More on the virus

Jreboll wrote:I spent all my working life as an RN in surgery and critical care units. Every hospital keeps tabs on cross infections. All surgical infections are closely scrutinized. When a “super bug” is found in a unit the patient is isolated and cross infections are followed up. These practices have been developed over decades and are practiced in hospitals all over the world.
I’ve worked in many hospitals across the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. There is no question whatsoever as to the efficacy of using masks both in protecting the patients and medical workers taking care of them.

I hope that all of us are in favor of following the Science, and therefore accepting validated and peer reviewed research. My background - I was a health care professional for 42 years.

Wearing a mask is de rigeur in hospitals, especially in high risk settings. I assume that Jreboll is familiar with the Cochrane library (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane_Library) which has at its core the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses which summarize and interpret the results of medical research. Meta-analysis searches for studies of the same subject and analyses them for validity, discards those which are deficient and comes up with a conclusion based on the valid studies. There is a hierarchy of proof in scientific evidence and at the top is randomised controlled studies and at the bottom is case studies/anecdotes (here is the link :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence#:~:text=Typically%2C%20systematic%20reviews%20of%20completed,bottom%20level%20of%20evidence%20quality. )

As to the effectiveness of face masks in preventing infection of the patient originating from the healthcare staff or vice versa from the patient to the healthcare staff, here is research published in 2015: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/ and their summary is as follows, :" Facemasks do have a clear role in maintaining the social cleanliness of surgical staff, but evidence is lacking to suggest that they confer protection from infection either to patients or to the surgeons that wear them. Given that there is no evidence that they cause any harm either, proponents would rather err on the side of caution and encourage their continued use, stressing that there is no room for complacency when it comes to ensuring patient safety."

Clearly the jury is still out, and that is why I will continue to wear a mask in this pandemic.

ferret wrote:The facts... just the facts...
https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-masks.html

And on the subject of influenza...
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/uritheflu/88676

The problem with the your 2nd link is that there are too many confounding factors involved, eg was it the masks, the social distancing or the handwashing which significantly lowered the prevalence of Seasonal influenza, or perhaps it was the combination of all three and consequently one cannot make an assertion that masks were the reason for the low influenza rates, surely you can see the logic of that?

As for your first link, here is a meta-analysis which discuses the peer reviewed and published articles to determine which physical interventions play a role in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses. I agree that there are confounding factors involved which make the results of the Danish study difficult to assess and I believe that more rigorous studies with better controls are needed. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub5/full

Again I say, the jury is still out and I firmly believe that wearing a mask is a prudent step at least until vaccines are available.

So you are saying basically he couldn't control his staph...

ferret wrote:I think the jury will be out for quite a while because of this line "It is important not to construe an absence of evidence for effectiveness with evidence for the absence of effectiveness."
Nothing and no one is perfect. When I was working in microbiology at Scarborough General Hospital in the 70's, there was one particular surgeon who had a high rate of post surgical infections in his patients. It was finally determined that he was an asymptomatic carrier of Staphylococcus aureus in his nose.
All you can do is cover as many bases as possible to make the outcome the best possible.

I agree with you. I remember being told of similar cases of outbreaks of resistant Staph Aureus infections, my brother in law (anesthetist) picked up a Staph infection (Septic arthritis of the elbow) and needed Vancomycin IV for 2 weeks to clear it - not sure what would have happened if the Vancomycin did not work, there was nothing beyond Vancomycin, but then he was immune compromised (took steroids for a skin condition).
I completely agree with your statement in the first paragraph.

Heads up! These stats are only useful for indicating trends. Seventeen active cases would indicate that we are trending up in Chapala, which includes Ajijic. The Jalisco state stats also show a rise in local covid cases. And my neighbors have been warning me of late: "Ten cuidado, Alex, hay much covid en Chapala." Good advice for all for us.

The locals have been fond of saying that since a number of cases were reported within the Chapala government offices. Outside the offices, unless I missed something, there is no upward trending in Chapala muni.