[conspire] UC Berkeley professor Nicholas Weaver's Covid Advice for CS161: Prepare to go to ground now

[Michael Paoli]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusCA/comments/jtmrp4/a_uc_berkeley_professors_covid_advice_to_his/
> A UC Berkeley professor's Covid Advice to his students
> r/berkeley Posted by u/NicholasWeaver
> University faculty/staff
> Nick's Covid Advice for CS161: Prepare to go to ground now

> (Mirroring from my CS161 piazza post)

> As you know, I've been following COVID very closely and trying to
> keep students informed of the situation. And although I'm not an
> epidemiologist, my research includes the computer equivalents. We are
> about to enter a very, very dark December and you should all prepare
> now.

> As a reminder, COVID is an airborne pathogen but requires a
> significant challenge dose to be infected. Airborne/aerosol means it
> is carried around in particles with roughly the size and behavior of
> smoke. Worse, asymptomatic but infected individuals spread the virus
> very effectively. Talking and singing spread more particles than just
> breathing. This is why mask wearing is so critical: even the most
> basic cloth mask acts as a fairly effective filter for these
> particles when you breath out.

> So imagine an infected person is smoking a joint. For a pathogen like
> measles, if you smell the joint and were unvaccinated you'd be
> infected. With COVID, you need a contact high. This is why outdoors
> is so much safer than indoors, fleeting contact is far less
> significant than sustained contact, and why restaurants, bars, and
> family gatherings are such effective spreaders. A bar, especially in
> winter, is a literal COVID hot-box.

> It is also important to understand the risk. For most University
> students the risk you face if you are infected with COVID is in
> roughly the same ballpark as joining a fraternity. But it is a very
> different story for your parents: Even in the 40-50 year old range a
> COVID infection has a roughly 0.5% fatality rate when the hospital
> systems are well functioning, and this can drastically increase with
> both age and if the hospital system is overloaded. Unless you are a
> sociopath, you would probably feel badly if, say, your wedding lead
> directly to 7 deaths.

> At the same time, we are all suffering from COVID fatigue and
> claustrophobia. We want this to end. The good news is it will,
> soonish. The timeline for widespread vaccinations in the spring is
> looking good, not just the Pfizer vaccine but others in the pipeline,
> and one of the few things the Administration has gotten right is
> building the distribution infrastructure now and agreeing to buy now
> large amounts of vaccine when it becomes available.

> But with that background, the US is about to enter a crisis even
> worse than the first wave.

> Cases have doubled in a little more than 10 days, the hospitals are
> already as full as they were in the first wave, and the US is
> proceeding like nothing is wrong. United just added over 1400 flights
> for Thanksgiving. At the same time the healthcare system is already
> breaking down: El Paso now has 10 refrigerated trucks serving as a
> temporary morgue while the state of Texas is suing to overturn local
> restrictions designed to reduce the spread! Worse, hospitalizations
> lag cases by about a week and deaths by two weeks. And yet a good 30%
> of the country thinks that masks are some plot to corrupt our
> precious bodily fluids.

> This third wave is twice as many cases as the second (the first wave
> doesn't count for this comparison because the testing regime was too
> weak then). That second wave had an average daily death toll of over
> 1000/day. So as a nation we will be lucky if there is only one more
> doubling of the rate of new infections and a month of 2000-3000 dead
> each day: substantially more than the first wave. But with the
> Thanksgiving holiday coming up, we are looking at a very dark
> December as so many are actively ignoring the pandemic.

> So what to do?

> It is time to effectively "go to ground", prepare to shelter in place
> for the next couple of months like the initial lockdown. If you are
> with your parents, stay there. But if you aren't, do not return home
> unless they get sick: this includes both Thanksgiving and the
> Christmas holiday. Don't dine indoors, don't work out indoors, don't
> meet anyone outside your household indoors. And spread the word to
> your family and those you love.

> Thanksgiving-time shopping is going to be particularly perilous.
> Grocery shop for the next two weeks now to avoid the pre-Thanksgiving
> mobs at the stores. When you do go out, try to wear one of the
> disposable blue procedure masks rather than just a cloth mask:
> procedure masks do offer some level of incoming protection. The N95s
> you got for the fires are not appropriate as they have breather
> valves, if you wear one of those, wear a cloth or blue-disposable
> over it.

> If your parents or relatives want you home for the holidays, reply
> that you love them too much to risk it. If they press further, say
> something like "I give you a bowl of 200 M&Ms. One will kill you. One
> will cripple you. Everyone over 40 gets to eat one if we have a
> family gathering. Grandma needs to eat 5. That is what happens if
> someone brings Covid to the family gathering."

> It is going to be a dark end to a dark year. But there is light
> ahead. The multiple vaccine candidates are looking very very good,
> the distribution system is in place, and Pfizer alone is gearing up
> for a billion+ doses in the next several months and Pfizer is not the
> only one. So to end on a happy note, with high confidence my office
> hours in Fall 2021 will allow me to wait for people to show up in
> person rather than over zoom.