Some Success Stories from the Past
A few weeks later I left to work as Camp nurse for our church's, "Kidz Kamp." A week long church/bible camp offered to grade school aged children that incorporated high school and Jr high school aged counselors and helpers.
On our departure from the church we had 120 people on two buses going to the camp facility at the beach.
When we arrived, before leaving the buses, I asked the riders if any of them had been around anyone who was sick in the last week.
Three girls responded and one said she was feeling, "kinda icky", but also said, "I get car sick a lot." Fortunately these three all sat together on the bus and all were assigned to the same cabin at the camp. I talked with their counselors and asked them to keep an eye on the girls and let me know if any thing got worse.
Within an hour one of the counselors was at my door with a girl who had just thrown-up on her mattress. Immediately, I went to the cabin and had all of the Kidz go to wash their hands before closing and locking the door. I asked them to sit together and talk as I went to the local supermarket to get a spray bottle, some Chlorox, 3 pair of kitchen rubber gloves and 3 pair of cheap, small garden gloves.
I mixed a spray bottle of 10% bleach water and had everyone in that cabin hold their hands out to have them sprayed as we sang a multiverse washing song. Then I had them go back into the restroom and wash the bleach water off their hands.
I taught the counselors how to clean up the mess wearing the kitchen gloves with bleach water. I taught them how to clean the whole area, "at least twice as big as the mess." and then to do the spray and rewash their hands when done.
I had the sick girl wear the garden gloves with the instruction to always take them off to touch her mouth or face in any way and when she ate or went to the bathroom. After taking them off she was to wash with the spray and then soapy water before putting them back on. I also told her counselors to do the spray, wash, song ritual every time after they touched one of the three girls.
Even though they followed the rules, through the week each of these girls got sick, and eventually their parents came to take them home. Their two counselors and one of the male counselors that helped them also got sick and went home. One counselor became so ill that, I had to take her to the emergency room after she fainted after intensely vomiting. Her mother, our camp photographer took her home. The last, the male counselor became sickened on the last day an rode home with me in my car clutching and retching into a plastic bag as we drove. So of the 120 on the bus, 6 became ill, and only 3 were infected at camp.
I and the others were most fortunate, as at an earlier camp everyone that attended became violently ill!
The key to success?
clear and simple...
I believe that the garden gloves made it much easier for the sick children to remember to follow the rules of systematic hygiene.
The gloves also made it much easier for those who were not sick to know who they should be more careful with for appropriate social distancing.
Since that time we have all gone through a Global Covid Pandemic.
During the pandemic political narratives of allegiance rather than applied innovation according to effective reasoning, resources and rational were used to control and punish with very poor outcomes.
Could we have done something similar during Covid? Could we deliver food and check in on the sick through phone contact and social media? Would this have encouraged the sick to stay home for infectious period of the illness?
Perhaps using a red scarf rather than garden gloves to identify the ill or vulnerable?
or even better...
Air Filtering Pressure helmets! to protect our most vulnerable neighbors from exposure.
I believe the discipline of stopping to evaluate levels of risk and safety through a social mitigation process could have been a great community building opportunity.
Even in our failure, it can be a teaching tool, forcing us to look at the true risks and unnecessary losses we impose on those around us. We are now in a good position to continue as we eventually modify our strategies to provide even more effective protection to our high risk groups.
We could have sought to increase ventilation in public areas and lessened the early increase of self exposure that comes with rebreathing virus particles while wearing masks. We could have suggested wearing them only while in very close quarters. And we could have provided our high risk populations with a social marker like, (a red scarfs), or similar marker to signify to others that they are isolating and desire more personal space, (perhaps 20 feet outdoors).
We could also provide pressure filtration helmets for their use to protect them when they are required to be in closer contact like public areas. Our electronic Medical Health Record could also be used to identify high risk individuals and trained health care workers could provide teach-back education of the specific best practices to avoid exposure to infection.
In time the rest of us would eventually return to business as usual, even as our most vulnerable may be forced to wait anxiously for a safe and effective vaccine to be created.
The costs of providing the (PAPR), Powered air purifying respirator helmet, above would be hundreds of times less costly than the forced shutdowns we experienced. A fraction of the cost of treating the Covid-19 illness in the ICU for just one day. One statistic showed the average hospital stay is 6-days at a cost of $73,000 according to CNBC.
These helmets could be returned after the pandemic and refurbished for future use by hospital staff or the public preparing us for the next pandemic which is sure to come.
A portion of a post from early 2020 comparing the AIDS response to the Covid response at the time of posting.
See Original Complete Post at:
https://www.thesubwaywalls.com/2020/04/rowing-in-circles.html
And while we are pondering...
Consider the similarities of the populist leader of Brazil, and that of America. In Brazil, did legal activism through the courts win? Or were the outcomes just?
And what about in America with Rudi? 
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