Desperate times call for desperate measures for travelers trying to ward off the deadly coronavirus – with some covering their heads with plastic bottles.
Images have emerged of airline passengers wearing jugs as makeshift space helmets, among other improvised items, to protect themselves.
A family was seen covered in plastic sheets at an airport terminal, while a man was pictured wearing a motorcycle helmet on a flight from Shanghai to Perth, Australia.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/29/coron...-heads-with-plastic-bottles-to-dodge-disease/
It is no laughing matter, but i admit to chuckling a bit!
Seriously though, have sometimes wondered if niqab veils could act as somewhat of a barrier to infection?
Speculation, imo.
Face Veils and the Saudi Arabian Plague
''Face Veils and the Saudi Arabian Plague
A scary new Middle Eastern virus is affecting far more men than women.
Olga Khazan June 21, 2013''
''At first, it causes a fever and mild cough. In a few days,
full-blown pneumonia sets in and it moves on to
wreak havoc on the kidneys. There's no cure or vaccine, and about six out of 10 patients die.
Health officials are reacting to this new Saudi Arabian virus with the appropriate level of alarm:
"My greatest concern right now is the novel coronavirus," Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization,
said in a World Health Assembly meeting in May. "We do not know where the virus hides in nature. We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention."
The new SARS-like disease, also known as MERS,
has infected at least 60 people in the Middle East and killed at least 38. Four new deaths were announced Monday. It's appeared in
eight countries, but most of the affected live in Saudi Arabia. Now health officials are scrambling to figure out how to curb its spread during Ramadan, the ongoing holiday that ends in a massive celebration, and before the October Hajj pilgrimage, in which millions of Muslims gather at Mecca.''
"Everyone is very aware of the fact that Ramadan begins next month and that there will be a large, large movement of people in a small crowded spaces," Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the WHO, told
the Telegraph. "So the more we know about this virus before that starts the better."
"I don't think the virus prefers any gender," Dr. Zumla said, adding that he suspected that Saudi women might be protected by their veils, which cover their mouths and noses and might help keep the virus out.
Over at
Discover, infectious disease specialist
Rebecca Kreston pokes holes in that theory. The niqab, or face veil, doesn't reduce the likelihood of catching respiratory infections, it seems:
In a 2001 study on the effect of the niqab veil on incidence of respiratory disease in Saudi women, researchers unexpectedly found that bronchial asthma and the common cold "were significantly more common in veils users;" wearing the veil may have contributed to dense, wet spots close to the mouth and nose which could faciliate the growth of organisms that lead to infection.''
''Were infected woman convalescing in hospital wards wearing their niqabs and the abaya robe that cover the length of their body, which may have reduced their exposure to MERS within the hospital environment? Was it the case that the niqab protected women from infection or because they have inflexible, highly structured and segregated relations with men which negated any possibility of exposure?''
