Self-Isolation Day #18

Tuesday, Self-Isolation Day #18

Please continue to pray for my husband's mother D. on a ventilator in ICU with confirmed COVID-19. We very much appreciate it, even though we are choosing not to give detailed, blow-by-blow health updates in this public forum.


The only photos I have from this emotionally challenging day are these little creatures our four-year-old keeps drawing: he tells me they are "angry pancakes," but I sure think they look like a coronavirus!

I post some articles below. It doesn't matter what I post, half the people are going to disagree. I'm mostly posting what I think is interesting or remarkable reading for one day when my kids want to look back on "when we survived COVID-19 of 2020," the way we talk about the flu of 1918. It's like newspaper clippings in a box.


For a little, gentle levity . . . Springtime for Introverts: The world has caught up with us at last.

LifeSiteNews: Here’s how to obtain Last Rites for a hospitalized COVID-19 patient: A blueprint for navigating hospital refusal and ecclesiastical reluctance

The Remnant: Blueprint for Obtaining Last Rites in the Hospital for COVID-19 Patients


I devoted an entire hour (over the day) listening to a talk by Dr. David Price of the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. He speaks in a very calm manner (but not at all cavalier), which I, for one, very much need right now. He wants to empower us not to be paralyzed with fear. I know everyone is throwing around experts right now, so I will say of this one that I do appreciate that he has been working with COVID-19 patients all this time in a New York City 400-bed hospital that has been converted entirely for such patients. Are there doctors more expert in the world? Surely, yes. Does this gentleman know more than me and most laypeople? Certainly, yes.

According to what he is generally seeing:

• He emphasizes that virtually all cases of COVID are transmitted through droplets (not aerosolized) through sustained contact (15-30 minutes) in close quarters with a COVID+ person. (Remember basic science: just because lab tests show that coronavirus can survive on a surface for X amount of time does not mean that it is enough viral load to overcome your immune system and make you sick. It's not like touching one single virus is going to make every single person who touches the item develop the disease.)
• This virus seems to be fairly delicate, so simply washing or using hand sanitizer kills it immediately. Touch something public? Sanitize hands immediately. Wash hands often. NEVER TOUCH YOUR FACE. Stand 6 feet apart from others.
• Isolate yourself to a small group (e.g., family group).
• Gives instructions on how to isolate a COVID+ person in a household with others.
• Many/most people get COVID-19 that is mild. People are arguing about what mild means.
• The vast majority of us who will get COVID do not need a test because it does not change treatment: go home and stay home.
• When do you need treatment? If you have fever, coughing, and are winded simply by walking to the bathroom, that is shortness of breath: go to the hospital. It is the shortness of breath that is the ticket to the hospital.
• Of COVID+ people, about 10% will need to go to the hospital for shortness of breath.
• Of that 10%, about 1-3% will need to be on a ventilator.
• Of those going on a ventilator, more than half will heal and go home.
• He describes that the healthcare workers in the USA (we're not talking about Italy here) who are currently becoming sick with COVID are those who were working directly with COVID patients three weeks ago when they did not understand that they needed PPE. These are doctors like general physicians and ER docs. At his hospital where it is 400 COVID patients, he says not one single doctor has gotten sick . . . and most of the time they are not wearing N95 masks.

Covid_19_Protecting_Your_Family_Dr_Dave_Price_3_22_2020 from Mariana Price on Vimeo.