@tbroyer If you are wearing a mask you should replace your mask with a clean one after every cough into it. Should you wear a mask is a different question. Masks saturate with water sufficiently to create microdroplets long before they feel wet or damp, perhaps within 5 min.

Now what happens next depends on different factors:
if you are not infected, any viral droplets that your mask catches will now be turned into microdroplets that you are repeatedly inhaling... increasing your risk of infection... but droplets evaporate fast

It’s typically sub-millisecond in dry (ie indoor) air to get down to ~100nm (ie basically just one virus and a mono layer of water) which your mask will likely not catch anyway... so the mask does not protect you

Now the counter case, if you are infected:
1. If symptomatic, STOP! stay home and isolate.
2. If pre-symptomatic/ asymptomatic the question is are you breathing out the virus with your normal breathing. If no => masks useless. If yes... we’ll the studies are not done

Stuff like the JAMA meta analysis and the Chinese Wuhan study says it’s unlikely that you are spreading the virus, suggesting masks are useless. On the counter, if you wear cloth mask for more than ~5-10min you are now spreading the virus more, mask would be worse

Hot take: optics are better abstraction than lenses, in *all* use cases. Why? They make explicit all the things you're implicitly thinking about anyway when using lenses. I think they are really important in shaping how we think about bidirectional maps. A short thread. 👇 1/9

Optics make explicit 1) the internal state (residual) and 2) the fact that you need to have the base category either be Cartesian, or at the very least have the "get" maps be comonoid homomorphisms. Let's look at the state/residual.
2/9

In lenses, this state is always the same as the input and is implicit. This can be seen by repackaging the get map from get: X → Y to Δₓ;(get×X):X e→ Y×X. Now our new get map (in addition to computing the output) passes through the input. This is good for a few reasons. 3/9

First, this pleasantly symmetric with the put:X×Y'→X'. But also, this new map is now exactly the "left" map of an optic too. (It turns out put was all along the "right" map). This tells us that the passed-through input is actually the state we're remembering. 4/9

But most importantly, this formulation is now explicit in the use of the copy map Δₓ:X → X×X, which you might have not realized is needed if you were just thinking about the standard get-put formulation. Furthermore, when you were composing lenses, ... 5/9

📦 FREE SCHOOL MEAL PARCELS EXPLAINED

🍏 I’ve had a number of questions today about the parcels that have been going out for those who receive free school meals and aren’t able to take up this entitlement in school at the moment.

🌽You may have seen photographs circulating on the internet showing a box of food that had been distributed by a contractor. It was claimed this had food in it that was meant to last ten days.

🧀 The food in the picture was actually only intended for 5 days, not 10, and cost £10.50 not £30 as has been suggested by some. The company responsible have however acknowledged that it could have been better.

🥕 The food is supposed to be a substitute for the lunch children would be missing in school - it’s not intended to be food for the whole day and it is not intended to feed the rest of the family either.

There are however other schemes available for struggling families who need this as part of the Covid Winter Plan.

A lot of talk about NHS comms
I’m not sure sure that showing pictures on the news of busy ICUs or Ambulance queues will convince the naysayers and covid deniers of anything
They would still say it was staged or a hoax
Of course we need robust and honest information

But having a communications strategy based purely on images to fight the conspiracy theorists and covid hoaxers is a recipe for disaster
What we need is a high profile, properly funded public health campaign, but perhaps more than that we need ...

To accept that nhs isnt t a film set and patient confidentiality is important
Everyone says they love the NHS - show it by following advice

When working in nhs Comms I always took the view that media access and cooperating with media requests was important, this was often unpopular and at times I was a ‘lone voice’ often fighting both medics and the ‘corporate’ NHS side of things on the issue

And I think most health or other journalists who know me will say that I was fair and arranged access where others refused
One thing I never did was to forget it was a hospital/clinic/etc and patients were at the centre of it all

Few People Know a Contact From Above Occurred HERE in the USA in the Early 1920's. The Couple Contacted were Both Medical Doctors (Sadlers). This Multi-Year Contact in Chicago Resulted in Documents completed in 1935. An Event (WW2) Caused the First Publication Delay Until 1955.

It is hard to overstate what a catastrophic failure the Govt & SAGE’s policy of continual restrictions & lockdown has been.

Not only has it caused economic devastation & misery for millions, it has not stopped high rates & surges in infections, hospitalisations & deaths.

Over the past 6 months, UK governments have tried mask mandates, curfews, local restrictions, regional restrictions, tiers, short *firebreaks*, national lockdowns, stricter tiers, extra tiers.

All have caused enormous costs yet look where we are at with Covid. Time to rethink.

“But it’s just obvious that lockdowns will work."

It’s past the time to indulge in wishful thinking about what you think *must* or *should* happen. Like it or not, we have to face reality: the continual lockdown/restriction cycle has failed on every possible measure.

“But things would have been even worse without the restrictions”

Hard to see how but, if you believe that, where is the evidence? e.g. have places with lighter restrictions had demonstrably worse Covid outcomes? Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Florida, Brazil?

“But it would have been different if we’d locked down more things/earlier/longer …”

More collateral damage & misery for certain, but where is the evidence Covid outcomes would be better? Look at Belgium, Italy, Peru, Spain, Czechia, New York, Illinois, France, Argentina.

Dronepunk: “Flashback”

[CW: Torture, Violence, Firearms, Waterboarding, Vomit, Enhanced Interrogation, Blood, Implied Drug Use, Military Forces, Hypnosis]
[The DronePunk Collective is a creation of @Foresgard and all work here considered non-canon]
1/

Riot_0204 came to. No, not 0204, the person who she was once before she became who she is now. She was bound to a chair, naked. Cable ties at wrist and ankle, cutting into her bare flesh. A bag over her head was pulled off abruptly.
2/

There were two others in the room. DPM uniforms, no insignia or rank marks. One male, armed with a FN rifle. The other, female, was pulling up an improvised crash cart made from a tool trolley.
3/

Through her dimmed perception, she could see the prefab walls and blackout curtains. A headache bright bulb was illuminating over her head. A uniform in tatters on the floor beside her. One eye was bruised shut, saving her half the light.
4/

The female officer slammed a fist into 0204’s stomach. Questions washed over, barely registering.
The mantra trained in came out. Name, Rank, Number… Dead Name. Dead Rank. Dead Number. Dead Person. They don’t live anymore, new life lives in that body.
5/

@GloriaSlap
Craig, M. C., et al (2007). Gonadotropin hormone releasing hormone agonists alter prefrontal function during verbal encoding in young women. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 32(8-10), 1116–1127.

I will link this back to the original thread, but it is better for Clarity and to stop any gaming of Twitter and the creation of any labyrinth where details get lost to be avoided.

This 2007 paper identifies issues with GnRHa usage and Executive Function.

As memory is affected, especially the formation of NEW memories for new information, and the implications that subjects are not able to grasp and utilise new information needed for "Informed Consent", impacts upon Executive Function are evident.

Using Google Scholar as a quick and dirty source, we find that the paper and evidence is cited in at least 51 other papers since 2007.

The breadth of concerns raised is interesting.

The implications of the Contraceptive Pill on brain function and reduced executive function get raised. - A Sexed issue.

🧵.@ama_media GPs will soon be able to access new telehealth Medicare items for smoking cessation consults where they can write scripts for nicotine e-cigarettes.

From October, a doctor’s prescription will be required before a person can legally import nicotine e-cigarettes and

liquid nicotine.

The move is designed to curtail use of e-cigarettes, particularly among the young.

But it will also mean more GPs will be able to prescribe them to patients as a smoking cessation product of last resort, and potentially without having to go through the TGA’s

special access scheme.

To support the change new telehealth MBS items will be rolled out from March — although as yet there are few details on which patients will be eligible, what the consults will involve or the rebates.

The AMA says it fears they could be used by a small

group of doctors happy to prescribe e-cigarettes long-term to individual patients.

It has called on the Federal Government to prevent patients claiming the item without an existing face-to-face relationship to their usual GP or their practice.

“We are very concerned about the

idea of a specific item number that would be purely there to facilitate vaping to people with no intention to quit,” @amapresident president @omarkhorshid82 Dr Omar Khorshid said.

“The normal telehealth item numbers are linked to a patient’s usual GP and we wouldn’t want this

JUST IN

"Our healthcare system is at a breaking point."

@MuhyiddinYassin

JUST IN

The government has decided to implement a Movement Control Order (MCO) for 14 days from 12.01am, 13 January 2021.

@MuhyiddinYassin @MKNJPM @KKMPutrajaya

The states under MCO are Penang, Selangor, Melaka, Johor, Sabah and the Federal Territories (KL, Putrajaya, Labuan)

"Social activities that involve large gatherings are not allowed."

@MuhyiddinYassin

"Interstate travel is not allowed nationwide."

@MuhyiddinYassin

Vitamin C; more than just a sweet vitamin

Boost immune system and protect you from heart disease

Thread

RT

I tweeted yesterday about clinical engineering and the vital role they play and had a reminder about all the other incredible staff in the NHS that no one ever hears about and so to try and change that

NHS Covid unsung heroes list

Perfusionists - magicians. From the crucial role they play in cardiac surgery to the unbelievable role they have in providing ECMO (using the machine below) to the sickest covid-19 patients. Barely anyone knows about them but they are an incredible profession.

Estates - built new high dependency and intensive care areas almost overnight in hospitals up and down the country. They make what often seems impossible happen and we would not be able to treat as many patients without them and their vital work.

Laboratory scientists - I dread to think how many samples they receive and process each day but we absolutely cannot care for patients without them and their technical skills. Their workload has soared and they are working consistently flat out.

Porters - the backbone of the hospital. The transferring patients, running samples, getting blood, making the impossible happen staff that simply keep the hospital running.

A lot of brands will be making statements today about what happened at our nation's capital yesterday. Most will run the range from "insincere" to "oblivious."

We debated if we should. But as a mental health platform, we feel we have a responsibility to say a few things.

1. White supremacy is not a mental illness.

The attempted coup that happened yesterday was not the product of mental illness.

We cannot deflect the responsibility of those involved by labelling them "unhinged," "crazy," or "sick."

As a platform that is dedicated to unpacking ableism when we see it, we feel a strong responsibility to name this quite clearly: a legacy of racism, woven through and through in this country, is not the product of mental illness.

It may be unfathomable to those of us who have had the privilege of not seeing it. It may be shocking to those of us who had more faith in our democracy than this.

That does not mean we should label what we do not understand an "illness." It means we should educate ourselves.

2. Yes, what we collectively experienced is trauma. If you find yourself struggling to "go back to normal," that is understandable.

It is our hope that you will extend grace to yourself, and to those around you who are having a hard time today.

Now that we already have maxed out hospitals and still-rising Covid infection and death rate, mass evictions in winter with many times more looming, and have learned that, actually young people are dying from the virus...

Now that we know these conditions —viral and social—are also killing people at much higher rates through accidents, untreated medical conditions, overdose and exposure ....

Now that we know that warnings haven’t stopped people from traveling or large gatherings at anything like the degree needed and that going to work is a major cause of the continuing intensification of the pandemic

You’d think that a discussion of travel restrictions and more rigorous closure of unnecessary construction, retail, in-person instruction, gyms, restaurants and the like , with actual funding and rent/mortgage freezes to make this possible, would be, at least, on the table

But it’s not. The ruling class is literally banking on another couple hundred thousand preventable deaths.

Good morning, early birds! The Oklahoma State Department of Health is considering privatizing at least the management of its new public health lab and the state's new pandemic center.

A letter to agency employees Tuesday from Commissioner of Health Dr. Lance Frye said, "This consideration will include the potential privatization of some functions, programs, services, units and/or divisions of the agency,"

A statement Wednesday by OSDH Deputy Commissioner Travis Kirkpatrick indicated the agency did not intend to privatize the lab as a whole and instead said it was considering a management agreement with Prairie One, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the OSU Research Foundation.

"This agreement, which has not been finalized, would allow OSDH to focus on and strengthen public health priorities to better serve Oklahomans and leverage public resources to maximize our capabilities," Kirkpatrick said.

"'Privatize' is broadly defined under state statute - it means to enter into a contract for the performance of a duty or function that is currently being performed by a state employee," he added.