
Moderna asked the FDA to allow it to put more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in each vial to alleviate a bottleneck in manufacturing.

Moderna asked the FDA to allow it to put more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in each vial to alleviate a bottleneck in manufacturing.

As new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus float around Southern California, doctors and scientists have started to recommend doubling-down on your mask game.
If your usual mask is thin, you should probably upgrade to something more substantive — a two-layer cloth mask with a filter pocket works great, but the widely available KN95 mask is even better. And an N95 mask, sometimes harder to get for the general public, is among the best options you can find.
But combining two cloth masks — or even better, a cloth mask over a KN95/N95 — could be the golden ticket as long as the fit is comfortable, snug and you can breathe.
That’s according to Dr. Kim Shriner, infectious disease specialist at Huntington Hospital, who echoed statements from scientists and doctors around the country. Many have started voicing support for double-masking, citing data that shows it can be substantively more effective at blocking virus particles.
“The principle of double-masking is simple,” Shriner said in an interview on Friday, Jan. 29. “You that many more barriers between you and the virus.”
Masks are effective because they create a “maze” of fibers that virus particles have to travel through, Shriner said. KN95 and N95 masks are designed with a dense fabric mesh to physically “trap molecules in the netting of the mask. That’s why they’re so effective.”
An N95 mask is more effective than a KN95, but the latter is more comfortable than the former.
“The most effective mask should be the one that’s closest to your face,” Shriner said.
Shriner didn’t recommend wearing two KN95s or N95s because the fit would likely be too bulky and the masks wouldn’t fit well. Pairing one of those masks with a cloth mask can fit more comfortably and will provide extra protection.
“But no mask is effective if you wear it below your nose,” Shriner said. “That’s defeating the purpose.”
Whatever you choose, it needs to fit well, but stay away from gators and bandanas, which “are not very good,” Shriner said, explaining that they may “cleave” the viral particles in two, potentially making it easier to spread.
She especially urged the public not to wear them in grocery stores “which is a rather perilous thing now,” given the still-elevated case rates and more contagious variants that are spreading.
“You want to pick a mask that fits well and that’s comfortable so you’ll actually wear it,” Shriner said.
She doesn’t think you need to be wearing two masks all the time — going for a walk, for instance — but when you’re taking essential trips to the grocery store, that’s when you want a few layers. Same for any visits to public places where people might be gathered, even if it’s outside.
While exercising, Shriner suggests having a mask around your neck so you can pull it up when other people are around. Personally, she wears a single KN95 while walking her dog and an N95 plus a cloth mask in grocery stores.
“It does get a little harder to breath with two masks,” Shriner said. “You don’t want to be so layered that you’re passing out.”
Alongside many of her colleagues, Shriner wears two masks while working at Huntington Hospital
“It’s very clear that good masking makes an enormous difference,” she said. “It’s such an inexpensive, safe way of preventing infection. How it got politicized is beyond me, but I hope it will fade away as people realize it’s the best way to protect themselves.”
There’s a growing body of research that has shown time and time again that masks reduce the likelihood of someone spreading the disease — some studies found an 80% reduction, according to the Centers for Disease Control — but more studies are emerging that show wearing a mask can also protect the wearer from breathing in viral particles, too.
N95 masks are particularly effective at protecting the wearer; KN95 masks are slightly less effective, but still much better than cloth masks.
Two face-hugging cloth masks stacked on top of one another can provide comparable protection, according to Dr. Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech and an author on a recent commentary laying out the science behind mask-wearing, who spoke to the New York Times.
Another option is to buy a face-hugging cloth mask with a filter pocket between the layers; Shriner recommended purchasing replaceable HEPA filters for these masks, not using vacuum filters or coffee filters “which aren’t all that effective,” she said.
Both hospitalizations and new cases have been seeing rapid declines around the state.
According to Thursday’s end-of-day totals from California public health websites, there were 562 fewer hospitalizations from the previous day, for a total of 16,581 hospitalizations. That’s a 24.4% decline from the Jan. 1 high of 21,938 people hospitalized from COVID-related infections.
The 14-day average of 26,694 new cases Thursday was a 37% decline from the Jan. 16 high of 42,468.
California communities reported 19,661 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to 3,252,973. There were 591 new deaths reported Thursday, for a total number of 39,545 people who have died from the virus.
RELATED: What public health leaders mean by ‘0% ICU beds available
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Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Johns Hopkins University, the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health, The Associated Press, reporting counties and news sources
Should I double mask for coronavirus safety?
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EU regulator approves AstraZeneca vaccine for all adults

Enrique Tarrio, 36-year-old Miami-based, Cuban American leader of the extremist group the Proud Boys, worked undercover for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this according to a former prosecutor and a 2014 federal court transcript obtained exclusively by Reuters. According to the former prosecutor, and FBI agent and Tarrio’s lawyer, Tarrio helped the Bureau prosecute 13 […]
The post Cuban American Proud Boys Leader Worked as Informant for FBI appeared first on Remezcla.

Las Notis is a daily news column that gets you up to speed on the political, media + other going ons in Latin America and the diaspora—all in one quick digest. Here’s your glimpse at what’s going on today: Johnson & Johnson announced that its one-dose coronavirus vaccine offers protections from COVID-19, though its efficacy […]
The post Johnson & Johnson Announces Efficacy Rate of One-Dose Vaccine & More in Today’s News appeared first on Remezcla.

The Biden administration is reviewing a deal between its predecessor and the Taliban for a May 1 deadline to pull all American troops out of the country.
a classic wonderful singer

Peruvian vocalist’s album will be first in a series of reissues by Madrid-based label aiming to highlight female singers from Latin America
Few popular singers have boasted a five-octave range. Even fewer have claimed they were descended from the last Inca emperor and schooled in song by “the creatures of the forest”.
And fewer still have appeared in a Charlton Heston film that helped inspire Indiana Jones, toured the USSR, been namechecked in Vanessa Paradis’ Joe le Taxi, won a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and been adopted as an LGBTQ+ icon.

Facebook placed a number of leftwing organizers on a restricted list during Biden’s inauguration. It’s part of a much bigger problem
In response to the fascist riot at the US Capitol, Facebook engaged in a flurry of dangerous and misguided corporate authoritarianism. I, along with a number of other leftwing organizers, was deemed a threat to the inauguration of Joe Biden and placed on a restricted list that limited my ability to communicate with others. My account could no longer create Facebook groups or events, two tools that I’ve used over the last decade to coordinate protests and build entire organizations. I was also banned from commenting in Facebook groups, liking Facebook pages, and messaging Facebook pages. The restriction was to be removed the Saturday after the inauguration, but it only fully ceased apparently after public backlash. This is part of a long history of Facebook treating leftwing activists as if they were far-right extremists, and a pattern of silencing those who speak out against racism and fascism.
Facebook’s latest sweep went relatively unnoticed by most media outlets and was simply framed as a restriction of events in and around Washington DC leading up to the inauguration. Gizmodo was one of the first publications to pick up the story but the majority of its article barely mentions the fact that leftwing users in the United States were targeted and effectively silenced. Most of the relevant content of the article was pulled directly from a blog post from Facebook itself. Gizmodo, like most other outlets that reported on the decision, seemed to imply that these bans were a net positive and, if anything, a little later than it would have preferred.

Russian president spoke to Joe Biden earlier in the week about arms control pact due to lapse in February
Vladimir Putin has signed a bill extending the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States a week before the pact was due to expire.
Both houses of the Russian parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to extend the New Start treaty for five years. Putin and the US president, Joe Biden, had discussed the nuclear accord a day earlier, and the Kremlin said they agreed to complete the necessary extension procedures in the next few days.
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