Well, there’s nothing like being in lock-down in your own house during an epidemic to put a crimp in the whole “oikofuge” thing. So the Oikofuge is at present forced to revive his dormant childhood oikotropism. Expect more posts about words and books and model-making for the next few months, and very little about walking and travel.
The current state of affairs has also rather overtaken my plans for an April 1st post, on the theme of self-isolation advice, which I cheerily knocked together a few weeks ago. But here it is anyway. Keep safe out there.
As a means of improving the morale of the people of the United Kingdom in these difficult times, Her Majesty’s Government has identified an additional group of people we ask to enter voluntary self-isolation. To find out if you fall into this new and important category, please respond honestly to the questions below:
Have you, in the last two months, made any of the following statements, either verbally or in writing, under such circumstances that another person might be exposed to the content:
- It was all cooked up in a secret Chinese/American laboratory, you know
- I blame the 5G phone masts, myself
- It rose quickly, it could go just as quickly
- Gargling with bleach will stop you getting it
- Rinsing your nostrils regularly with saline will stop you getting it
- Sipping water every 15 minutes will stop you getting it
- Rubbing your body with alcohol will stop you getting it
- Vitamin C / garlic / essential oils /colloidal silver will stop you getting it
- Hot-air hand dryers will sterilize your hands and stop you getting it
- Hot baths will destroy the virus in your body and stop you getting it
- I certainly wouldn’t risk Chinese food at present
- I certainly wouldn’t risk Corona beer at present
If you have answered “yes” to any of these questions, the Government advises you to enter a period of self-isolation for six months, in the first instance, and subject to review at the end of that period. For the purposes of this advice, “self-isolation” includes a complete cessation of all social media activity, and the use of telephone, email and messaging services strictly for business or emergency purposes only.
Because, frankly, people have enough to put up with at present without being exposed to your nonsense, too.
or
Loved it ! There was too much happening so I didn’t try any April Fool pranks this year. I will forward it now to selected friends..
Very good – and as with the best bits of fun it has plenty of truth in it.
Glad you both enjoyed it. The depressing thing is that all the examples given were claims I’d actually encountered in the few days prior to writing the post–I didn’t make any of those up (well, you couldn’t, really).
Good Morning Dr. Grant,
So I went and turned 60! What a brave new world!
Since the end of February I’ve been out of the house once. Not counting the garden of course.
And for the first time in four decades I have just one heck of a beard going! With all the barbershops closed I now bear a striking resemblance to Tom Hanks towards the end of the movie Castaway.
A slight improvement over the gargoyle like “Mussolini in a bad mood”
look I usually sport.
So after listening to lectures from surgeons on the subject this nasty bug attaches specifically to the ACE receptors on type 2 pneumocytes. Almost exclusively. So a heavy viral load can wipe out your surfactant producers AND freaks your immune system out into a cytokine storm.
What I don’t understand is why people taking ACE inhibitors have such a poor outcome. My layman mind thinks the ACE inhibitor would block out the virus if they were competing for the same sites.
Hey Don, good to hear from you as ever.
We’re dealing with two different receptors: ACE inhibitors block ACE1, whereas the COVID-19 virus binds to ACE2. It’s possible that the increased amount of Angiotensin I caused by blocking ACE1 actually causes the amount of ACE2 to upregulate in compensation. (Link)
However, it seems we’re not sure about whether upregulating ACE2 is a bad thing or a good thing. Severe COVID-19 disease is associated with a reduction in ACE2, and so upregulating ACE2 may actually be protective against severe disease. There’s some evidence of that from the fact that smokers (who also have high ACE2) are actually underrepresented among hospital admissions and deaths. (Link)
Hey Bigdon, glad to see still kicking.
Hi Dave! I’m still alive and me and mine are doing well so far. Hope the same goes for yourself.
Dr. Grant, thank you for the reply. I was *absolutely* sure my statement was one of those that would garner a whole host of clarifications. The lectures I got it from were designed to explain to frighteningly uneducated individuals that this isn’t the flu.(i.e. numbers with more than three digits and/or decimal points are considered “exotic maths”.)
One doctor was all “And why is a bariatric surgeon lecturing you on a viral outbreak? Because every member of my panel who has contracted this has died, that’s why! Last season, I didn’t lose three colleagues to the flu! This isn’t the (bleep) flu!”
Rather sobering, I must say.
My county has 617 cases and 21 deaths in the last four weeks.
Statewide in California it’s 19,063 confirmed cases and 507 fatalities.
I hope the Scots are doing better than that Dr. Grant.
I find I must apologize Dr. Grant. I had intended the above posts to be rather more lighthearted and cheerful.
We’re just going to go ahead and call that a fail, in that regard.
I blame a panic attack from actually getting your attention and then trying to come up with something that didn’t sound dumb.(AKA low grade fan attack.)
Please feel free to edit my earlier posts to better reflect the tone of your fine blog.
No need to apologize, Don. These are serious times, and I’m not going to go around deleting serious stuff that other people write.
So, more in keeping with a post made on this day…
The very freshest meme is Dr. Evil’s face with the text:
“What? They’re losing their fear of the plague? Release the Murder Hornets!”
As Japanese hornets have recently been discovered breeding in British Columbia and northern Washington state. Those beauties kill an average of 52 people a year in Japan.
(If *I* did that, people would say things about me. None of them good.)
But they’re apparently good to eat. Every cloud …
P.S. Shoot me an Email and I can relate why I can’t post at the other place anymore.(Though I ache to.)
I used to not check my Email very often but had a huge breach last week and a laughably Micky Mouse attempt at black mail. So I’ve been watching it just to make sure the Bad Guys are gone.