3 years ago today, my employer activated its Business Continuity Plan: 90K workers went home. I resigned last year, never having returned

Ontario switched from airborne to droplet precautions in Mar 20, at the behest of hospital IPAC directors. This change cascaded through the health care system down to my wife

She was prohibited from using N95 PPE & required to visit patient's homes w surgical mask

2 weeks later, she would contract #COVID19

It has been 3 years of #LongCOVID symptoms for me.

With a respiratory "co-morbidity", I was super concerned about any respiratory infection.

My course of COVID19 resulted in chest pains, incredible exhaustion, breathing issues so serious I nearly went to the hospital. Night terrors of epic proportions. It was the scariest 2 weeks of my life.

6 weeks to get back on my feet. Burned all my sick leave & most of my vacation time.

I wasn't really functional for 8 weeks. Fortunately my employer was understanding.

Then the #PASC started.

The first thing that became obvious was the sleep disorder.

Never had it like this before - inability to get to sleep for no reason. Agitated. When I did sleep, it was disturbed.

Next were intermittent cognitive issues. My brain was my livelihood so this was super concerning. Briefly some "brain fog" bad enough to impact my work.

The exhaustion would keep coming back in waves. I would feel fine, then get hit again.

Then came the cardiac issues. Weird chest pains.

Fortunately, I had seen something like this before.

I had "mono" or #EBV in school. My post-COVID presentation was very similar. Relapsing/remitting symptoms triggered by stress which mostly means lack of sleep.

Remember the sleep disordered symptoms?

Outstanding. My symptoms were triggering my symptoms.

Analytic that I am, this set me down the path to figure out what was going on & how to mitigate my risks.

What I learned in the first two years shook me to my core & hasn't let go.

So how to approach learning about this? I needed to understand
- what was wrong
- how to fix it
- how to defend against it

4 things informed my approach.

1. first principles thinking from #physics

2. Stochastic systems comprehension from #NetworkEngineering

3. Systems design thinking from #consulting

4. #infosec risk management from being #BlueTeam for over 30 years

Risk management was clearly the path for me to understand what had happened & could happen again.

Thus began a crash course in public health, infection control, medicine, biology & the mechanisms of disease transmission.

Its a virus, right? Ok, can infosec help me understand a virus?

First up. Attack vector & kill chain.

Of course I looked to physics first. Discovered aerosol physicists & chemists were being ignored by the medical community but were busy yelling about it to whomever would listen on twitter.

This was the #CovidIsAirborne community, my first big breakthrough.

Finding #CovidIsAIrborne led me to the Ontario #SARS commission report. Which my sister & mother got caught in, but I was oblivious.

I specialize in failure mode & effects analysis professionally.

Naturally, I figured we would learn from past mistakes. Wow, thought I, this has happened before! Surely we have learned the lessons & are ready for this time around?

I read the SARS Royal Commission report that my tax dollars had paid for. Cover to cover.

*urp. Oh oh.

http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/e_records/sars/report/

Ok, this is looking worryingly similar - a lack of a "learning mindset".

I knew we had gotten sick due to my wife's exposure, but I didn't understand airborne vs droplet precautions yet.

So my PPE journey began once I could get out of bed again.

I summarised my PPE journey in another thread whereby your intrepid author learns about the physics of aerosol transmission & how to defend against it.

https://zeroes.ca/@EricCarroll/109389489438122137

But this is jumping ahead in the story a bit.

Its just mid-2020...

As I go after the attack vector, I assumed people understood this, but not me.

This understanding would be encapsulated in workplace regulations to keep workers safe (🙄)

Ok, what are the HCW regs?

Three things:
- contact precautions for touch
- droplet precautions for gravity driven spatter
- airborne precautions for everything in the air

hmm. odd division.

Medical practice is NOTHING is airborne. Ok. TB is. hmm. Measels. Nothing else.

What?!? That makes no physical or risk sense. Why?