BlindWatchMaker

At times as a practitioner of a minority religion I feel that I am singled out. I think this is the case here. Actually, I am used to this. As a Church we must be be prepared to correct misinformation. My post concerned hygiene practices. We are proud of following all WHO and local guidelines in the 83 countries we serve. My post had no religious beliefs given. In fact, the only religious belief I will share here is from the Code of the Scientologist - "12 To support the freedom of religion." This is all religions, all countries, everywhere. As a nurse we attended hospital provided classes in the proper respect for all peoples. I think the classes were useful - even through my patients never speak, pray, sing or wear identifying clothing. Even religious jewelry is removed due to the electrosurgical things. All nurses should utilize this information - it adds to the perception of the "most trusted profession.

In fact, We do "believe" in hand hygiene. Also body hygiene! I shower before going! Hand santizer is everywhere. All soap dispensers are full. We just do not use the machines that fill the air with H2O2 and quartenary ammonia. I heard a story that we loaned one to somebody with a basement sewer backup.

When the pandemic broke, my church responded immediately. As part of the global mission of the Church of Scientology, teams of Volunteer Ministers (myself included) cleaned not only our facilities but also some essential public buildings. We bought a contraption that emits chemical sprays. In retrospect though, COVID does not transmit by contact and the work was for nothing. Want to buy a fancy sprayer? As science discovered more things about COVID we changed our approaches immediately. Some local churches, including mine, had to shut down due to local government retrictions. When we reopened, we followed all guidelines. People in the church, while not being totally perfect with compliance, tend to follow safety practices. We are better at mask compliance than most of the population. Vaccination rates are high, I personally know that the staff I work with are vaccinated. With properties throughout the world, the Church strives to provide a safe environment. I live in the United States. Our supervisor of properties, the US Landlord of the Church, has training as an architect. He recently visited our local organization with wind flow meters, atmospheric carbon dioxide meters, and some other equipment. The entire building HVAC was optimized. I was told, again, to not touch the thermostats or controls. We strive to utilize the latest in science. So far, no outbreaks have occurred at any of our organizations. We understand the due diligence this COVID protection work will take. We will meet the challenge.

There is a UK study on hypercapnia with one brand of closed circuit air supplied OR suits (space or moon suits). It that found hypercapnia occurred with a low blower setting. The study recommended the high setting. Useful science - we have another brand with three levels of blower settings. After I read this paper, I elected to use the highest setting. N95's give me some hypercapnia under exertion. Cloth and surgical masks don't. Out of curiosity, I know about hypercapnia and my body. By consciously timing your breathing with open circuit scuba you can extend time under water by maybe 30%. Many call it skip breathing. The penalty is hypercapnia. For me the whole brain and spinal cord gets a dull ache. I can feel my mind slow. I just want to slow down. Stop finning. Then, I start to breath freely and it all goes away. Of course, this is underwater. Due to the pressure, other gas things get screwed up. But, if you are as lucky as I used to be - you should have no problems. I do not do this anymore but it is tempting for a longer dive.

I think there is evidence of the a climate driven expanded range of the Anopheles mosquito, the carrier of the malarial parasite. Habitat loss, changing climate, human intrusion are all stressors. They all are increasing. The host becomes more susceptible from stress. Migration to new areas may happen for survival. Bats in the Americas are already being decimated by white nose disease, an intrusive fungus from Europe. All these factors should increase the incidence of zoonotic diseases. Human children used to play in a tree populated with bats. We have expanded into their territory. The west African ebola outbreak occurred. We actually traced down patient zero Zoonotics have a very unpredictable element. SARS2 appears to be a chimeric virus composed of two other viruses. Combinations (horizontal gene transfer) are common with viral relatives. Entire functional parts can be interchanged. Lethality happens quickly. Mutations generally are not selected for. Most degrade the organism. They are slow in nature. Anything produced is of course subject to natural selection. Part of SARS2 is very similar to bat virus RaTG13, a betacoronavirus sequenced in Hubei in 2013. The pangolin? portion contains the enhanced binding mechanism to epithelial ACE receptors. This unlikely combination has been a grand prized winner of natural selection. It is a wonder that these creatures met. Did we force this meeting by our intrusion? Or does this happen often? We do not know. The tree of viral phylogeny at NextStrain places the transfer to humans around late November of last year. The transfer from bats to pangolins? appears to have happened between 20 and 70 years ago. Pangolin orogeny is still conjectural. SARS2 is very similar to collected specimens from Guangdong scaled pangolins. You don't have to eat them. They are nasty and bite from what I have seen. This afternoon my cat licked my head and sneezed into my face. I could be patient zero next (hour, day, week, year) of a horrible new zoonotic. The symptoms will be my worst horror and include hiccuping for two months until your head falls off and you die. Possible but not likely though.