afternoon :)
What experts say about coronavirus in water, and what it means for beach season
[first the bad news]:
Research indicates that other coronavirus strains, such as SARS, can survive 12 days in room temperature tap water, two to three days in room temperature wastewater, and much longer in both at cooler temperatures, according to Dr. Ian Pepper, PhD, director of the University of Arizona Water and Energy Sustainable Technology (WEST) Center...
[now the good news]:
Although infectious droplets may contaminate water and the virus has been detected in wastewater, experts agree that when it gets into large bodies of water — like lakes, rivers and oceans — the concentration of the virus would be so diluted that it would be difficult to contract it.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there’s no evidence that people can become infected through recreational swimming, and “the risk of COVID-19 transmission through water is expected to be low.”
“It is extraordinarily unlikely,” said Dr. William Schaffner, MD, professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
...pools, hot tubs and other chlorinated water sources are not a concern because the chlorine in the water inactivates the virus by disrupting the virus’ outer layer.
1. I hope bromine in hot tubs works as well as chlorine?
2. Probably best not to let the kids splash in still puddles after a rain.
3. You could get panda cooties if you share your beverage.
TEXAS
Sisters die 102 years apart from two separate global pandemics
A pair of sisters have died from two separate global pandemics, over a century apart, according to a report on Friday.
Selma Esther Ryan died Tuesday from the coronavirus at an assisted living facility in Austin, Tx., three days after celebrating her 96th birthday. Her death comes after her older sister, Esther — who she never met — died at the age of five during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.
RUSSIA is in trouble
In Pandemic, a Remote Russian Region Orders a Lockdown — on Information
MOSCOW — Nearly as big as California but served by only a handful of mostly decrepit Soviet-era hospitals, the remote northern Russian region of Komi is a coronavirus petri dish for the horrors lying in wait for the world’s largest country.
... faced with a pandemic that does not respond to the Kremlin’s go-to tools of propaganda and repression, Mr. Putin has mostly delegated handling of the coronavirus to these same regional leaders. In doing so, the Kremlin has only empowered instincts, deeply entrenched in many local governments, to try to cover up bad news.
Mr. Putin, in an address to the nation to mark Orthodox Easter on Sunday, assured Russians, “The situation is under total control.”
Shortly after he spoke from his country retreat, however, the health authorities reported more than 6,000 new infections across Russia, by far the biggest one-day rise yet, bringing the total to nearly 43,000. More worrying, more than two-thirds of these new cases were outside Moscow, which had previously accounted for the bulk of new infections.”
NYT
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in-pandemic-a-remote-russian-region-orders-a-lockdown-—-on-information/ar-BB12SYWr?ocid=spartanntp