Dental offices, specifically rooms where they work on clients can generate an enormous amount of aerosolized droplets. Droplets can
potentially contain pathogens which can be harmful to the staff and other patients.
Clearly senior citizens are at greater risk for COVID and other airborne transmitted diseases. An infected person can quickly spread disease throughout the facility which is why air purification is another method to limit the spread of infections.
Medical clinics can also be a source for infectious airborne diseases. Non-emergency sick people will use a local clinic if they are not feeling well and do not want to visit an emergency room at a hospital. Infectious diseases can be spread in the waiting area or inside the clinic.
Schools are of particular concern as children tend to mingle and have close contact. This makes transmission easy if just one person is infected and interacts with other students.
Healthcare facilities, especially hospitals have a difficult time protecting immunocompromised patients since an infection could mean a serious setback in their treatment or even death. Clean, sterilized air is one process to keep them safe.
Many businesses have open offices or even shared space which presents another problem with the spread of infectious respiratory diseases. New strategies should be considered to keep employees and staff safe using indoor air purifiers.
New data from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine team suggests their vaccine protects against the new UK variant but offers less protection against the South Africa variant. Still if it is available for you it should help protect against severe Covid-19 illness.
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The South African variant has become to spread and recently has been reported in South Florida. There are concerns it can spread more readily and vaccines may not work quite as well against it.
Some of the changes involve the virus’s spike protein – the part that gains the virus entry into human cells. This is why experts are concerned about these specific mutations.
The South African variant carries a mutation, called N501Y, that appears to make it more contagious or easy to spread.
Another mutation, called E484K, could help the virus dodge a person’s immune system and may affect how well coronavirus vaccines work.
The early results from Moderna suggest its vaccine is still effective against the South Africa variant, although the immune response may not be as strong or prolonged.
