Epidemic rogue wave, 6 March 2020

As a sailor, I have always thought about rogue waves, those mythical monsters that can wreck your boat for good. As an epidemiologists, I spent my professional life preparing for the rogue pandemic that can wreck a country down for couple of weeks. To prevent being caught at sea in by a rogue wave, there is not much a sailor can do when far from the coast. Yet, for the rogue pandemic, there are two things a sailor can do: 1) anchor for a few weeks in one of your favorite natural harbour, or 2) protect yourself from getting infected...

Sars Cov2, source NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), U.S. NIH / Public domain

While you can find lots of good ideas for the first option on this blog, in this post, I will provide you with instructions for the second option...

In  order to get protected, you should:

• First, avoid panicking, as the diseases is not so severe. But it may affect many people as there is no immunity in the population.
• Young generations will not develop severe diseases, unless heavily contaminated.
• But the elderly are at increased risk of developing more severe disease.
• Don’t bother using masks! Not only they are not effective in protecting from infection, but they can even be infective if you touch them with your fingers on your face. 
• Unless you work in hospital settings, the coronavirus does not transmit beyond one metre of a sick person coughing or sneezing at you. Therefore a mask is not useful unless you are in a very particular situation such as sitting next to a patient in a long haul flight. 
• Neither WHO nor the US-CDC are recommending wearing masks in the day-to-day life.
• Contamination is almost only achieved through transmission by infected hands that have touched surfaces contaminated by a sick patient, where the virus can survive for a couple of hours. 
• Therefore, washing thoroughly your hands, using soap, for at least 20 seconds is the best way to destroy viruses. Yet, avoid touching anything in a public toilet after washing hands to avoid being contaminated again. Use a paper towel to close the tap and open the door...
• When a tap and a sink are not available, you should use hydro-alcoholic gels that you can buy in pharmacies. They will kill any virus on your hands when you use them. 
• You should hang one such dispenser at the entrance of your apartment so as to prevent bringing in any virus from the outside, especially when coming from work through public transport.
• In addition, you should have a small dispenser with you at all time, in your pocket, to disinfect your hands after situations where you could have been exposed through touching contaminated surfaces, e.g. going somewhere through public transports, using public toilets elevators, ramps in escalators…
• Stop shaking hands during social interactions, don't kiss friends, avoid direct contact as much as possible.
• The main risk is to touch your face with infected hands! And believe me, this may happen unconsciously quite often in a day.
• In short, the hands are the risk, not the air that you breathe unless in very particular situations.

Now, in Sweden lately, and probably in many places elsewhere, it has proven impossible to buy hand sanitiser. Therefore, the only option left is to prepare your own. The World Health Organization has published instructions on how to prepare such sanitisers.

Today, I prepared my own! But quite a challenge still. First, you have to find the ingredients  for preparing one litre of hand sanitiser:

• Ethanol: 833 ml
• Hydrogen peroxide: 42 ml
• Glycerol: 15 ml
• Water 110 ml, to top-up to one litre.

Or, I you got a one litre ethanol bottle like I did, use the following:

• Ethanol: 1000 ml, 1 litre 
• Hydrogen peroxide: 50 ml
• Glycerol: 17 ml
• Water 133 ml, to top-up to 1.2 litres.

In Sweden:

• Ethanol is only available with a prescription. So I went to Bauhaus and bought one litre of Röd Ethanol, used for "fondue" burners. Pure ethanol, but coloured and with an added smell so that you would not to use it to prepare your favourite cocktails.
• Glycerol is out of stock in pharmacies. The alternative was to buy 99.9% pure Aloe Vera from ICA in order to give the preparation a bit of gelling. 
• Hydrogen peroxide (eau oxygénée in French) is sold in pharmacies in Sweden for 10€ for 100 ml while on the Carrefour website, 250 ml are costing 1.2€! Well, you only need 42 ml, so don't be cheap!
• Only water is therefore available fo free... 

So, this morning I was ready with all components in my kitchen. WHO instructions tell you to do the preparation in a certain order. In the clip-top jar (or any other tightly-closing recipient):

1. Poor the ethanol first
2. The add the hydrogen peroxide
3. Add the glycerol (or aloe vera)
4. Complete with boiled or clean water
5. Gently mix 

Here is the result:

Fill in small dispensers with the preparation for the whole family, and keep the rest in the shade as hydrogen peroxide does not like light.

Use as needed, replenish when empty, and do not forget to hang one at the entrance of your appartmentto keep the coronas out of you place, and, of course, of you boat!

And remember that if you can afford the first option, it is the safest!