Month: March 2020

From today's NY Times: Wear a Mask

Posted on by taharkin

Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. spoke to a dozen leading epidemic-fighting experts. Whether or not masks protect healthy people is still being debated, but to remove the stigma from sick people who definitely need to mask up, EVERYONE should have to wear a mask in public.
The lesson from Asia, the experts told Mr. McNeil, is that by making masks mandatory for everybody, then the sick automatically have one on, and there is no stigma attached. “The Asian approach is less about data than it is about crowd psychology,” he writes.

A recent Boston Globe editorial points out that wearing a mask has the additional benefit of preventing us from touching our face, something humans do instinctively every couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, Thailand errs on the side of caution
Image may contain: indoor
(Author photo: Central Festival Chiang Mai, 5:00 PM, Monday, March 23, one hour before lockdown begins)


In Thailand–where there have only been four reported deaths out 700 cases in a country of 70 million and with frequent tourist and business travel to and from China–the government has acted on the side of caution and locked down the country for three weeks. Like Italy, not easy for an exuberant, sociable society used to gathering in cafes and coffee houses…

DO Don Face Masks!

Posted on by taharkin

My posts of two days ago are being backed up by responsible public health experts, according to today’s Yahoo News. Because you SHOULD get out for fresh air, sunshine, and exercise if you do it responsibly…

https://www.yahoo.com/news/masks-respirators-and-coronavirus-catching-up-to-the-changing-advice-222618518.html

Masks, respirators and coronavirus:
Keeping up with changing advice–
As state and federal officials continue to ramp up efforts to control the outbreak of coronavirus in the United States, new information about the virus is raising new questions about the official messaging on the use of face masks.

Out of stock? How they are handling it in Thailand—turning clothing factories into mask factories!

Workers check masks at a factory in Nonthaburi’s Pak Kret district. (Photo by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)
Workers check masks at a factory in Nonthaburi’s Pak Kret district. (Photo by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)

Face Masks–to don or not to don?

Posted on by taharkin

(from a post with my Brown Class of ’68 page)

My current rant–because we are in the right age range–about face masks.
I chose to postpone my flight from Chiang Mai, Thailand, to JFK two weeks ago, partly because it was on Korean Air with a change of planes in Seoul, but largely because the US government looked woefully unprepared and was giving advice about wearing face masks that I believe is DEAD WRONG.
Despite huge tourist and business traffic between China and Thailand, there has only been a single reported death (by a smoker in his sixties with other health issues). The Thai government is corrupt and self-serving, but they turned Covid-19 over to medical experts, and as the medical faculty at Chiang Mai University advised my expat group a few weeks ago, people here DO wear N95, PM2.5 or similar masks. If they wear simple surgical masks, they dispose of them daily. What makes this admirable is that no people on the planet are my style-conscious than Thais.
It also helps the we “wai”–the Thai equivalent of “namaste”–instead of shaking hands. 

Image may contain: 3 people, people standing

Why Not Wai in the Time of Covid-19?

Posted on by taharkin

 

A recent note I sent to Bangkok Post columnist (and former Sports Editor) Roger Crutchley:

Dear Roger–

You mentioned wais and namastes in another column. In the US, aside from stuffy Washington, D.C. and among oligarchs like Trump, the wai and namaste gestures are not that unusual–in yoga studios around the country and at the end of countless performances by musicians, whether they be rock, jazz or classical.

I would hope that Thais “get it” that in times like these they have something to offer the entire world (and perhaps a reason Covid-19 has not flourished here) and that perhaps the normal etiquette–who goes first, how high or low the hands are held–can be waived for now.

Best–
Terence A. Harkin
Author, The Big Buddha Bicycle Race
Occasional blogger, Curmudgeon in the Land of Smiles