Last night, The Krusty Krab did an after-hours event for commander. The event went smoothly, but there were some issues with people wearing their masks incorrectly. Other than that, the other 6 people all wore masks and we kept our distance. Because of the barriers set up at the tables, no one touched each other's cards. When we got hungry, we went outside to eat. When we were done for the night, we cleaned off our play space. Things were great. I also highly recommend getting those dry-erase cards I mentioned earlier. They help a ton with all kinds of things.
With schools reopening right about now, and flu season just around the corner, I'm going to closely monitor Covid spread in my region. When cases start spiking, I'm shutting down this event.
So now I want to go over some misconceptions people seem to have about this pandemic and safety. First of all, this disease travels through respiratory droplets, which isn't the same as being airborne. This means that wearing a mask takes care of most of your problems, hence why it's important to wear one and wear it properly.
Second, I mentioned gloves earlier, but I think I should give a better description. For some reason, people think that because they are wearing gloves they don't need to be careful with what they touch. Like a few weeks back I saw a woman in the super market eat a grape out of a bag from the shelf, and we she saw that I was looking at her dumbfounded, she said "It's alright, I'm wearing gloves." Ignoring all the other things wrong with this, that is not how gloves work. The idea behind gloves is you put them on before touching a hazardous surface, and then you take them off once you're done, before touching anything else.
Third, being outdoors doesn't make you safe from infection. A lot of regulations recommend hosting outdoor events because it's easier to keep your distance outside than it is inside. But it doesn't make a difference if you stay packed together, like what many restaurants and bars are doing with their outdoor patio. If you're doing an outdoor meetup of any kind, you still need to distance.
Lastly, a few weeks back, while my friends were all talking over safety measures with the LGS, someone brought up viral shields, which he said was a product that you can spray on a surface to protect it against viruses for up to a week. Naturally I was skeptical, so I looked into it.
First off, the claims for these products go on the lines of "Protects against SARS viruses" (a sentence designed to make you think it stops Covid) and lasting anywhere between 24 hours and a month. While there are several of these products, none of them are listed by the FDA as proper Covid preventative measure, and a few of them are under investigation for false advertising claims. So, a couple red flags right away.
I found that the websites for these products were eager to say that they protect against bacteria and viruses, but were reluctant to show a journal article as proof, or even explain the mechanism by which it prevents. One of them however, did give a journal article which provided the data for a challenge trial against bacteria like E. coli and MRSA, and the product did manage to keep those surfaces clear for a few weeks. Great, except those were bacteria species with a lipid membrane. Viruses are much smaller and have a protein membrane, so there was no proof that this would help against Covid-19.
Even if this stuff did work, I can't help but think it would give the same false sense of security that gloves give. "Don't worry, I used a viral shield". As it stands, your best option is still to use disinfectant wipes or isopropyl alcohol to disinfect surfaces after you've used them.
Stay safe Deckstats.
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