[image_credit]University of Minnesota[/image_credit][image_caption]Michael Osterholm on walking outdoors, staying six feet or more apart: “I don’t believe you have to wear a mask.”[/image_caption]
You’ve adjusted your work life, your home life and your social life to account for tiny, invisible particles of virus that threaten to sicken you, your family and your friends at any moment.
But despite all this rearranging and trying to be responsible — and an ever-growing flood of information about what to do and what not to do — there are still a lot of questions about how to live (relatively) safely amidst the virus. So we checked in with Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota to answer some questions about how to minimize chances of getting the disease and transmitting it to others.
If we’re spending time with people who are high-risk, whether because of age or underlying medical conditions, and we’re outside, is it enough to be six feet apart?
According to Osterholm, the answer is complicated. But here’s a way to think about it.
First of all, he said, getting infected with COVID-19 is not like a game of tag — you don’t walk by someone and, bam, get infected. “Just coming in contact with the virus, inhaling some virus into your lungs likely will not lead to an infection,” Osterholm said.
What could get you infected is being in close enough contact for a period of time with someone who’s infected. The unknown here is how much time and what dose it takes to become infected, but that’s something Osterholm said researchers are working on.
What is clear is that being outside dissipates the virus; it’s a function of airflow. But being outside doesn’t guarantee you’re safe. While spending time with anybody can present a risk, being outdoors, distanced, and yes, potentially wearing masks are all things that make transmission less likely.
Here’s an example that’s illustrative of the point: Osterholm said he recently got a question about grandparents who wanted to see a new grandchild in person, taking precautions to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. He conferred with colleagues and they agreed that if the parents stood 10 feet apart from the grandparents on a driveway and handed the baby over for one minute, it wouldn’t be a high risk encounter. There’s proximity involved, but it’s a short encounter.
What about masks while you’re out walking? I see some people wearing them, but most people are not.
If people are walking in outdoor air and stay six feet or more apart, “I don’t believe you have to wear a mask,” Osterholm said. He doesn’t wear a mask in these settings and said to his knowledge, his colleagues don’t either.
The virus may still be there, but it’s dissipated in all directions outdoors, and you’re therefore unlikely to inhale enough of it to make you sick.
Say I rent a cabin. Is staying there likely to get me sick? How long could coronavirus linger in the air from a previous occupant?
“It’s all about air exchange,” Osterholm said. “If you have the windows open and the air is going through, it could be minutes. If you have a closed room, it could be hours.” But the air will move through more slowly on a still day than a windy one.
Should kids be playing at other people’s houses, specifically inside other people’s houses?
“The more people you have contact with in that kind of indoor setting, the greater the likelihood of transmission,” Osterholm said. While younger kids have a lower risk of developing serious disease, they can bring the virus home to their more-at-risk parents or grandparents, or transmit it to other people in the community.
MDH officials have said people should still get needed medical care. But what about something like a check-up? We had a 70-year-old reader who wondered if getting an annual check-up in person was unwise.
Osterholm said he doesn’t know of any cases transmitted in a clinic setting where people go for care like this. “If there’s a reason you feel like you need to be seen, then you should go. Definitely,” Osterholm said.
That said, it’s important to think about transportation. If you’re driving yourself, that’s not particularly risky. If you’re taking transit or driving with another person, it could add a layer of risk.
Here’s a question which has occurred to me, relative to contact tracing: I know for a fact that I have not had any close contact with anyone (<6 feet for 15 minutes or more – I keep social distancing of at least 6 feet and make sure any interpersonal contacts that are anywhere near that are of short duration). So let's say I were to get a call from a contact tracer claiming that someone had named me as a close contact: Would I be required to self-isolate even though I would know for a fact I have not had any close contacts?
Pat, the answer is basically: “no”. The contact interview would conclude that you haven’t actually had that exposure so they wouldn’t recommend the isolation. The whole point of the interview is to determine your exposure, no exposure, no quarantine.
I wonder about those folks who are awaiting a “vaccine” for Covid-19. Do they realize what a “vaccine” is and what it’s supposed to do?? My understanding is that ” you will be given Covid-19 or some variation so that your body can develop antibodies using your own immune system against the disease” . That could be a concern for some because scientists don’t know now (and probably for some time/never due to the different strains popping up) the specific details about the virus to go around “infecting” folks. so, what are our options: a. shelter in place forever, b. contract Covid-19 from humans or other means, c. get the “vaccine” and hope for the best , d. live your life with certain precautions and some fear, Or???
I don’t know where you’re getting your information about how vaccines work, but if it was as simple as just injecting people with Covid-19, why would they even bother with vaccines? They’d just tell people to all go out and hang around in close contact with other sick people so they’d all get sick. Obviously, that’s not what they’re doing.
It’s much more complicated than that which is why it’s so hard. And there are many, many approaches being developed and tested. We don’t yet know which one(s) will prove effective AND safe – that’s what the trials are for, and why they take so long.
Here is an article with a discussion on basic vaccine development and on some of the ideas being worked on for Covid. It’s a long article, but that’s because it’s a complex subject. I hope you’ll spend some time reading it and trying to develop an understanding of what is actually going into these vaccine development efforts:
https://www.vox.com/2020/8/13/21359025/coronavirus-vaccine-covid-19-moderna-oxford-mrna-adenovirus
Some vaccines so contain what is called live attenuated virus, but it is a weakened version of the virus that won’t make you sick. Getting a live attenuated Covid vaccine is not the same as giving you Covid.
My information comes from medical journals, Webster’s dictionary and other sources.
“A vaccine works by training the immune system to recognize and combat pathogens, either viruses or bacteria. To do this, certain molecules from the pathogen must be introduced into the body to trigger an immune response. These molecules are called antigens, and they are present on all viruses and bacteria.Nov 22, 2019”
As stated, the pathogen or some variation (Covid-19) MUST be introduced in some form into the subject.
The “trials” (and errors) are to determine the amount of the pathogen that can be injected without giving the subject the full blown disease but enough to trigger their immune response. AND 2. Can it be mass-produced.
The path to this vaccine can be complex but it doesn’t change the bottom line. A person is injected with a pathogen (mild or otherwise) so that an immune response can be generated by the subject. That is the PURE definition of a vaccine and I stand by my original comments
Then you’re not understanding what you’re reading. IF the virus is used, it is used in a weakened form (“attenuated”, as pointed out by Pat Terry). In this scenario, the exposure to the virus is not enough to make you sick with the disease, but only enough to teach the body to recognize the virus so it has the tools to fight it off if encountered again.
And the “errors” you mention (a rather emotionally-loaded and inaccurate term in this context) are exactly why things are done in careful, monitored, and gradually increasing stages. When you’re trying to find the solutions to something brand new to the world, not every idea will pan out. That is why so many different ideas are being pursued. The pandemic adds an unprecedented urgency to these development efforts, but things are still being done with safety and health as the utmost priorities.
I’m not sure what you’re supporting as an alternative. And frankly, the basics of this underlie every vaccine you’ve ever been given. Do you also resist being vaccinated against other diseases? Perhaps you do, in which case there’s probably nothing anyone can say here that is likely to get you to accept the idea of the (hopefully) eventual successful development of a Covid-19 vaccine(s).
As Pat Berg 2011 explains well, you aren’t understanding what you are reading. You are repeating misconceptions commonly used by vaccine opponents, and in this case (and really with all vaccines) that kind of ignorance is very dangerous.
Catherine, the whole point of all of the trials and testing with vaccines is to eliminate the risks your describing, and that regime has been yielding safe vaccines for decades. The only danger in this case is if an accelerated testing regime fails to identify risks. We won’t know what that looks like until we actually have a vaccine that’s emerges from this effort and have a chance to evaluate it’s safety.
Readers (like MN Post has obviously in abundance) should be aware of Mike Osterholm’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy website.
One can learn as much as one wants at this site, as it is science centered, timely and up-to-date, content rich, and has information from around the state, country and the world about infectious disease including what we have learned in the fight against HIV-AIDS, Ebola and of course COVID-19.
It makes me proud to be a Minnesotan for what Osterholm and his team have contributed to public health over the years. They have solved several food-borne outbreak mysteries for the whole country. They are a MN gem.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/
If a small number of virus particles is insufficient to produce disease, is it sufficient to produce an immune response? I am wondering if being exposed to minute quantities of the virus, especially multiple times over a certain period, confers a certain protection. Perhaps not enough to prevent the disease but sufficient to mitigate it.
Exposure to insignificant viral loads probably won’t trigger an immune response.