The Environmental Journal of Southern Appalachia
Sunday, 19 December 2021 23:54

How to survive another Covid Christmas

How to protect your family and community from Covid-19 over the holidays

The video above is a recording of the webinar hosted by the Foundation for Global Sustainability and co-produced with Hellbender Press and The Technical Society of Knoxville on December 21, 2021 on how to keep safe from Covid-19 and its emergent variant, Omicron, during the holidays.

James M. Reynolds, MD has an exceptional ability to bring together and explain in a straight forward and easy to understand way everything one needs to know to keep safe. After two years of uncertain news, speculation, contradictory discoveries, rampant misinformation, ever changing variants and recommendations, he straightens out the knots of uncertainty and insecurity left by this tumultuous period in most brains.

Board-certified family physician Jim Reynolds addresses,

  • What are the best ways to protect yourself and your family from Covid?
  • What situations are of particularly high risk?
  • Is it safe to fly or travel on a bus?
  • How does one judge degree of safety for business, social, and athletic events?
  • How can one reduce risks of hospitalization, disability and death by making the right decision immediately on noticing one’s first potential Covid symptoms?

Dr. Reynolds covers testing, transmission, “Long COVID,” new treatments, and how the different vaccinations stack up.

Dr. Reynolds has practiced outpatient medicine since 1986. A graduate of Emory University and the Medical College of Georgia, he completed a three-year family medicine residency in Anderson, South Carolina. His career included 16 years providing healthcare for the poor at the Knox County Health Department’s Indigent Care Program. More recently he cared for the city employees of Morristown. He retired in 2017 but continues to practice at the Free Medical Clinic of Oak Ridge one day a week.

This webinar, a co-production of the Foundation for Global Sustainability and The Technical Society of Knoxville, is an updated and expanded version of a presentation given to the Technical Society on December 13.

Increases in frequency and severity of natural disasters and the pandemic have made us more aware how vulnerable our supply chains, public services and institutions are to unexpected disruptions.

Modern technology may have caused us to forget how much our civilization depends on all the human beings who keep crucial services and amenities running smoothly day in and day out.

Public health is an indispensable aspect of sustainability and community resilience.

 

Resources mentioned by Dr. Reynolds during the webinar.

Handout file (PDF), downloadable version of what’s shown in the framed section below.

GA Tech Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool

New York Times recommended Wirecutter Summary Mask article - All you need to know about buying masks of all types - includes links to purchase.

How to “Knot and Tuck” mask to improve fit - 55 second web video at NIOSH-approved N95 Particulate Filtering Facepiece Respirators

CDC-NIOSH-NPPTL: Certified Equipment List Search

AARP Travel Article “Coronavirus and Travel: What You Should Know” 

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Covid 19 Data in Motion (Current 1 minute summary video of today’s US Covid statistics) 

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health article “The Antidote to Vaccine Hesitancy

 

Key Covid Formula 1-1/R0 = % of population immune to stop spread of a disease.

Example: Covid Delta R0 = 6.5; 1-1/6.5 = 85% = Per cent US population needed to be immune to stop spread of Covid Delta in US.

Example 2: Polio R0 = 3.5; 1-1/3.5 = 72% = Per cent US population needed to be immune to stop spread of polio. Currently over 90% US kids immune due to polio vaccine mandate prior to school entry. Polio eliminated from US and US population protected from foreign polio reentry.

Viral Antigen tests - Are you Contagious?

Consider BinaxNOW(Abbott)

QuickVue, Ellume, FlowflexAvailable at Amazon, Walmart, Walgreen (about $25 for 2 tests now - soon reimbursed by health insurance and possibly free if Medicare or no insurance)

JMR     

 

 

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Last modified on Saturday, 05 February 2022 00:13
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