As I write, the COVID-19 coronavirus is epidemic in several places and threatening to go pandemic (a super-sized, worldwide epidemic). Stopping that would be great. Slowing it down would be very helpful too, as it would reduce pressure on medical facilities and allow people to be better prepared. What can preppers do to help? We can help lower the R0 of germs.
What is R0?
R0, pronounced “Are Naught”, is a measure the average number of people one infected person will transfer infection to. When R0 is really high, germs spread like wildfire. An R0 of less than 1 means the outbreak will die out, since there are not enough new infections to keep it going.
A typical seasonal flu has an R0 of around 1.2. Measles is hugely contagious, with usual R0 of closer to 15! Values for the coronavirus COVID-19, now threatening to go pandemic, have varied widely, but somewhere around 2.3 is the most common value.
R0 is not a static number.
I’ve seen a lot of criticism of ‘the scientists’ for offering such a wide range of values for the R0 of COVID-19 … as if it’s proof that most of them are wrong. It’s actually proof that the persons offering the criticism don’t understand R0 very well. R0 naturally varies with the environmental conditions and behaviors of the members of the population.
True, some germs are set to have a relatively high R0. If it doesn’t take many copies of a germ to cause illness, R0 will be higher. The better the germ is at remaining infective in unfriendly environments (dry, or cold, or soaked in germicide), the higher it’s R0 will tend to be.
But there’s also things people can do to affect the R0 of a pandemic germ that’s circulating around. Deny those little boogers targets by keeping infected people away from new hosts. Wash the rascals down the drain instead of passing them along with a handshake. Kill them while they lie in wait with a nice alcohol soak. All of these drop the R0.
The goal: Get the R0 of the germ under 1
Any population where the R0 drops below 1 will see the local outbreak die out. So that’s the goal.
As an example, COVID-19 has had an R0 of 2.3 calculated for one of the cruise ships that got locked down. Let’s see how that number might be worked lower by people’s choices.
Strategies for lowering R0 in your vicinity
Many of these suggestions are getting a lot of air time this week, so I’ll run through these good-but-well-heard ideas quickly:
- Social distance: Keep away from where people are.
- Self-isolate if you’re sick
- Clean shared items/surfaces often with germicides
- Contain coughs/sneezes with a sleeve
- Wash your hands. Wash your hands. WASH YOUR HANDS lots. Or use sanitizer.
- Wear a mask? Eh, at least it encourages you not to touch hands to face.
Social connection with a low R0: The Fistbump
Really I should let Salty write this part. He is not a hugger (me being the lucky exception!). Instead, he is the king of the fist bump. It’s friendly, it’s social, it doesn’t transmit germs well … and as a bonus, it’s entirely uncreepy when practiced by a midlife man with young and lovely photography models. Fist-bumps instead of casual hugs, handshakes, and especially kisses make germs sad.
Fist-bumps make people happy, germs sad, and R0 values lower. Pro tip: Gentle bop; don’t miss and punch the person in the gut. Not friendly that way.*
Handling objects that live to raise R0 numbers
Shared remote controls. Elevator buttons. Door handles. Restaurant salt shakers and chair backs. When you are out, there’s a lot of objects there that random strangers have touched. Particularly with something like pandemic causing COVID-19 which is well transmitted by asymptomatic persons, you’ve got to watch these shared items.
Of course washing and hand sanitizer help a lot here; but so does reducing how many germs you pet. The real goal here is to reduce contact with your main ‘handling surfaces’ of pads of fingers.
Push buttons with a knuckle. Use a pencil end (your pencil) on remote control buttons. If your hands are small like mine, stick the whole hand into door handles and open them with the wrist. Keep the paper towel you used to dry your hands to open the door with on the way out.
Visualize your hands as covered in wet paint
OK, that sounds odd; but I used to do a fair bit of work that required me to keep my hands sterile. You really don’t realize how casually we touch things until you’re wearing an expensive single-use pair of gloves that took ten minutes to don. It helped to visualize my hands as being completely covered in wet paint. You can get a surprising amount of manipulation done with elbows if so motivated. And nobody eats off their elbows, so it’s a low transmission risk.
Start now to keep the R0 low to keep the pandemic germ away
One insidious thing about many germs, including COVID-19, is you can’t always see them coming. Some infected, virus-shedding folks never get sick. Others are still pre-symptomatic and don’t know they’re doing a fair Typhoid Mary impersonation. Why not start practicing now? You do get better at these strategies with practice. Even if COVID-19 isn’t in your neighborhood now, other viruses and bacteria are.
Your kindergarten teacher wasn’t *completely* correct. Sharing is not always the right thing to do.
- Thanks for the image to Plankfad / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
About the author:
Spice is a professor at a top-ranked midwestern university, teaching pathophysiology, human physiology and several other biological subjects. Before moving into the classroom, she was a researcher at a nationally known medical school, and has had multiple articles published in major peer-reviewed biochemistry journals.
For myself, I am going to implement the 3BY recommendations as best I can, but I won’t REALLY begin to worry until they tell Spice to stay home from work.
I’ll let ya know if they move me to tele-commuting. Wouldn’t be surprised if they do that if we start to see community spread in my area. But it’s not near here at the moment, so far as anyone knows.
take more vitamin C. it improves your immune system