New Zealand officials and scientists are eying a breach in isolation security as the possible cause of the first cases of community transmission in the country in 102 days. Investigators are exploring several possibilities, but experts believe the alternatives—that the virus was circulating undetected or that it entered the country on a freight shipment—are unlikely.
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Topic: N95 respiratorsView all posts for the topic: N95 respirators
Video | The Astounding Physics of N95 Masks
The physics of N95 respirators is pretty incredible.
Comments closedTopic: universal maskingView all posts for the topic: universal masking
Opinion: Want to save lives and the economy? We need mandatory masks laws
Mandatory public masking has been saving lives and leading to an earlier (and safer) reopening of societies around the world. Despite this, Canadian officials have been reticent to support this cheap, effective measure.
As of May 12, 13 U.S. states, including Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, and 84 countries, including Israel, Germany, Austria, Czechia and France, have laws mandating public masking. And zero Canadian jurisdictions.
Comments closedTopic: pandemic responseView all posts for the topic: pandemic response
What We Can Learn from Six Countries’ Pandemic Battle Plans
Laissez-faire. Lockdowns. Mitigation. Testing. Denial. Elimination.
The world has responded to the pandemic with a diversity of strategies.
Some appear to be working well, while others are just coping or failing altogether.
And history appears to have prepared some countries better than others.
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New research examines wastewater to detect community spread of Covid-19
A series of crucial setbacks in Covid-19 testing has made it difficult to keep up with the virus’ rapid spread, and has inspired some researchers to look to wastewater to help fill in the gap of measuring how prevalent SARS-CoV-2 is in a given community.
In a paper posted Tuesday to the preprint server medRxiv, researchers collected samples in late March from a wastewater treatment plant serving a large metropolitan area in Massachusetts and found that the amount of SARS-CoV-2 particles in the sewage samples indicated a far higher number of people likely infected with Covid-19 than the reported cases in that area.
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Ontario, Alberta change policy limiting N95 masks as health-care workers demand greater access
At least two provinces have bowed to union pressure to let some health professionals use specialized respirator face masks when treating COVID-19 patients, sparking concern among infection-control experts this will undermine health workers’ trust in their advice.
Alberta and Ontario have reached agreements with unions to allow some health-care workers to use N95 respirator masks if they feel it is necessary. Nova Scotia’s largest nursing union is now calling on provincial officials to do the same.
Comments closedTopic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario
Roughly 55 million N95 masks in Ontario expired before coronavirus hit
Millions of face masks stockpiled by Ontario in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak to protect healthcare workers during a future epidemic have expired, according to provincial officials and documents, raising questions about the readiness of Canada’s most populous province to deal with the spreading coronavirus.
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Chinese officials investigate cause of pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan
Chinese health authorities said they are investigating 27 cases of viral pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan, after rumors on social media suggested the outbreak could be linked to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
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Video | 3M™ FT-10 and 3M™ FT-30 Qualitative Fit Testing Kits
A short guidance video from 3M Personal Safety UK on how to carry out a Qualitative Fit Test using the 3M™ FT-10 and 3M™ FT-30 Fit Test Kits.
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