Day 277, part 2 – Masks optional

We’re back down in Cape Agulhas, enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air (outdoors). It’s certainly less busy than we would usually expect at this time of year, but equally, it’s far from empty.

Once again, it does seem like the constant pleas to wear masks and socially distance are not being heeded here, and once again – surprise surprise – that approach is having a detrimental effect. I received this from the local CPF group last night:

Cape Agulhas has reached the stage where about 40-50% of tests done are positive. We appeal to patients who are being tested to ensure that they give the correct telephone number as well as answer their phones if they are contacted. If you are awaiting results, please remember that you are in quarantine for 10 days and therefore may not walk around. Unfortunately, results now take longer than expected, but please remain in quarantine! You are endangering other people’s lives if you insist on leaving quarantine!
There is a limit to the amount of beds available and people can no longer just be sent away to the next hospital. Otto du Plessis hospital and surrounding hospitals have almost reached their capacity and everyone needs to please take care. Those who continue to behave as before are endangering the lives of high-risk patients. It’s going to get even worse over the next week or two so please be responsible. Some of our patients have been dying almost daily due to Covid over the last few days, and we only have a limited bed capacity.

…from the Western Cape medical manager for Swellendam and Cape Agulhas subdistricts, which is fairly blunt and to the point.

40-50% positivity is pretty horrendous, but does at least indicate that people are being tested, which is the only way we can gauge the situation and protect others.

But you only have to drive around the area to see the behaviour that will lead to even higher numbers in the next few weeks.

Day 271 – Safety first pays off

I walked to the local shopping mall this morning. I wanted to go to a single shop on the edge of the mall, and I didn’t want to have to deal with a) parking, or b) walking through the mall once I had parked. I would imagine that retail sales are going to be sharply down this year when compared to others, but you wouldn’t know it to look at the crowds in the shops.

My idea worked perfectly: I didn’t have to go near anyone at all, my shop was almost empty and I also lost 6 kilos by walking back home in the utterly ridiculous heat.

Safety first is definitely the best option at the moment. I can’t explain how Covid-19 is dominating everything here. Hospitals are overwhelmed, the news is a single-track on repeat and we all know people who have got it and who have died from it. It’s right on our doorstep and since I wrote this just 2½ weeks ago, the situation has somehow become immeasurably worse.

While you can’t protect yourself completely, the idea that one should treat everyone as if they have the virus is a sound one. I have been putting this into practice (it’s actually not a big thing as a microbiologist, because we treat everything as potentially infectious in the lab anyway) and yesterday it paid off. Instead of being worried about an interaction I had with someone who has since tested positive, I’m completely at peace, simply because of the care that I took in our brief meeting (outdoors, in that SouthEaster, at a distance, with a mask on).

If it wasn’t for that approach, I’d be thinking about spending my Christmas Day (already in tatters) sitting in an hours-long queue waiting to be tested for you-know-what. All while (quite likely) feeling pretty crappy as well.

It’s worth the effort to keep yourself safe.

Day 268 – Problematic Simon

Big news (it’s not that big) released last night by the Health Minister and his scientific friends is that we’re apparently under siege from a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Dr Mkhize spoke yesterday evening and, I think, did a very good job of explaining what the 501.V2 Variant is, how it was detected and what it means for the fight against Covid-19 in SA.

But then there was this:

I don’t usually listen to washed-up political hasbeens (you had your chance), but this tweet irritated me.

The line “I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but…” is akin to the old favourite “I’m not racist, but…” and is always, always the prefix to either a conspiracy theory or something overtly racist.

And Simon doesn’t let us all down (for once) by immediately spouting a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Note: the “Genuine Question” bit at the start is not a disclaimer or an excuse.

This shouldn’t happen. Supposedly intelligent individuals shouldn’t be sharing their drunken thoughts in a public forum. It’s fortunate that the only people really listening to Simon at this point are the ones that no-one else really listens to, and so this uneducated, desperately foolish rhetoric will hopefully die quickly in his little echo chamber.

If you are tempted to tweet an utterly stupid conspiracy theory to your followers, then please do as Simon did, and tell us up front that you “don’t usually subscribe to this sort of thing” or some such, so that we can all save our time and simply ignore whatever follows.

Or better still, rather than vomiting your nonsense across social media, just quietly ask someone with a brain to gently explain it to you, thus preventing you from looking like a prize arse in front of the whole country.

Day 267, part 2 – An even easier way

We have – repeatedly – been through the ways that you can avoid infection and avoid infecting others with Covid-19, but there always seems to be some good reason silly excuse which means that you can’t follow through and actually do them, doesn’t there?

Wash your hands regularly

But my hands get so dry.
I have very sensitive skin, see? I get it from my mother’s side.

Wear a mask

It’s so hard to breath through a mask though, isn’t it?
And the rebreathing of all the carbon monoxide. So dangerous. So very dangerous.

Maintain a decent social distance

I’m just, like, a really tactile person. Like, I always have been.
I literally just need to hug everyone. I get it from my mother’s side.

Avoid poorly ventilated indoor spaces

Look, sure, my favourite bar is very small and has no windows.
But there are Happy Hour specials on vodka cocktails all this week!

I know, I know. It’s really not easy to alter your behaviour in order to protect other people.

But here’s a great plan and you don’t actually have to do anything at all. Quite literally.

If you are feeling unwell, just stay at home. 

This one has been on all the posters and the emails and everything else that you have seen and been sent, but it doesn’t make the headline advice because it’s clearly just so obvious.

Not rocket surgery.

Sadly, with hindsight, it seems that assumption might have been something of a misjudgement on our part. [sigh]

And so from now on, can we add this seemingly most straightforward of advice to the short list above?

Thanks so much.