Governor Mills orders Mainers to ‘stay at home’ as coronavirus spreads:
The statewide mandate, which begins at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, prohibits Mainers from travelling outside of their homes for all but essential activities, such as grocery shopping, medical care or commuting to essential jobs.
The Wisconsin GOP has engaged in a lot of voter suppression. (This is a factual statement, not an opinion; see, for example, this article: https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-trump-gop-wisconsin-voter-suppression-20191221-wm6pi27zufctxmbe6gx4i2r4ce-story.html). The GOP leaders of the state legislature are not inclined to postpone a primary merely because of a pandemic.
Florida is going to be so, so bad, but other states in the same general area are also setting themselves up for bloodbaths. New York was late in closing up, but at least they’ve done it now and they’re taking this seriously.
Dr. Birx says we’ll have 200,000 fatalities if we do everything right. We’re not doing everything right.
@gwnorth , I also hate wearing a mask. My talented sister made me the cutest mask, but I can’t wear it properly because my glasses fog up. Any suggestions? (Can’t wear contacts due to an unusually bad astigmatism.) The mask also makes me feel like it’s hard to breathe, but I guess I’d get used to that.
DH amazes me—he wears an N95 with a homemade surgical mask on top all day every day. He has to take good care of the skin on his face to avoid raw spots. He’s used to the N95 from all the infectious stuff he sees, but not with the surgical mask, and not every day for weeks.
The United Arab Emirates is now testing more of its population for Coronavirus per head than any other country, and is on track with the help of Chinese technology to scale up the level of testing to reach the bulk of the population .
A UAE spokeswoman said “testing is at the heart of our containment strategy”, but said it had set no date by which it will reach the entire population of 9m.
The UAE health department says it has so far carried out 220,000 laboratory tests representing 22,900 tests per million people, the second highest test density in the world.
The UAE is making two moves to scale up the level of testing further. It has introduced drive through testing initially in Abu Dhabi with those suspected of carrying the virus tested for free, and those showing no symptoms offered a test at a $100 fee. The first drive through testing centre was opened at the Zayed sports city in Abu Dhabi and is capable of testing 600 people per day over a 12 hour period
The nasal swab test takes about 5 minutes. A further 8 test sites are being opened each capable of testing 600 per day.
In a second development, Group 42, an Abu Dhabi based technology firm, and the Chinese global genomics leader BGI, announced on Tuesday the launch of a mass-throughput laboratory. The lab, modelled on one built in Wuhan, China is capable of conducting tens of thousands real-time “reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction”, (RT-PCR) tests per day. The company claims it is the first in the world of this scale to be operational outside of China.
Peng Xiao, Chief Executive of G42, said: “This high throughput lab provides the scale and firepower to enable all people in Abu Dhabi and the UAE to access the most reliable PCR tests, which are also provided by G42 in partnership with BGI. We thank the UAE leadership’s support in protecting the health and wellbeing of the country’s residents against this pandemic.”
Overall the UAE in the final week of March was testing at rate of just over 10,000 per day, The speed with which the UAE, a wealthy oil Gulf state, has moved to harness Chinese technology raises questions as to why some western countries have been unable to source testing kits and set up infrastructure with comparable speed. (Guardian)
Port Everglades, in Florida, has published a 12-point list of conditions that a coronavirus-stricken cruise liner must meet to dock. But the coast guard officials have warned the Zaandam and its sister ship “will not be allowed in US waters” if it fails to meet them, Patrick Greenfield and Erin McCormick report.
Four people have died, eight people have tested positive for covid-19 and dozens of people are ill with flu-like symptoms on the Zaandam, which is traveling towards Florida with a second ship – the Rotterdam – which is carrying asymptomatic passengers.
Hundreds of elderly passengers are from around the world are aboard the Zaandam.
A Broward County Commission meeting to discuss whether to allow the vessels into port has heard the entry plan submitted by Carnival Cruise Lines, the boats’ owners, is “not there yet”.
Captain Jo-ann Burdian, the commander of Coast Guard Sector Miami who is on the Unified Command decision making body that published the 12-point conditions, has told the meeting there are “no great choices left”.
“If the plan is not approved, I will not permit the vessels to enter US waters,” she said.
On Monday, Orlando Ashford, president of the ships’ operator Holland America Line, warned that more people could die at sea unless its vessels are allowed to dock. (Guardian)
https://www.porteverglades.net/zaandam-update/
The government of Jamaica is to impose an island-wide seven-day curfew to try to contain its spreading coronavirus outbreak, the prime minister, Andrew Holness, has announced.
From Wednesday, 1 April, Jamaicans will be required to stay in their homes from 8pm each night until 6am the following morning.
On Tuesday, Holness also said police would be tightening the lockdown across the country, after people continued to ignore health advice. Jamaica has 36 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection, and one person has died from the disease. (Guardian)
In a response to the Covid-19 pandemic that is unparalleled anywhere in the world, health authorities in Iceland have tested almost one in 20 of the island nation’s inhabitants for the coronavirus.
According to the latest data published by Iceland’s directorate of health, 17,904 tests have been carried out so far in the country, equivalent to about 4.9% of the total population. So far health authorities have detected 1,135 confirmed cases of Covid-19.
Currently 935 patients with the virus are in isolation at home, while 35 are in hospital, 11 of whom are in intensive care, according to the Icelandic data. So far, 198 patients have recovered.
Icelandic authorities require people to quarantine themselves when there is a possibility they have been exposed to coronavirus. As of Tuesday, 8,879 people were in quarantine, while 6,214 had completed a period of quarantine.
So far, two people have died from Covid-19 in Iceland. (Guardian)
Connecticut governor says national strategic stockpile is empty and “we are on our own”
From CNN’s Laura Ly
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said today that the national strategic stockpile is empty.
Lamont said the state has received 50 ventilators from the federal government, but said, “Now, we are on our own.”
Lamont said Connecticut still needs more personal protective equipment and supplies, saying he felt like a general sending soldiers into battle without proper protection.
Lamont also said that Connecticut is the fourth most Covid-19 infected state in the country, per capita, behind New York, New Jersey and Louisiana. He urged everyone to think of the Covid-19 epicenter as a region, the New York Metro region, instead of state-by-state.
Chicago offers $100 million in low-interest loans to support small businesses
From CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Tuesday that the city will be providing $100 million in low-interest loans through Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund to support the city’s small businesses that are losing revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The fund was set up to provide immediate stopgap relief to thousands of small businesses in Chicago.
“We know that our business owners and entrepreneurs don’t have the luxury to wait for federal support which is why with the Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund, we are putting money directly into the hands of our small businesses now so that they can weather this storm,” Lightfoot said.
Some background: The Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund was created last week through an up to $50 million in capital commitment from the Catalyst Fund to be determined by the board, a $25 million grant from the City of Chicago, as well as $10 million from Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, $1 million from Fifth Third, $250,000 from Clayco and $15 million from additional private funding sources.
Cuomo is popular with a lot of people right now because he comes across as a take charge, competent leader. But for all the talk, things in our state are worse than anywhere in the country, and they are not getting better.
US ignores calls to suspend Venezuela and Iran sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic
Spread of coronavirus has not slowed drumbeat of successive layers of punitive measures imposed by the state department
At a time when all of humanity is facing a common, invisible, enemy, world leaders have called for a suspension of economic sanctions that have increasingly become the pursuit of war by other means.
The Trump administration has responded so far by ignoring those appeals and intensifying punitive measures on the two nations it has identified as America’s greatest enemies: Iran and Venezuela.
The spread of coronavirus has not slowed the regular drumbeat of successive layers of sanctions imposed by the state department on Iran. Last week, a new list of people and companies linked to the Revolutionary Guard was targeted.
On the same day, the justice department unveiled drug trafficking and money-laundering charges against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and 14 top current and former officials.
Briefing the press on the indictment, attorney general William Barr left little doubt about their political nature, portraying the coincidence with the pandemic as serendipity, claiming it will spur on regime change.
“It’s good timing, actually,” he said. “The people in Venezuela are suffering, and they need an effective government that responds to the people.”
Peter Harrell, a former senior sanctions official at the state department, said: “The administration is taking a kind of ‘kick them while they’re down’ approach, seemingly with the hope that by piling on sanctions and other actions, the administration can capitalize on the virus in Iran and Venezuela to spur greater public opposition to the incumbent governments and perhaps regime change.”
The US laid out a new plan for Venezuela on Tuesday, calling it a “democratic transition framework”, proposing Maduro step aside, foreign forces leave the country, and the creation of an interim government, a “council of state” chosen by the major factions of the opposition-run national assembly, in return for sanctions relief.
In terms of actual concrete economic damage, last Thursday’s new measures are unlikely to make much difference. Iran and Venezuela are so heavily sanctioned already that there is precious little income left to cut off. But they signal US determination not to relent even in the face of a mounting coronavirus death toll.
The new measures have been imposed at a time when both countries, long mired by chronic mismanagement and corruption – are facing plunging oil prices on which both producer nations are dependent for foreign currency.
In Tehran, government ineptitude allowed coronavirus to spread unhindered for weeks before serious action was taken. There are now more than 40,000 infections and 2,757 deaths in the country.
“The government’s response to the outbreak of Covid-19 in the early weeks is really responsible for where the country is today,” said Ariane Tabatabai, a scholar at Columbia University.
In Venezuela, the pandemic has yet to hit in full force: just over 100 cases have so far been reported. But the country is in an even worse state to cope when it does, with disastrous results for its population and the region, home to some 5 million Venezuelan refugees.
Only a quarter of Venezuela’s doctors have access to a reliable supply of water and two-thirds are without soap, gloves or masks. There are 73 intensive care beds in the whole country.
“If the virus were to take off in Venezuela, and the country were not to receive a huge injection of international support, it would face an absolute disaster,” said Ivan Briscoe, Latin American and Caribbean director at the International Crisis Group.
The United Nations secretary general António Guterres, and other top UN officials have called for a sanctions ceasefire around the world
“In a context of global pandemic, impeding medical efforts in one country heightens the risk for all of us,” Michelle Bachelet, the UN commissioner for human rights, said. “The populations in these countries are in no way responsible for the policies being targeted by sanctions, and to varying degrees have already been living in a precarious situation for prolonged periods.”
The Trump administration has insisted that its sanctions regimes are aimed at the governments of Iran and Venezuela and not their populations.
It points to exemptions for humanitarian goods, which were established in the last days of the Obama administration.
However, such exemptions exist more in theory than in reality. International banks are so skittish about handling any kind of trade with Iran that it is almost impossible to get financing for humanitarian goods purchases.
Adding to the uncertainty, some medical equipment that has become essential for fighting the coronavirus is on a list of dual-use items that requires specific US Treasury authorisation. The line between permissible and forbidden items is badly defined.
Even before the pandemic hit, the US sought to open up a separate channel for humanitarian goods, through Switzerland, but it is mainly relevant for companies with Swiss subsidiaries and suffered from the same uncertainties as other channels.
“The consequence of all that is that Iran has a really hard time making speedy and reliable payments for these types of humanitarian items,” Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, an expert on economic diplomacy and founder of the Bourse & Bazaar. “What that means right now, when you’re dealing with an acute crisis like this and you have a sudden surge in demand. Iran is basically going to be at the back of the line.”
On Tuesday, the long-delayed first export was made through a European payments mechanism, Instex, set up 14 months ago to insulate Iran from US sanctions. According to the Wall Street Journal, the shipment was of medical equipment worth 500,000 euros, ordered before the coronavirus outbreak.
Venezuela is already selling its oil at a significant discount and the price collapse could make it uneconomical to export. At the same time, the political standoff between Maduro and his US-backed challenger, Juan Guaidó, who are recognised as the head of state by different countries, makes it impossible for the country to get aid money. The International Monetary Fund turned down Maduro’s request for $5bn in emergency aid funds, because of the lack of clarity of who was in charge.
Aware of the gravity of the situation, both sides have been in talks about the possibility of a unity government, negotiations that were disrupted by timing of the Maduro indictment – which by charging top generals at the same time, made it less likely the military would desert the incumbent leader.
Sanctions advocates argue they are humane alternatives to waging war for foreign policy objectives, but in both Iran and Venezuela that argument is weakening with the advance of the pandemic.
Richard Nephew, former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the state department, said:“It is very difficult to argue that sanctions are intended to serve the best interests of the international community on the whole and the countries being targeted in particular if they are also perceived as worsening an unrelated humanitarian crisis.”
The threat posed by the coronavirus has been used as a pretext for a range of states of exception throughout the world that - however necessarily - have curtailed people’s rights.
In Kenya the situation seems particularly extreme, with police in the east African country accused of three killings as they moved in to enforce a coronavirus lock down since Friday night.
Thirteen-year-old Yasin Hussein Moyo was struck in the stomach by a bullet as he stood on the balcony of his family’s home with other children looking on as police moved into their crowded neighbourhood on the outskirts of Nairobi, the Associated Press reports.
His family buried him on Tuesday, as Kenya’s inspector general ordered an investigation into his death, including a forensic analysis of all firearms carried by officers at the scene. A neighbour told AP she saw police aiming at the building.
Meanwhile, in Kenya’s second city Mombasa a motorcycle taxi driver, Hamisi Juma Mbega, died from the injuries he suffered in a beating he received after he breached curfew by taking a pregnant woman to a hospital, according to a post-mortem report obtained by AP.
And the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, a civilian body established by parliament, said it is looking into another death blamed on police brutality, that of a bicycle taxi driver in Homa Bay county.
Kenya now has 59 coronavirus cases, including one death from the disease. (Guardian)
@Empireapple and others who are worried that the lack of testing means no one knows the infection rate where they are, and that where they are could be as bad/almost as bad as NYC – yes, you are right, there isn’t a lot of testing (whether the standards are different in NYC vs upstate I don’t know – and actually I suspect they are not different). But the proof that things are worse in NYC is the fact that there are so many critically ill people, and such a high death rate and the hospitals are overwhelmed. They are building overflow tent hospitals in Central Park! If your area had the same infection rate, your hospitals too would be flooded and your area would have hundreds of deaths. That is not the case. Ergo, right now your area is just not as hard hit as the NYC area.
Would it interest you to know what is happening? My brother is a doctor at Albany Medical Center, and he says (as of a couple of days ago) the hospital had discharged everyone they possibly could and that the hospital was half empty. What they had was healthy people coming up to give birth (etc) at a place with fewer covid cases. They are bracing for the onslaught of expected patients.
I don’t understand the us vs them mentality. We all are in this together. NYC is desperate right now. It also has some of the best hospitals and researchers in the world, and good treatments and cures may be coming from NYC just as right now it needs our help. If that happens you will be very glad to accept things coming from NYC. New Orleans needs help too. Let’s all do what we can to help others, and lets hope that when we need help that others will step up and help us. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
On the lighter side, goats take over the empty streets in a Welsh town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=xcDvM3PdVsc&feature=emb_logo
A nursing home in Canada has become one of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreaks claiming the lives of 12 elderly residents in recent, with dozens more elderly residents suspected to have the infection, Leyland Cecco reports from Toronto.
Pinecrest Nursing Home, a 65-bed facility in the small town of Bobcaygeon, Ontario, first identified an outbreak of Covid-19 on March 20. Since then, 24 staff at the facility have tested positive for the virus and 35 residents are being treated as though they also are infected. One woman who volunteered at Pinecrest has also died.
“It’s a war zone — more than one nurse has said that,” Michelle Snarr, the facility’s medical director, told Global News. “I feel like a field commander in a war.”
Staff at the retirement home expect the death toll to rise in the coming days, given the age and health profiles of many people living at Pinecrest. Dozens of retirement homes across the country have documented outbreaks of Covid-19 despite numerous precautions in place to halt the spread of the virus.
Ontario’s premier Doug Ford called the unfolding situation “tragic” and pledged to open an investigation into how the virus spread so quickly, despite the facility following protocol.
“I can’t put it into words. It’s just devastatingly horrible. So, so, so sad,” said Snarr. (Guardian)
A doctor who gave Vladimir Putin a guided tour of Russia’s main hospital treating coronavirus patients last week has tested positive for the disease, Andrew Roth reports from Moscow.
Denis Protsenko, the chief doctor for the Kommunarka hospital in Moscow, tested positive for the disease on Tuesday, Russian state television reported.
Putin met with Protsenko last Wednesday during an unexpected visit to the hospital, where he toured the medical facility and spoke with staff and patients.
During the visit, Protsenko was pictured shaking hands with Putin, riding in an elevator with him, and also standing close to him as the two men rode down an escalator along with advisors. Neither man was wearing a mask during the meeting.
It isn’t clear if Protsenko had already contracted the disease when he met Putin. The Kremlin has said that those who meet Putin are screened for the disease in advance. A spokesman for Putin on Tuesday did not immediately respond to questions about whether or not he had been tested recently for the disease.
The Russian president was shown holding a video-conference with regional heads on Monday. It was his first public appearance in four days, as mayors and other government figures have taken the lead in authorising severe measures in order to limit the spread of coronavirus. In Monday’s appearance, he did not exhibit any obvious symptoms of sickness.
When Putin visited the hospital last week, Russia had less than 500 confirmed cases of the disease. As of Tuesday, officials have identified more than 2,300 cases of the disease in Russia, with 500 new cases in just the last day.
Authorities have declared self-isolation regimes in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Protsenko was said to be in stable condition on Tuesday.
Asked about the diagnosis, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, told Russia’s Interfax news service that “Putin is tested regularly. Everything is OK.” (Guardian)
France, Germany and Britain have exported medical goods to Iran in the first transaction conducted under a trade mechanism set up to barter humanitarian goods and food after the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal, according to Reuters.
The German foreign ministry said the medical goods were in Iran and added that the Instex trade mechanism and its Iranian counterpart would work on more transactions and on enhancing the system.
The shipment is a consignment of medical goods from a European exporter, a ministry source told the Reuters news agency.
Iran was one of the first countries outside of China to suffer a severe outbreak of Covid-19. (Guardian)
I worry about Florida. An older couple related to my brother through marriage are down there and have been until the past few days getting together with others for dinner and going out to eat and swimming in the pool and not stopping normal activities, seeming to be totally oblivious to the situation. They finally seem to get it a little bit and are about to drive a few thousand miles home. I’m worried for them. I don’t think they understand how to take precautions. I hope neither is sick.
I worry about all of Florida. The spring breakers, the almost 4000 people who got off that big cruise ship that had a covid-19 positive person on it who got off at prior stop with no further testing or decontamination/cleaning, all the at risk elderly, the lack of action by the governor, and more. I feel very sad thinking of what is likely to be coming. The numbers are rising there so fast, and we know those are tip of the iceberg numbers as we don’t have enough testing. I do hope that the warmer temps and humidity there helps.
Worst-hit German district to become coronavirus ‘laboratory’
Study will follow 1,000 people in Heinsberg to create plan for how to deal with virus
German scientists have announced what they described as a first-of-its-kind study into how coronavirus spreads and how it can be contained, using the country’s worst-hit district as a real-life laboratory.
The virus has spread more widely among the 250,000 residents of Heinsberg – a district in North Rhine-Westphalia bordering the Netherlands – than anywhere else in Germany, with 1,281 confirmed infections and 34 deaths. More than 550 people have recovered from the illness so far. The advance of the virus in Heinsberg, nicknamed “Germany’s Wuhan” after the Chinese city where the global pandemic emerged, is between two to two and a half weeks ahead of the rest of the country.
Over the coming weeks the district will be used by leading virologists and a team of 40 medical students as a sort of laboratory for studying the virus. The “Covid-19 case cluster study”, launched on Tuesday morning, will follow 1,000 people who have been chosen because they are representative of the German population as a whole.
The results will be used to create a blueprint for how Germany might deal with the virus over the next few years, said Prof Hendrik Streeck, the head virologist at the University of Bonn.
“This is a big chance for the whole of Germany,” Streeck told a meeting of parliamentarians that was streamed live on television. “We’ll be gathering information and practical tips as to how to deal with Covid-19 and how we can achieve further containment of it, without our lives having to come to a standstill over a period of years.”
The scientists will go into 500 households, as well as kindergartens and hospitals, to study how the infection is spread. They will look at every aspect of everyday life, from the extent to which children pass it on to adults, how it is spread within families – from mobile phones to door handles, to cups and TV remote controls – to whether pets can spread it, and whether it is transferred via certain types of food. “If there are ways of preventing the illness from spreading in our environment, we want to know what they are, with the goal of finding out how we can freely move about in the environment together,” Streeck said.
“On the basis of our findings we’ll be able to make recommendations, which politicians can use to guide their decision-making,” Streeck said. “It could be that the measures currently in place are fine, and we say: ‘Don’t reduce them.’ But I don’t expect that, I expect the opposite, that we will be able to come up with a range of proposals as to how the curfews can be reduced.”
By testing the immunity to Covid-19 of the study’s participants, the scientists will also be able to establish what the estimated number of undetected cases might be nationwide. The first results are expected to be made public next week, though the entire gathering of evidence will take several weeks and its analysis is likely to be carried out over months and years.
Streeck said he was unaware of any other studies of its kind being carried out in other hotspots, such as Wuhan in China, Ischgl in Austria, Bergamo in Italy or Alsace in France. He was surprised that the government’s advisers on public health matters had not come up with the idea already, “because after all, containment is of national interest”, he said.
He said he hoped the study would help decision-makers in the “ethical dilemma” of establishing a balance between maintaining livelihoods and managing the death rate.
Very well said. Thank you @cinnamon1212
@Creekland
The author totally skips over the part about hospitalizations. The death rate is usually relatively low (high, but relatively low) when hospitals can handle the loads going to them. Between 10 and 20% end up getting hospitalized and those aren’t just the old/infirm. The death rate increases when hospitals are overwhelmed due to lack of beds and supplies. People die who really didn’t “need” to die from it. In Italy over 60 doctors have died so far from what I’ve read. Do that many really die in a given year from illnesses they catch at the hospital? I have my doubts.
Do we want that here? I don’t.
Respectfully, the article was shortened to fit the format here. Its possible I may have cut out important points. I think the doctor goes a bit far to make his point, but it has some validity. If only hospital patients are tested of course that will affect statistical results. He does state that the average age of patients in Italy is high – like age 75 plus, That will surely skew the results.
More equipment does not always save everyone, sadly. And yes the elderly (and the hospital workers) are at greater risk from catching things at a hospital.
First Los Angeles County health care worker dies of coronavirus
From CNN’s Cheri Mossburg
Los Angeles County has lost its first health care worker to coronavirus.
The health care worker was under the age of 60, county Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced in a press conference.
“To the family of the health care worker who died of Covid-19, I want to express on behalf of the entire county family, our sympathy to your family and our gratitude to this person who gave everything for the health of our community,” Ferrer said.
At least 10 people have died of the virus in Los Angeles County in the past day, Ferrer announced, and an additional 548 new cases have been confirmed. The total number of cases in Los Angeles County now stands at 3,011.
In just a week, the number of positive cases has tripled. Likely, that’s reflective of testing capacity, which has also tripled, according to Ferrer.
Public Health Wales has urged the country’s 440,000 smokers to quit now to reduce the risks from Covid-19 and said it has seen a sharp rise in the number of people asking for help to stop, reports Steve Morris.
It says smokers are more at risk from Covid-19 because they have weakened lung defences and more regular hand-to-mouth contact, giving more chances for picking up the virus. Many also have existing lung conditions caused by smoking.
According to Public Health Wales, hundreds of smokers have contacted the NHS Help Me Quit helpline since the outbreak began and in response more telephone support advisers have been drafted in.
Meanwhile, the website of the tobacco control campaign group ASH Wales has seen a 40% increase in visitors, mostly searching for online advice on how to quit.
Ashley Gould, a public health consultant at Public Health Wales, said: “Seven in 10 smokers in Wales say they would like to quit – there might never be a more important time than now to try harder than ever.
“We know that Covid-19 is mainly a respiratory disease and research on similar viruses shows tobacco smoke increases the risks of this type of infection, and how serious it can be.“
Suzanne Cass, the CEO of ASH Wales, said: “We know that giving up smoking can be incredibly tough but there really is no more important time to quit. The health benefits kick in within minutes of stubbing out that last cigarette and continue to grow with time.” (Guardian)
[ good idea ]
A neighbor was on her balcony puffing on her ciggie (chain smoker) telling me how safe she was. In her 60s plus, looks like she has had a hard life. Safe.
I was thinking about this yesterday. Is it possible to sew a ridge of terry cloth at the top to reduce fogging. Or like a thin line of cushion? I also want to perfect the way to sew on the wires because after a few washes they need tightening. If one of you has a suggestion I will field test it.