There may be a misconception that all covid cautious people are the same, but it is pretty wide spectrum. Some covid cautious people may frown upon my behaviour because I still travel and I mostly don’t mask outdoors when it is not crowded, whereas people who are not covid cautious may think I am a hypochondriac because I do “extreme” things like not eating indoors and I wear a n95 on public transport.
I wrote a few posts on eating in open-air thinking they would be unpopular because everyone is pretending covid is over. To my surprise I see from my website stats that they continue to be circulated. Once in a while I get a grateful comment or message. It made me realise that these posts may be unpopular in my immediate circles, but they are appreciated at some unknown corner of the internet. I try to tell myself that I should not write posts based on people’s appreciation, but sometimes I am only human (I think) and perhaps it does affect me unconsciously. I consciously fight against it all the time, deliberately writing seemingly obscure posts because I believe obscurity is one of the qualities that makes this world fascinating. I continue to be fascinated by people working on obscure things.
Why I am avoiding covid still
I am tired of explaining this, so I am linking to someone else’s site. TLDR: I don’t want to permanently fuck up my brain, immune system and everything else. And no, vaccination can only reduce the risk of these things, not prevent them. The effects of reinfections may be cumulative.
Why I’m sharing my current protocol
Because I am very online, I have come across a wide variety of studies and information regarding mitigations that we can all take against covid. I realised most people are not exposed to this information, so I thought writing a post to share them may be helpful. Some of these mitigations are very easy to implement and sounds borderline unbelievable – like drinking tea and brushing teeth with the right toothpaste – but the scientific research supports them, so why not? I may accidentally start a brush your teeth to prevent covid movement, who knows (j/k). We may still end up getting covid, but at the very least we would have had some nice tea and very clean teeth.
I have given up on convincing non-covid cautious people to be covid cautious, because life has taught me that most people cannot be convinced (including myself). We only change our minds upon some mind-altering experience, and most of the time reading someone’s blog post or listening to someone’s monologue is not that experience. I cannot transplant my experience of being chronically ill to someone else no matter how many words I use to articulate it. So I am writing this post for people in those unknown corners of the internet, for any reason they may find this helpful.
Since I am only moderately covid cautious, I have changed my thinking on how cautious people should be at a minimum. I used to think wearing a well-fitted mask, not eating indoors, and being very cautious about who to have close contact with is the bare minimum of trying to avoid covid. I felt like what is the point of wearing a mask and then eat indoors where viral aerosol can easily infect us? But after almost 5? (I lost count) years of mitigations I am very tired myself, though I continue to do them because I am desperate enough to avoid more illness. But the fatigue is there. So I can see why it can be very difficult for most people to achieve this so-called baseline.
to be covid cautious is to be a social pariah
To seriously avoid covid one must be willing to be socially isolated. Physical isolation is one thing, but covid cautious people are also treated like pariahs, so it is deeply psychologically uncomfortable. Humans are social creatures and have a profound existential need to be accepted so I can understand why people don’t want to be pariahs.
physical safety risks of being covid cautious
Some places are stating to enforce mask bans (some humans really suck). I have read many stories of people being harassed because they were wearing masks. Some are physically assaulted, resulting in serious injuries. Some work places frown upon mask-wearing so there are career repercussions. I am lucky to live in a country where people don’t give a shit when I wear weird-looking duckbill masks so I empathise with fellow covid cautious people who don’t have this sense of safety.
some mitigations are better than none
All things considered I have come to believe just having some mitigations are better than completely giving up. It is all about reducing probability. Hence in this post I am sharing some mitigations that can be used in the situations where some people cannot mask for various reasons. I used to have paralysing social anxiety, so I can also understand why some people would rather get sick than to stand out, which is unfortunate.
If everyone applied zero precautions then the virus would simply go unchecked. But if more people applied some mitigations instead of none, perhaps in some scenarios people might be able to avoid close shaves and the probability and intensity of potential spread may be reduced. I can only hope. I think it is important to be realistic if we are hoping to make a dent in the transmissibility of the virus. It is now impossible to get everybody to mask, but perhaps we can make more people drink tea?
caveats and fine print
I am just sharing my protocol, I am not proclaiming to be an expert, or that my protocol is complete or the best.
Also people think being covid cautious is a personal choice: do I personally want to get sick or not? But we forget that by getting sick we are also harming the people around us because asymptomatic spread is not uncommon at all. Even if a person believes covid is not dangerous to themselves, it still poses a high risk for immunocompromised and elderly people. There are people who can’t even leave their homes to buy groceries because it is no longer safe to do so. Is this the society we want, to leave people behind? I acknowledge this is something I am not addressing enough in this post. But again I hope with some mitigations the risk to others can be reduced.
I may get criticism for writing this post because it seems like I am encouraging people not to mask. Which I am not. I emphasise that people should mask if they can. Yet I also want to be realistic. Instead of all or nothing, maybe something is better than none.
My baseline protocol
The main thing to understand is that covid is an airborne virus. Wearing a n95 and avoiding indoor eating seems too over-the-top until we truly understand why the airborne quality of covid makes it so transmissible. Here is a video using infrared to show the velocity of people’s breath, which is why one of the highest risks of covid spread is close contact, even outdoors. This animated video by John Hopkins demonstrate how virus particles can linger in the air indoors, explaining why it is not safe even if the place is empty. If you hate videos, here is a scientific journal article on ten streams of scientific evidence supporting the prevalence of airborne spread. This is why I:
mask
- everywhere indoors with a kf94/knf95 mask, including physical meetups with family.
- surgical masks, apart from having many gaps, lack the electrostatic filter that the kf94/kn95/n95 masks have.
- if there is a gap that means you can easily breathe in viral aerosols
- most earloop masks have air gaps – just put your hands over the seams and breathe out, if you can feel air coming out then there is a gap, but you may be able to find some that are reasonably well fitted. These brands are reasonably well-fitted for me: zimi, powecom, 3M, savewo. Depending on where you are, some brands may be difficult to procure. For more info: r/Masks4All
- I wear a kf94/kn95 for comfort in most indoor places because most indoor spaces in Singapore are pretty well-ventilated (tested with a co2 monitor), and if I meet someone I make sure the windows are open
- zimi masks are my current favourite but they can be challenging to buy. They provide a good and comfortable fit for many fellow covid-cautious people, and are one of the most if not the most breathable masks I’ve ever used.
- n95 in risky spaces like public transport, flights, clinics. 3M aura is the most popular choice. Flo masks are popular for people who prefer reusable masks.
- in my opinion the longer we are in the presence of viral aerosols, the more important it is to have a well-fitted mask with no air gaps. We can possibly get away with a good quality mask like a kf94 that may not be perfectly fitted if the contact is transient. This depends on many factors like a person’s immune system at that point, the viral load, environmental ventilation, etc. Some people can get away with sharing a bed with an infected spouse, other people get infected with just opening their door for a few seconds to pick up delivered packages. So it is important to assess our own risk.
- to really ensure the mask is fitted with no air gaps, one can perform a fit test at home.
avoid dining indoors
- there’s nothing that can guarantee that there are no virus particles in the air indoors.
- once in a very blue moon I take a calculated risk if my co2 monitor (will explain why later) shows a good reading and the space is large
avoid close contact
- I haven’t hung out with a friend for months if not years. I visit family with a mask on. This is not just for myself but also to protect them in return in case if I am asymptomatically infected.
- I recognise this is something not most people can do
- because I avoid close contact I am comfortable not wearing a mask outdoors as long as I am not near anyone and it is not crowded. I mask outdoors when there are crowds
other actionable layers on top
The above may be hard to do for some people, so one can try some of these below. They are not 100% effective, not even close, but perhaps they can reduce some risk. The initial viral load may matter in terms of how severe the illness and after-effects may be, so even if we do get infected it is still helpful to use some of these to reduce viral load. All of them have scientific studies attached:
nasal sprays
- each time I enter or exit a risky situation I’ll use a nasal spray like VirX (known as enovid in other markets). I don’t know what are the long-term side effects so I don’t use it regularly. Is it really effective? I don’t know.
- Iota-Carrageenan works too, but nothing is 100%.
- there are probably other sprays on the market which you can do a search on
oral mitigations
- cpc mouthwash is shown in studies to reduce viral load. I use it only in a high-risk situations because I don’t want to disrupt my oral microbiome too much
- we’ve changed our regular toothpaste to something with zinc oxide. In singapore, colgate total has zinc oxide
- blis k-12 oral probiotics
- povidone iodine spray
food & supplements
far uv
- this is not the same as UV as we know it. Exposure to far-UV is not harmful to humans as far as we know and it inactivates pathogens. I personally don’t use it yet because it is expensive, but I would if I could afford it. I only know about the ones by Nukit, but there are probably other retailers.
air purifiers
- hepa filters
- you can buy portable ones like the QT3 for travelling
- corsi-rosenthal boxes: it is possible to build one yourself, but AirFanta is known to sell them for reasonable prices. This is especially useful to prevent transmission in the household.
- laminar flow purifiers
safety glasses
- the virus can also enter through the eyes. a study shows that people who wear glasses are less likely to be infected
- we wear safety glasses from stoggles.com in high risk spaces like public transport and flights. there are probably other brands and also generic ones.
co2 monitor
- a carbon dioxide monitor is a proxy for how well-ventilated a space is. In general, the higher the co2 number, the longer viral aerosols will linger.
- the most popular model is the aranet which goes on sale once in a while, but there are other more affordable models like qingping and AirFanta.
This is as much as I can think of for now. Maybe I’ll update this or publish a separate updated version if the science or situation changes.
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