Flight out of Pittsburgh

Posted on by Thor

Flying out of Pittsburgh there was a layover in Detroit. I knew I was heading home when I saw Mickey Mouse on someone’s luggage. One other person was masked in the waiting area. He was Japanese where there is no stigma against masking. I charged my iPhone so I would have juice to order a Lyft once I landed.

The flight to Orlando was the most crowded flight I took. I was glad that I was in an exit row and because of that I had plenty of leg room to stretch out and relax. My hope was to hunker down and sleep. I tried to sleep but really didn’t succeed. Two rows behind me, several people were coughing up their lungs. The risk of exposure rises on longer flights.

After getting back to the studio, the next morning my throat was scratchy and I started coughing. Of course my first thought was COVID, so I tested myself. Thankfully the pink Binax test came back negative. What I assumed was a cold however, knocked me on my butt for several days. I am still snuggled up on the couch under a blanket. I was experiencing shivers. I haven’t been sick for over 4 years. I forgot what it was like to be out of commission.

The days after the flight out of Pittsburgh, I felt like crap. I used an at home test kit and it came up negative, so I chalked it up to a bad cold. However after several days of hard work outside, with a friend. I returned to the studio and decided to test one more time just to be sure. That test came up positive for COVID-19. It was a strong solid red line. I was infected on Delta Flight 1652 flying back into Orlando fro Detroit. I  have to wonder how many others are spreading the virus around Orlando after that flight.

In the time I thought I had a cold, I managed to infect a friend which I feel horrible about. I now know I need to up my masking game when I travel by plane. The problem is that I have facial hair which breaks the seal of the mask. There are also small travel sized HEPA filters which I could pack in my travel bag and run during the flight. Though I take basic precautions, I now know they are not enough. When battling something as small an airborne virus, more precautions are needed. I need to buy new N-95 masks and I will have to shave my beard any time I travel. I may even decide to get goggles when I board a plane. More likely I will stop promoting my animated short film COVID Dystopia in person. Packing into a sardine can in the sky isn’t smart.

Since I am so sick, I decided to not go to FusionFest to sketch.  I still feel it is important to keep others safe, so I am social isolating at my  friend’s house. I was helping this friend with a huge outdoor sculpture, Since the first test came back negative, I continued to help. My friend however caught what I have, which is, as it turns out, COVID-19. I want to keep others safe but with my first infection I managed to fail horribly. I am social isolating in my studio now and will test myself again in 5 days.

So, is is safe to fly during an ongoing pandemic? F*ck NO. I managed to evade COVID for 5 years and now I have to up my game to evade it for the next 5 years.

We might be done with COVID, but COVID is not done with us.

Pulse: Pablo Quinones

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The director of the Orange County Regional History Center was about to leave her position. She asked me to come to the History Center to do one last sketch for a Pulse related oral history. As she said, this would be the “swan song” that ended the series.

The directors office had a HEPA air filter so this was a rare instance where I sat indoors and did a sketch without a mask. If more venues had HEPA filters I might indeed return to sketching indoors mask less.

Pablo Quinones was a first responder that the Pulse Nightclub shooting. After the shooting he went on to become the personal driver and security officer for Mayor Buddy Dyer. Being the mayor’s security office has to be an adventure since the mayor attends all the best events in Orlando. After the Pulse shooting I remember seeing the mayor arrive at many of the fundraisers and artistic memorials with a large entourage.

Pablo has been a law enforcement officer and civil servant since 2000. He attended Western Illinois University and the College of  Lake County.

Since the City of Orlando purchased the the Pulse Nightclub site for 2 million dollars from the One Pulse Foundation there was no security at the site. A sign in front of the Pulse nightclub was vandalized in February of 2024 with bold graffiti. Sayings on the sign, like “Love is Love”, “Love never Dies, it Transforms” and “Love will always Win” are now obscured under giant spray painted bubble letters. Efforts are being made to scrub away the graffiti, but of course the messages of hope and love will also be scrubbed away in the process.

One Pulse had a gorgeous plan for the site that had a brightly colored fountain and an enclosed seating area. I liked this design and feel it is a shame that it will not be created. The cost for the memorial and a museum skyrocketed beyond the fundraising abilities of the One Pulse Foundation. The city is planning a far scaled back memorial which they hope to complete by 2028, which is 12 years since the tragedy occurred. The club is on an incredibly noisy intersection so the thought that a peaceful site of remembrance might be created with a few coats of paint seems insane. What it attracts so far is urban spray paint.

 

 

Retina Pre-Op

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A friend drove me to Central Florida Retina for a Pre-op check in. My left eye is distorting images so that I end up seeing double with both eyes open. For now I tend to close my left eye when sketching and when typing.

We went from one small waiting room to another small waiting room neither of which had HEPA air filtration. Ironically in the second waiting room the news station on the TV was featuring a story about Long COVID. The volume was down so I didn’t hear what was being covered. Two others in the room were masked.

This was certainly an older demographic of patients waiting to be seen. The guy in the corner of the room was busy on his iPad but using it seemed foreign to him. He poked at the screen like he was trying to kill a bug.

Then he took a phone call and shouted into the phone. I don’t think he had any idea how loud he was shouting. He then needed to look up a contact and didn’t know how to do it. My friend stepped in and showed him how to find the contacts list. After the call he started talking to her about his past. He was from Jamaica and went though many screenings before being able to immigrate to America. He was annoyed that illegal immigrants were making that process more cumbersome. Then he said he should have listened to his mother. The only reason he was loosing his eye sight was because he had looked at too many Penthouse magazines. I must say he made the wait far more interesting.

Everything that was done at this appointment had been done several weeks prior. I learned nothing new. The only possible reason for this second appointment would be to bill the insurance company again. Anyway my eye surgery is in a week. Hopefully it will correct the distortions I am experiencing. I will wear an eye patch for a day and then I hope the vision will slowly recover. I was also warned that because of the surgery I will likely develop a yellowish have over time. If you see me doing more yellow paintings, you now know why.

COVID Dystopia: Wacky Wavy 2

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I didn’t complete a whole lot of work on this scene Sunday. Pam and I did a major day of house cleaning in preparation of her having some of her family friends over from Iowa. I stayed masked any time I was in the house. The HEPA air filter was on full blast as it always is.

Both of our dogs have been in lockdown since the start of the pandemic so they are not used to having people enter the home. Donkey went ballistic screaming and barking at the guests, so I stayed with the dogs outside until she calmed down. I then brought her inside again and stayed with her in a far room so she could see the guests but not jump on them. In some ways this was good for me as well since it guaranteed I kept social distanced and masked inside.

We put the dining room table outside on the screened back porch and that worked well. It was a perfect day to be outside. All the home windows were open and ceiling fans stayed on indoors and outdoors on the porch. Pam used the Uni pizza oven to bake pizzas for everyone. This was the first dinner party we hosted since the pandemic began.

Donkey calmed down once everyone was seated outside. I am new to the risk assessment game and I decided the mask could come off outside but I would put it back on any time I went inside. My hope is that the ceiling fans outside would circulate any aerosols down and then outside. A couple of times I just held my breath inside as I went in to get guests drinks.

Right now the pandemic is raging. We are now in the second largest wave since the start in 2019. This wave hasn’t peaked yet. It is expected to keep rising through February 2024. Only the Omicron wave was larger. About 2 million people are being infected every day and no one knows exactly what percentage of those people will develop long Covid. By the end of this wave one in three Americans are expected to become infected.

COVID did come up at the dinner party. One guest had COVID twice. COVID had been in our house twice but my layered mitigations managed to keep me from getting infected. Masks, HEPA air purifiers and vaccines do work.

Promoting my COVID Dystopia film will likely be the most risky thing I do in the coming year since it might mean attending crowded film festival screenings in cities around the country and around the world.

When the White House press secretary was asked point blank about the rising cases, she said people are responsible for accessing their own risks. In other words, “You do you.” America has always been, and continues to be, the most infected nation in the world when it comes to COVID. You are free to become infected and encouraged to infect others. It is the American way.

COVID is Airborne

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Did you ever enter a crowded room and immediately smell cigarette smoke? You look around and see that the person smoking is way across the room. That is how COVID spreads, it is airborne like smoke. If you can smell the cigarette or perfume, just remind yourself that stench could just as well be COVID. The six foot distance rule was a lie made on the assumption that COVID only spread in large droplets which would drop to the ground within six feet. Since the start of the pandemic I have always used a 22 foot rule of social distancing for myself. 22 feet is about the distance of 4 dead bodies lying head to toe on the ground. If people crowd inside the 22 foot perimeter a mask goes on if I am outside. The mask is always on when inside.

The United States ended the COVID Public Health Emergency on May 11, 2023. COVID however still spreads through the communities. The CDC held a conference to essentially pat themselves on the back for their handling of the COVID public health emergency. To date about 101 attendees to that conference have been infected so far because of the superspreader event. Of course CDC employees should be fully vaccinated so there will be few deaths. Should you want the next available COVID booster shot, that will now be an out of pocket expense. The last I heard those shots will cost $300. Cha Ching!

School children are the primary spreaders of the COVID virus. They infect one another in classrooms and then bring the virus home to infect parents and grand parents. After the COVID public health emergency  ended the CDC quietly added a few sentenced to their guidance for school kid on their website. They pointed out that children should mask in schools and at home if another child comes over to play. The health of children was never at the forefront of peoples minds as there was a rush to open in person learning. What was most important was getting the children out of the home so parents could go back to work. People used children’s mental health concerns as a smoke screen to force kids back into poorly ventilated crowded classrooms. There are affordable options to get HEPA filters in classrooms but few are really concerned about the health of the children.

Airborne

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One of the early mistakes made in public health messaging early on in the pandemic was that washing your hand and using hand sanitizer could stop an airborne virus. Even hospitals today are abandoning masks and indoor HEPA filtration and feel they are keeping their patients safe but washing their hands and disinfecting surfaces. Don’t get me wrong, washing your hands is good but it doesn’t stop an airborne virus from infecting you. In the illustration one guy is wearing a mask but it is a surgical mask which isn’t as effective as an N-95.

Navigating the world in which everyone has abandoned masks and all health safety measures is going to be a challenge. I remain a COVID virgin but that will become more difficult as I mingle more. Another advantage of masking is that it keeps me from touching my face.

Like many people, we used disinfecting wipes on groceries before putting them away in the early days of the pandemic. That practice has stopped but we still use the wipes instead of a rag to wipe down counters. The thing that I refuse to abandon is masking with an n-95 mask indoors and in crowds. I don’t care what people think of me and honestly, I look good in a mask. It focuses attention on my blue eyes.

Other things that should become common practice to help the spread of the virus include,

  • Get vaccinated. (I am amazed at how many refuse to get the jab.)
  • Minimize time in poorly ventilated spaces. (We now use a HEPA filter at home and at work.)
  • Cough and sneeze into your elbow or a tissue, not your hand.

The CDC website has many pages on the importance of hand washing. It was not until recently that they finally admitted that COVID is airborne and can travel long distances like smoke. The six foot rule from early in the pandemic was a farce. All those plexiglass barriers that went up in fast foot restaurants and stores were also a farce.

Twice the virus got into our home and both times I managed to evade infection by wearing a mask and straying close to a HEPA filter. I now survey the air filtration in any room I enter and will position myself near an open door or window whenever possible.

So you should wash your hands and clean surfaces but don’t think that is preventing an airborne virus from infecting you. Clean the air you breath by masking and using air filtration.

COVID Tipping Point

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Is there an unacceptable level of COVID deaths that could convince people that “living with the virus” should not mean mass infection? We have been at a high plateau of over 300 deaths a day for months now. It would seem that 300 deaths are considered acceptable to most, since people think life will return to normal if they just ignore the virus. Wishing the virus away does nothing to mitigate it’s spread.

The media seems to regard these deaths as insignificant since most who die are old or vulnerable. Do more children need to die for anyone to care? Do the caskets need to be smaller? Since the easing of masking and social distancing more children are being infected than adults. The children then take the virus home and give it to their parents and grand parents. Since the start of the pandemic about 700 children have died as of October 2021. I am assuming parents consider this acceptable collateral damage now that they can live without masks.

Governments around the world have been quietly installing air filtration HEPA systems to keep themselves safe, while telling everyone else that the pandemic is over. Meanwhile the caskets are also quietly being stacked up.

COVID deaths in New York State spiked 30% in December 2022, to the highest tally since early 2022, a Post analysis showed. This is in part due to the highly transmissible XBB.1.5 (Kraken) variant that is now spreading across the country. Meanwhile home tests have made it impossible too track just how the virus is spreading.

In China doctors are being instructed too try not to write COVID as the cause of death. No official wants the public to be aware of what is happening. A doctor Wen noted that most countries are finding that most deaths from COVID are caused directly by the infection rather than by a combination of COVID and other diseases. Just as in China, some American talking heads want to convince people that the numbers of deaths due to COVID have been under-counted. The truth is that even American deaths due to COVID have been under counted since long term complications are not taken into account.

The CDC predicted that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will remain stable or have an uncertain trend over the next 4 weeks, with 1,500 to 5,400 new deaths likely reported in the week ending February 11, 2023. The national ensemble predicts that a total of 1,108,000 to 1,120,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date.

COVID Inside

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While I was doing this painting demo with a student, I got a text informing me that someone in the house tested positive for COVID-19. After all this time, I am finally directly exposed. We all plan to isolate for 5 days from the world and each other to try and avoid a full house of infection. We are planning to each sleep in separate rooms. However, it is a small house. Suddenly we had to think about the home’s circulation. Would infected air disperse throughout the home? We are hoping not since the main air intake is just in one spot. Every home should be set up with better air circulation systems and HEPA filters, but that is not a priority to protect from something that can not be seen.

I have a small air filter in the studio area, but from the moment I found out COVID had smuggled its way into the home I masked up. For the next 5 days I will likely be masked 24 hours a day, perhaps except when sleeping. So, can illness be avoided with the highly infectious BA5 variant once it is inside the home? I am seated right smack dab in the center of the petri dish, so time will tell. I will continue to take every possible precaution, but that may not be enough.

The likely point of infection for this case of COVID is probably a summer camp. I am teaching virtual summer camps and will continue to do so, although I will be masked even at home. We are all still scrambling to figure out the best way to proceed. There is no clear play book. I teach an in person class on weekends and I had to email to let them know I will not be in. I tried to leave a voice mail but it turns out the institution had no way to leave messages. Ultimately through texts, messages and emails, the students were contacted.

In Flight

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COVID-19 has been shown to spread on airplanes by infected passengers. There is scarce reliable data, so the understanding of how exactly COVID-19 transmits during flights is limited.

Airplanes have been a primary way the virus quickly spread around the world. The most risky times are boarding and departing the plane. There are no social distancing practices when people crush into the aisles to get their luggage from overhead compartments and wait on top of one another to get off the flight.

During on board dining, everyone takes off their masks at the same time to eat. Which of course raised the risks of infection. The option to serve passengers at alternating times to maintain social distancing while eating is a logistical problem airlines are unwilling to consider.

When an airlines middle seats are left vacant, the risk of infection is reduced. A CDC study, using laboratory modeling, found that leaving the middle seat open can reduce COVID exposure by up to 57%. However airlines are packing passengers into the cabin like cattle.

Air vents are designed to push air downward and into the aisles. The air is then recirculated and mixed with 50% of outdoor air. Passengers’ exhaled air is cleaned with HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) filters, which are also used in hospital operating rooms, for example. These filters are designed to retain 99.95% of airborne particles of a wide variety of sizes, greatly reducing the risk of infection. experts say that air circulation and filtration systems alone cannot completely protect against infection. HEPA filters can only clean particles that reach it — so passengers need to minimize risks, such as wearing face masks, to help avoid coming into contact with particles that did not reach the filter. Aiming the air nozzle right at your face at full velocity, even if it is too cold, is the best option to avoid swapping air with infected fellow passengers.

Researchers focused on long-haul flight EK488 from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Auckland, New Zealand. Using genomic sequencing, scientists found that four passengers on board became infected by one of two other passengers on the flight. Two of the passengers infected were not wearing face masks. When passengers and crew move about in the aircraft cabin, it can affect the direction of airflow, and increase the risks of infection.

Experts encourage passengers to refrain from eating or drinking while on board. This might not be an option on a very long flight so being brief and perhaps refraining from immediate consumption might reduce risks. “If a passenger briefly removes his or her mask to eat or drink, other passengers in the vicinity should keep their masks on,” said a Harvard University report on COVID risk mitigation on planes. Each moment a face mask is removed on the plane — including eating and drinking during a flight — the risk of infection increases. The longer a passenger eats, the greater the risk of infecting someone, said epidemiologist Ulrichs.