?
yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.
reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.
no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t.
reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.
8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!
probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.
if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.
hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU
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be christ-like this christmas. gather a crowd and inspire them to anarchism. beat a politician with a whip. help out your local sex workers. preach equality.
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Reblog this fat happy boy for a good night sleep tonight
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