Highlights from COVID19 Zoom call for BioCurious community

[Maria Chavez]

Hi All,

BioCurious and Counter Culture Labs are hosting weekly Saturday zoom meetups to discuss all things COVID-19. We wanted to share some highlights of what we discussed this past Saturday with our broader community:

Transmission-

Aerosolized droplets coughing, labored breath (running, exercising, yelling, singing, etc), even possibly talking and normal breathing show evidence of possible exposure risks. Small droplets may linger in air of a confined space for a number of hours without proper ventilation. 

Masks - there is finally guidance from the CDC to encourage the general public to wear fabric masks in public. Masks, to some degree, can protect you from exposure to COVID-19, but also protect others you make come in contact with (in case you are one of the 20-60% asymptomatic cases).

Masks can be made from a variety of materials, from bandanas, from sewing fabric, to blue shop towels.  Here are a few links to help you out:

• Shop towel face mask:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edQAHCRTIVQ

• DIY No sew face mask http://blog.japanesecreations.com/no-sew-face-mask-with-handkerchief-and-hair-tie

• CDC guidelines including how to make masks https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html 

Survival on surfaces - along with proper use of PPE understanding how long the virus can remain on surfaces and how to properly disinfect them remains important.  https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-survives-on-surfaces-how-to-protect-yourself/

Here are some of the latest published papers on survival on surfaces:

• https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973

• https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext  

Have some spare CPU’s you’d like to donate? Learn more how to use them to find drugs to target   https://quarantine.infino.me 

Bay area PPE donations - if you have PPE to donate to local hospitals just fill out a form and a volunteer can come by and safely pick it up from your and delivery it to where it is most needed - https://www.getmeppe-sfbay.org/ 

Bay Area Mutual Aid - This website was built to serve as a collaborative repository of San Francisco Bay Area mutual aid groups, networks, and resources springing up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  If you need help or assistance or can give help check out - https://bayareamutualaid.org

National PPE Request - effort to get and request PPE for healthcare works and makers to make items https://getusppe.org/makers/

Testing, drugs & vaccines - remains a hot topic as does what treatments and vaccines are in the pipeline.  You can get an overview:

• Serological tests - http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/Serology-based-tests-for-COVID-19.html

• All drugs in pipeline - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/every-vaccine-treatment-covid-19-so-far/ 

• When might experimental drugs to treat Covid-19 be ready? https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/24/when-might-experimental-drugs-to-treat-covid-19-be-ready-a-forecast/

We hope that everyone is holding up ok and will continue to host  a weekly Zoom meeting set up Saturdays 1-2pm to chat all things Covid19:

Please join us over Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/820128495?pwd=d1RMalhJUUlwbkVTNWxMcVUzbFZnUT09. By phone, dial: +1 (415) 762-9988 or +1 (646) 568-7788 with meeting ID: 820 128 495, pwd 238395.

 

We also set up a separate BayCommunityBioVsCovid mailing list to enable discussion along these topics between the BioCurious and CCL communities - feel free to join us there too:

 

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/baycommunitybiovscovid/join  

Take care and we will continue to bring you weekly updates.

Best,

Maria Chavez

Board Member

BioCurious Inc.