NEW ORLEANS — While COVID-19 hospitalizations have dropped, Louisiana Assistant State Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter warns the virus is still here and infecting people.
“The overall message though is even though we’re in phase one now, it’s not time to cannonball in. Dip your toe. Take it slow. Be cautious. There still is a lot of COVID out there,” said Dr. Kanter.
You may be seeing what we are seeing: More people are wearing masks, but many others who are not wearing masks aren't practicing social distancing either. But those simple steps can make a difference, especially now at a time when the infection rate may be growing.
Now that businesses are opening up, there is a new phenomenon, mask shaming.
Keep in mind that even though your mask protects you, it mostly protects others from your virus droplets when you speak, breathe, cough or sneeze.
And there are two sides of this shaming: those who fear infection from those who don't wear one, and those who think it's unnecessary and are defensive when asked to wear one.
It's playing out on social media, like at this Colorado Costco between a store worker and customer.
"Hi, everyone. I work for Costco, and I'm asking this customer to put on a mask because that is our company policy," said the Costco employee.
"And I'm not doing it because I woke up in a free country," the customer answers.
So let's look at some pictures that explain mask-wearing and social distancing.
First, while hand washing and not touching is important, we now know that the more likely transmission is from the air.
A real-life restaurant diagram shows how people in the downwind air conditioning flow got sick from an infected person.
And a diagram of a real call center workplace shows how employees breathing the same air near the infected person, got the coronavirus much more than people in the other area who still used the same bathrooms and common areas.
A scene from the movie Contagion talks about the R0 number.
If you look on the Rt Live site, it shows the reproductive index or R0 for this virus.
It can be thought of as the probability of transmission or reproducing the infection in other people. If higher than one, the number of people infected is increasing. The higher that number, the more people being infected by each person. Lower than one means the number of cases is going down.
Now when it comes to Louisiana. Our R0 was going down when people stayed home. April 26 it was 0.78.
More recently, it has gone up to 0.88 infection transmission is still less than one, but state numbers are creeping back up. If it gets back to one, we begin to recreate the conditions for large spread, and the mass multiplying with each person infecting more than one other.
There's a lag between our behavior and the number of cases reported. So in 11 to 14 days, we will see if the community reopening makes our reproductive index goes back up.
So remember wearing a mask, not on your chin, but that always covers your nose and mouth, is all we have to make sure that we save lives and are not locked back up at home, keeping us from the New Orleans people and places that we love so much.
If you'd like to see what’s happening in each state, click here:
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