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CORONAVIRUS URBAN PANIC - JANUARY 2020 -
By Bernard Bujold -
Here in Montreal it's total "urban" panic!
Indeed, people are afraid of the CORONAVIRUS and have rushed to the pharmacies to buy masks.
I had to go to 6 pharmacies downtown on Saturday (January 25th), before I found one that still had masks and it was selling them individually, maximum 2 per person.
A Pharmaprix clerk on Sainte-Catherine Street told me that on Friday (January 24th) he had sold more than 600 masks (his entire inventory) and the neighboring Jean Coutu more than 250 (also his entire inventory).
But when I got home, my neighbor, a young woman studying health care science, told me that masks are a myth and only serve to prevent the sick person from spreading the disease but do not protect the healthy person from being infected. The only solution, according to my neighbor the student, is to wash her hands. She even said that one of her professors told her that if he was in China he would not wear a mask and that he would be safe only by washing his hands.
To find out for sure and get a second opinion, I contacted a friend, a real nurse who is a "registered nurse".
According to my friend, the full registered nurse: "Wearing a protective mask is indeed recommended at the beginning of the pandemic (which is absolutely not the case in Canada at the moment). No study proves the "absence" of effectiveness of this mask protection measure.
Currently the mode of transmission is not yet well known and therefore hand-washing and respiratory etiquette are the recommended preventive measures. The so-called "protective mask" provides some respiratory protection for the individuals wearing it.
However, another type of mask, type N95 (mask worn when tuberculosis or Ebola is suspected) will protect 95% of the individual wearing it (currently far too intense as a precaution). I think it is however prudent to have masks at home in reserve, as a matter of prevention. In times of pandemic (we are absolutely not there yet), these masks will be difficult to find..."
In the media (Fox News) both versions, that of the student and the registered nurse, are confirmed...
Finally, as for me, to make my worrying worse, imagine that while I was looking for masks, I went by Place Desjardins and there was a big gathering there to celebrate Chinese New Year! Hundreds of Chinese...
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