Measles has spread to where I am at. Other than a mask/Vaccine, what else can help protect against it?
I have no real trust in my local community (theres quite a few anti-vaccine people here).
Measles is the most infectious virus we know of. Contagion is measured by how many people the average patient will infect. Covid was a 4, measles is 18.
Well that's terrifying.
Just to add to the terror, measles can strip away previously held immunities. Had chicken pox as a child? If you get (and survive) measles you might get chicken pox again!
Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia
Get vaccinated, folks!
pro-vaxxers as well who stopped masking against covid
Oh god...
Healthcare professional here - but not your HPC and you cannot confirm that I am who I am so double check what I write:
Regarding masks: if you have a beard: shave. Unless your beard is n95/ffp2 rated
You can always glob it full of petroleum jelly (I did quantitative fit testing for a time, it really works) but it's gross.
Mostly yes,but it is possible to have some beardstyles if you know very much what you are doing (and have a large head).
But the actual area of contact and to a certain degrees the areas around it need to be shaved properly,yes.
Any reason to not skip the titer test and just get an MMR booster (especially if you’re born in the 60s)?
Every vaccination has a (although very slim) chance to cause an adverse reaction. Around 5% of all people vaccinated have a minor skin reaction (which is physiological and not an anaphylaxis. 1% report joint pain.
But,more severely, 1-4 people out of a million develop a life-threatening anaphylaxis, 3 out 100.000 a serious blood clothing disorder. Very rarely(as in: Less than 1 in 1 Million), but with a slightly higher incidence of you are an adult pancreatitis and deafness is reported.
As medicine is always a game of chances we try not to risk things,even if they are rare.
One I can think of... I want to my local pharmacy last week to get an MMR shot, and was refused. They pretty much wont do it without a Dr's order.
punts baby away
I think the glasses fogging up has been somewhat debunked. you can have a mask pass a fit test and still fog up your glasses because you're still exhaling moist/hot air through your mask even when it fits properly.
also the N95 equivalent would be FFP2
Nope,it hasn't. If your glasses are fogging up in sync with your respiration rate or within a very short timeframe your mask is not sealing. Period. The only difference is when you have either have a valve mask, work with a face shield or similar things or in confined spaces - it's basically impossible to fog up your glasses with a correctly positioned mask as the filter medium does work as a diffuser. If your mask does fog up suddenly despite a confirmed fit it usually is a warning sign for a breakdown of the filter medium.
(And believe me, we tried really hard - as part of a customer contract we tested all major mask manufacturers available in the EU, with a sample size in the 4 digit range, including UV fluid and thermal imaging tests)
I am fully aware that the equivalent of N95 is often seen as comparable to FFP2, but this is not actually quite correct. The FFP2 has a slightly worse filtration rate and a slightly higher resistance both for inspiration and expiration. Anyway, I intentionally wrote FFP3 as this is the recommended FFP class for Measles while within the NIOSH legislation only a N95 is recommended.
Hmm....
Get your titers checked by your doctor, that’s about the only other thing you can do. Especially if you were born before 1989, since you may have only had 1 measles vaccine instead of 2, which raises the effectiveness.
Thanks, I got blood tested a couple of months ago and found I still have immunity. Which is a nice thing to find out going into this.
86' baby, can confirm.
⚠️Except double-checking my childhood record's, I did have my full 2-shot-series. 😱
I got my third booster The First Go-Round.
Upon getting my titer results, I asked what the deal was. Seems my timeframe didn't get "The good stuff"?
Haha titers
My healthcare provider had me tested for Measles antibodies because apparently that shit can wear off after 50 years in some people. I was still good with Mumps and Rubella, but was wide open to Measles. So I got an MMR vaccine (available at Walgreens, CVS, etc) and I’m good to go. So if you’re over 50, you might want to get tested or simply just ask your your doctor for their opinion about getting another shot.
adults born between 1963, when the first measles vaccine was approved, and 1968. During that period, some children received an inactivated (killed) measles vaccine that was less effective than the live vaccine.
People born before 1957 are considered to have “presumptive evidence” of immunity, because nearly everyone born during this period got the disease during childhood. But health-care workers born before 1957 who don’t have proof of immunity should consider getting the vaccine.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/should-you-get-a-measles-vaccine-booster
Most of us who went to college that required the MMR are good for life according to the CDC.
Both shots leave you at 98% immunity. Then if you somehow beat those odds and still manage to get it, it will be much less severe.
You'll be totally fine. The only victims of measles in the US will mostly be. children of idiot parents, adults who had idiot parents and then became idiot adults, and people with actual medical issues that have prevented them from safely getting the vaccine.
If you got 2 doses of the MMR vaccine as a child, you're probably fine. The vaccine is like 97% effective at preventing measles, and if you're part of that 3% your symptoms will probably be milder that if you weren't vaccinated. It's a damn good vaccine. Even if you got only 1 dose that's still considered to be 90-something percent effective.
Talk to your doctor, people with certain autoimmune conditions, the elderly, people born when they were only giving 1 dose of the vaccine or who received older vaccine formulas may need a booster. The rest of us who are vaccinated are almost certain to be fine.
The real risk is to children who haven't been vaccinated yet because they're too young, people who can't receive the vaccine for health reasons like allergies or other unvaccinated adults, and people with compromised immune systems.
I can't really find good numbers of what percent of the US overall is vaccinated, but if the current rates of children being vaccinated are anything to go by, it's most of them. Even with all of the anti vax talk, it seems like somewhere north of 80% of children in the US are still getting their recommended vaccines from what I can find. This is mostly going to hit that 10-20-ish percent who aren't vaccinated.
And the real tragedy that a good amount of the anti vax parents were actually vaccinated themselves as children and so get to enjoy that 97% immunity. They won't be in much danger of catching measles but their children will be.
Otherwise, all of the usual advice applies, wash your hands, disinfect shared surfaces and equipment, cover your mouth when you cough, maybe wear a mask in public, do what you can to encourage your friends and family to get vaccinated if they aren't.
I think official government advice at this point is to find an infected person and snort their sore spots.
I would go with a vaccine, otherwise I suppose isolate from society.
The obvious choice here is to get vaccinated if you're not.
Don't vote Republican
If you are vaccinated properly (2 doses last I checked) you will be fine. Isolate is really your only other option. It's that contagious. Thankfully, as you're old enough to ask here if you do come down with the full illness it'll suck but you'll survive unless you have a compromised immune system.
Get vaccinated if you haven't and check if you need a booster if you have.
Isolation or minimal contact is not only another option, it always has been the first option to consider. It's difficult to do in our society, so we have other things like masking and distancing, but a virus can't spread to/from you if you're not around other persons.
That works if you live and work in an environment where you control who is in your space. That's not really an option for most people.
check to see if there's a mask bloc near you as they offer free respirators to anyone who needs them and they organize political actions to encourage mask wearing in all public spaces. https://maskbloc.org/. I also highly recommend r/Masks4All, their wiki is packed with so many tips on how to save money when buying masks in bulk. if you're comfortable with wearing an elastomeric respirator, your wallet is gonna thank you immensely as the price per lifetime use is laughably cheaper compared to buying disposable respirators multiple times per year. one model that I like is Honeywell 7700 with P100 filters.
one of the most effective individual actions you can take is fit-testing your respirator to make sure it's not leaking. stick to N95 respirators and higher and do a qualitative fit test at home. some mask blocs buy Portacount machines communally so they can offer free fit testing to the people who contact them. if that's not available locally, contact workplace safety companies to book a quantitative fit test with specialized equipment that you probably couldn't afford to buy for yourself. some of them also rent out Portacount machines although more rarely.
get educated on the swiss cheese model and stack up prevention methods instead of relying on a standalone one-size-fits-all solution.
you might wanna carry around an air purifier or build your own DIY model that's cheaper and more effective than most options on the market. you can also run it on a portable battery since the fans only consume 10W at max load. check out the r/crboxes subreddit if you need to ask questions, they're full of helpful people.
get connected with your local disability community as they have been battling eugenics for decades and developing novel ways of surviving pandemics since forever. ask your local immunocompromised neighbors what measures they're taking to stay alive. even if you're able-bodied, their safety measures will undoubtedly benefit you as well.
I'm leaving this option for last because it's not affordable for most people, but you might wanna look into Far-UVC lighting to disinfect the air. https://cybernightmarket.com/products/mini-far-uvc-lights-set
What are your recommendations for people with small faces? Because I've never encountered an N95 that felt like it fit.
I don't wear small size so keep that in mind when reading.
look through ppeo.com or on savewo.com. some models have size charts in the description but I wouldn't rely on them too much. the only way to know is to try every size and check which one fits you best. there are stores selling mask samples so you could use that. r/masks4all probably has a link.
You should take everything you hear on the internet with a grain of salt (including here). You should really trust the guidelines of your country's health ministry or the WHO. Then again, the WHO has said some crazy shit in the past…
Mine just got massively defunded :)
considering for how long the CDC and WHO refused to admit that COVID is airborne, idk about that
Well, think of WHO as the 'least bad source of information", not the absolute truth provider. To get closer to the truth, you'd need to do a bit of journalist work: do a background check on the scientists involved (what have they published? Is their work respected by their peers? Have they been approached by lobbies?) and compare different sources (for instance, look at what the Robert Koch Institut in Germany and the Institut Pasteur in France have to say). But, to do that you might need to speak several languages, but above all, you would need a lot of time for research. So checking the most reliable source is generally the practical course of action for most people.
Being vaccinated and have this vaccination working is already a 97%+ protection. Add a mask, and it's even better. Maybe avoid hugging infected people...
Move to a better state.
Infectious disease doesn't care about your political leanings.
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