Coronavirus - Daily Posts Planned - Day 1 Sunshine and Fresh Air

Hi, I know it's been a very long time since I last posted. I've been wombling around in life doing other things, like having a tooth abcess and extraction and cat bite induced blood poisoning and recovering; builders in taking walls down and putting in a ramp courtesty of the welfare state (thankyou the local council and all who pay their council tax, this has made an enormous difference to me being able to stabilise my energy levels and obtaining some quality of life); getting a bit stronger through taking betablockers (originally for anxiety for the dentist, who knew they'd help my symptoms!); just living my life...

Anyway, the point is, it was all going swimmingly, then Coronavirus Covid-19 loomed and Boris Johnson said ok now is the time for Oldies, the Pregnant, and People with Underlying Conditions to STAY HOME all the time, and for everyone else to stay home unless they absolutely have to leave it, for work or food shopping etc and for ALL of us to stay a reasonable distance from each other.

Which, for people like me, for whom staying home has been an unwelcome but eventually sustainable way of life for years, is an ideal opportunity for us to help everyone else, for whom it will be a far less sustainable shock, to volunteer to help them a bit. Cos let's face it, we can't actually help people in a physical way by doing shopping or whatever.

So. Every day, I'm going to come up with something to do or think about or change in one's life to help make it all a bit more bearable for those unused to such tedium and restriction.


Note - Words in underlined CAPITALS in the text are links to interesting articles on the internet that explain more about that idea. Keeping your mind busy when you're stuck at home keeps boredom away! Also it means you can check for yourself whether or not you think what I'm saying is sensible.

Day 1 - Using Nature as a Disinfectant - Sunshine and Fresh Air - Let them into your house!

My Sister's Dogs - Bill and Ben on Alnmouth Beach, Northumberland

Back in the days before antibiotics, in the days of CONVALESCENT HOMES, medics had to use what was available to try and help patients recover. And thanks to the legacy of the ENLIGHTENMENT, they studied the effects of what they tried, and recorded the results.

They realised that sunshine, fresh air, and a good diet of nutritional food really helped people get better from illnesses and injuries. Crucially though, they also found that these things also reduced the likelihood of people being ill in the first place. George Godwin (the editor of the Builder Magazine) and Florence Nightingale were instrumental in the redesign of HOSPITALS in the 19th century in this respect.

As a result, Hospitals and Convalescent Homes  and Schools were built with high ceilings and windows, to allow a good flow of fresh air, and natural light, patients were carried out into the fresh air daily onto balconies or terraces (regardless of the weather) and encouraged to amble around in parklike gardens to strengthen/maintain their stamina.

Then, there were the horrors of the First World War.  Hundreds of thousands of men were wounded, maimed and disfigured, too many for the hospitals, and needed long recuperation times. Hotels and large houses were pressed into service as places for recovery and treatment, but at times there were too many wounded and tent hospitals were used not only behind the lines  for treatment but also for recovery and it was found that recovery was quicker for those who had access to outside (as in, their beds were taken outside in all weathers regardless - seems a bit mean these days, but those doctors and nurses weren't into giving people choices, they decided what was good for you and that was that.)

Then came the Spanish Flu  epidemic  in 1918 - it ripped through global populations both at war and civillians at home, the extent and rapidity of the spread was hidden by the War as news was carefully controlled as part of the offense. Spain wasn't at war so didn't hide the effects, and naturally people assumed that's where it came from, because that's where the news they had about it came from.

The USA CDC has an interesting article about the Spanish Flu epidemic and it notes this -
"With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly." ARTICLE HERE

Is that ringing any bells? It is for me... But I digress, back to sunshine and fresh air:

Science marches on, and a few years ago a couple of studies were done on the effect on sunshine on the built environment aka our houses and germs.




This article from NPR explains in easy terms what the research did and found - The University of Oregan set up a series of doll house sized rooms, made them dusty from dust collected from actual houses, used domestic glass and used natural sunlight, UV light and total darkness. Then, after 90 days,  they tested the dust.  Rooms exposed to daylight had fewer germs. The UV light rooms had only slightly fewer germs than the sunlight ones. The ones kept in the dark? they had nearly twice as many germs as the daylight rooms. The lesson from that? open the curtains and let the daylight in!



In addition, and this is pretty important in the context of the current Coronavirus pandemic, "Some of the human-associated bacteria species that didn't survive in the lighted rooms are from a family of bacteria known to cause respiratory disease."  And what do I keep hearing about the need for ICU in the severely affected by Covid-19? that it is a respiratory disease.  I'm no scientist, but it seems sensible for those most at risk of being severely affected by the Coronavirus to minimise their risk of respiratory problems.

Here's the link to the actual Research on dusty rooms in MICROBIOME JOURNAL  
And to another study on LUNGS AND RESPIRATORY DISEASE that was in the CDC article above 
And another study about the effect of sunshine on USED SOCKS (which I think was a link in the CDC article as well but so many tabs were open, who knows, but the used socks aspect made me smile and a bit of light relief is needed these days).

The other benefit of sunshine is that it's how our bodies get Vitamin D - we synthesise it from sunshine. One of the major dangers to housebound people (ie those of us now shielding ourselves or self isolating) is lack of Vitamin D. As a bare minimum one needs to have an uncovered head outside for 10mins a day to maintain healthy levels of Vitamin D. If you are long term housebound, I'd imagine you already have a prescription for Vitamin D. A year ago the lead doctor in the UK recommended everyone takes a Vitamin D supplement, but I don't want to encourage panic buying - so, Vitamin D is free, and easy and doesn't take much time - just 10mins of sunshine on your head every day (not through glass but sticking your head out of an open window has the same effect). Here's the NHS ARTICLE on how much Vitamin D is required by people regularly out and about.
And here is AGE UK's take on Vitamins for the elderly (most of whom aren't regularly out and about) to give you an idea of how much Vitamin D is needed (and what dose to stay under).

And why fresh air? Ah well, here I fail you. I read a couple of articles last week about why free flow of fresh air is healthy and keeps illness at a minimum, but then my computer slowed, I cleared my history and cookies and can't find them. I'll keep looking and eventually will talk about it... sorry!

Sensible measures (not necessarily easy measures) to minimise risk of putting one's lungs under strain occur to me (not an exhaustive list, please comment and add your own):

1. Check your prescription meds - how long since you last read the leaflet that comes in every pack? Are you actually taking them at the right time of day? In the right way? Avoiding certain foods or alcohol (for example) that stops them working? Are you using your preventative Asthma inhaler for example?
   
2.  Stop smoking - there's loads, and I mean tonnes, of information on the web about how one's lungs take time to recover from smoking. There's increasing evidence that Vaping also hurts one's lungs. This Covid-19 is killing people with respiratory issues, people with lung deficiencies, for some people, the damage to their lungs can be reversed, without medical intervention - by changing habits and stopping smoking.
   
3. Lose or Gain Weight to achieve a healthy BMI - Speaking as an obese person myself (and this is the one I'm concentrating on myself,) the further away you are from a healthy weight (yes I know BMI can be inaccurate but it's a reasonable ballpark to aim for), the more likely it is that your body is going to struggle when illness strikes. Our bodies are already under strain, again we can reverse that without medical intervention - by changing habits and stopping eating so much/so little (as appropriate) to start getting closer to a healthy weight. (This isn't fat shaming or thin shaming, this is science, there's higher health risks for people who aren't approaching a healthy BMI - if you are able to make changes, start making them).
   
4. Wash your hands properly and don't touch your face - the virus can't infect you if it doesn't make it into your body. Basic steps for hygiene are the best protection we all have. Soap contains lipids (fats), they destroy the outer layer of the virus making it unable to do it's job. It really is that simple for those of us who aren't actually in the front line dealing with people who are infected.
   
5. Let sunlight and fresh air into your home - fewer bacteria and fresh air sanitises the environment and helps keep us healthy. As above.
   
6. Eat a properly balanced diet  -  again there's loads, tonnes, of reliable information on the internet - the NHS in the UK for example - we need protein (meat or vegetables), carbohydrates, fats, fibre and vitamins. We don't need sugar.
   
7. Beware False Advice - use reliable sources for information - government websites, national health agencies, international health agencies - rely on the science. Now I'm no scientist, but I promise to do the best I can to give you links to the actual science I'm basing my posts on, so you can decide for yourselves.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this, please feel free to comment. BE AWARE I will NOT tolerate people being rude, dismissive, argumentative or nasty. Nor demonstrably 'fake news'. I will not enter into any discussion, I'll just delete them. I will edit/amend where I messed up and made mistakes.