INFECTION CONTROL BLOG: I occasionally write blogs to update..

INFECTION CONTROL BLOG: I occasionally write blogs to update you guys on my life. I forget to do that often, but I remember about once a month haha. This used to be only on my patreon, but I will be sharing the same blog across my only fans too - let me know if I should continue these. As some of you may know, I've been working as an infection control lead in a long term care (LTC) facility. I wanted to write a small blog about what I've learned re: the pandemic and public awareness. 1) The media poorly portrays LTC. Yes, the negligence in homes are awful and do exist - I see my home being at the tipping point of this. Is it willful negligence or laziness? Absolutely not. When covid hit, and hit the homes hard, a lot of the staff quit for a multitude of reasons, mainly being that because they lived with a vulnerable person or they were vulnerable themselves. You can't fault a person for wanting to protect themselves or their family's: most of us would make the same decision in the same situation. However, this left homes very quickly understaffed and in a state of emergency. With covid, quarantining residents became more important than changing their briefs. This would lead to leaving some people (for instance those with heavy dementia + wandering habits) in bed so that the workers would be able to focus on the covid positive residents, or the ones with more extreme behaviors. It's awful, but consider it a form of triage with an understaffed team. There are no correct answers, the best thing you can do is take action as well as you can. This led to negligance, which led to media reporting on it and fines being made. That led to homes no longer getting worker applications. In my home, we've had job openings for over a year. We've never been able to be fully staffed. People just have a terrible view of homes now. They view them as negligant covid infested areas. On the contrary, these homes are filled with abundandly overworked people who are still under way more covid restrictions than anyone else (including hospitals) who are working so hard to keep covid out. Since the first wave, most homes have been very successful in keeping covid out, which is due to the now 3 mandatory covid tests per week + mandatory PPE + first dibs on vaccines. Consider applying to an LTC if you are in a position to do so, help this covid thing pass with more people alive. 2. Most of LTC staff, also known as health care workers, are not extremely scientifically educated. They're not dumb either, but they're not good people to ask opinions of re: vaccination, etc. To become a personal support worker (PSW) in a home in my area, it will cost about 9 months of education and $1500. I've never taken the PSW course so I'm unsure exactly what they cover, but I can assure you it wasn't math or microbiology (which was in my education). So, when you see the media reporting that a large % of health care workers are refusing the vaccine - remember that doesn't mean doctors or nurses. In my home, 100% of the doctors and nurses got the vaccine. It was the PSWs that were more on the fence. Some of the education I've actually had to supply is: There are no microchips in the vaccine or on the tips of covid swabs. The vaccine will not make you infertile and has nothing to do with your reproduction system. Your nose is part of the respiratory system, and the virus can live up to (on average) 3 days on plastic surfaces. The vaccine is not killing mass amounts of people being covered up. The vaccine is not a mind controlling device. Yes, those are real examples. We had about 60% of our staff vaccinated and 99% of our residents (there were 3 who refused due to medical history and religious reasons, which we respected). 3. There is a need for the general population to brush up on math skills: Yes, the survival rate of covid is 97% currently (when it wasn't that high before), which yes is almost 100%. But that means 3 out of 100 people infected will statistically die from it. The stats are much higher when you only measure the vulnerable people, but we'll dismiss that for now. So that means, 30 out of 1000 people will die; 300 out of 10,000 people will die, 3000 out of 100,000, etc. Did you get nervous reading those? It's the exact same statistics, but people look at larger numbers with more importance than smaller. Who cares about 3 people, but everyone cares about 3000. With covid, we're dealing with huge statistics because of how many people are infected + how easy it is to spread. and finally 4: The best precautions against covid is STILL wearing a mask (properly), and practicing good hand hygiene. It's not rocket science, it's not even math: it's that simple. Are you tired of covid? Me too. Let's beat the antibodies vs virus race by slowing the spread, so we can be mask free even faster. If you're reading this far - awesome! Thank you for that. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and dispel any myths or have any of my information corrected. This should be a conversation we are still having, so let's talk. <3