LivingnLA

I hear blue diamonds help with that.

I wouldn't trust the Daily Squib, the link under China. It's a satire site. As they themselves admit, there is some truth in what they write, but they intentionally use satire to make their points. Satire can be non-fiction but is usually fiction. It's interesting to read, but not wise to trust as a source of factual information. To make matters worse, that article is based on articles from the Daily Mail and they have a terrible track record. They regularly make things up. We knew about Iran back in March because of satellites and journalism. The regime matters in the USA too, which is why the majority of Americans do not know of the many mass graves our society has created over the centuries, including the one in NYC for unclaimed poor dying right now from COVID-19. That's why we have journalism and why dictators and dictator wannabes around the world attack journalists. This is as close to politics as we should get, otherwise this helpful thread will be relegated to the politics forum.

That's how it works in a nation with a healthcare system rationed based on money and a society full of poor people with chronic health issues because of pollution, bad nutrition, inadequate housing, unsafe water and more.

Makes sense and been seen elsewhere. That's why I imagine many life lessons will stick from this pandemic. The handshake for example may need modification. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-08/coronavirus-handshake-contagion

Yes. There are many poor people dying at home. Many aren't being counted in the coronavirus numbers because testing is very restricted. Tests won't be used on the dead. In a year or two, we will look back at overall death rates and see far more dead than the current official counts. Only then will we know the real cost of the pandemic. New York has decided to finally start counting deaths that are at least strongly suspected COVID-19 related: https://gothamist.com/news/death-count-expected-soar-nyc-says-it-will-begin-reporting-suspected-covid-deaths-addition-confirmed-ones

We've potentially turned a corner. It appears most Americans have taken the public health orders seriously over the last couple weeks, at least on a national basis. The range of probably deaths has declined to 30,000-130,000, with the expected around 60,000. That's significant improvement that shows how effective distancing and staying home can work when people take it seriously. If these orders stay in place until late May, we should be in that range. https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

My intent was not for you to feel attacked, though I can see how it could be read that way. I apologize. My point remains that all adults are responsible for making mature informed choices. I would expect someone who does bodywork to have at least decent surface sanitization practices. But, coronaviruses also spread by respiratory droplets and aerosol. How was the room handled between clients? What precautions were taken to minimize the risk of transmission and create a safer session? If he was not attired as the CDC currently recommends, then he was not being professional. Both of you are adults and are welcome to take whatever risks you want with your own lives. My point was to urge you not to delude yourself and believe either of you were completely safe. You were slightly less risky because of the mask you mentioned, but without knowing all the probabilities, it was still a risky choice for each of you and whoever else you're around for the next up to 14 days that you may be infected and shedding before symptoms appear.

Makes sense when thinking about gravity, anatomy, physiology, and pleural pressure. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4173887/ Here's a more recent good study validating prone positioning for improving oxygenation and reducing ventilator induced injuries. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6997307/

Life is full of risk. Don't delude yourself especially when making risky choices. There's nothing professional about working illegally in contravention of public health orders. If either of you have the novel coronavirus, or a client up to 3 hours before you had it, all of you have been exposed, possibly with a large enough dose to be infected, especially if there was deep breathing involved. Here's what the US CDC is currently recommending for healthcare personnel who are in close contact. This is the minimum PPE that an actual professional wears to work in close proximity to another human right now. Is this how he was dressed?

Yes. There's a very promising antibody test that should be approved soon. If it is, getting it scaled will become a priority. I never said it would be easy, but it will be a matter of public health and ways will probably be found.

Agreed. We waited too long. If we'd acted decisively in January or perhaps early February, it could've been kept to low thousands. Reality now is to do our best to keep it near 100,000 deaths.

I don't check people's profiles usually, so now I know to do so. Thank you.

Are you a Californian? If not, keep in mind that you may not be able to travel to California in December without medical proof of antibodies or a mandatory 2-week quarantine. As states continue to diverge in their coronavirus policies over the next few months and the federal government continues to be disorganized and hands off, expect more states to seal their borders. It's legal and will be necessary since California and other early-acting states will not want to allow travelers from less rigorous states. California hasn't done it yet, but I won't be surprised if they do when things really start getting bad in many other states that waited way too long.

Life is going to be different for a long time. The goal is herd immunity. A widely deployed vaccine is over a year away so the only way to get herd immunity right now is naturally and the only way to do that and not have millions of deaths, is slowly over time so the healthcare system isn't overwhelmed. Here's a public site with a decent model for NY because NY's public data is pretty good. It's important to understand that these models are fluid because human behavior plays a very large role in the outcomes. The range for NY's apex is anywhere from 3-30 days from now. That range is so wide because of the diversity of choices people are making right now. I hope the apex is in the next week because that will mean deaths due solely to lack of hospital capacity will be maybe 10k. Assuming that we see this, then the next step depends on how long it takes to free up hospital capacity. There must be open capacity if the public health orders are to be relaxed at all. Think of it like a dance: relaxing the rules enough to get the economy more active but only enough so that hospitals are not overwhelmed by new cases. This is a controlled exposure exercise to build natural immunity and minimize deaths. That sort of scenario will run maybe 18 months. The same author wrote an in-depth follow-up piece that I recommend.

Michigan has already passed California in confirmed cases. Louisiana should tomorrow or the day after. Massachusetts and Florida should as well, but they'll be a few days. Georgia and Texas may get scary. Their testing remains limited which is probably why their counts look so low, but their hospitals seem to be reporting more activity than they should be based on the official case counts. They likely have many more cases than their offical numbers suggest. California continues to be an example of how early and aggressive actions seem to work. They also appear to be ramping testing capacity. If the rapid serology is approved soon, Californians that can prove they have antibodies should allow for even greater economic activity. It will also reveal where the virus has already been, which will help us learn a great deal.

There are multiple factors in Michigan. Age isn't the only demographic factor determining mortality, socioeconomics are substantially influential. Many early cases in any given area were frequently wealthy people who had good nutrition, which improves immune response, and access to good healthcare. Detroit is a major airport where it's a given many asymptomatic or mildly ill travelers passed through and shed virus along the way. Some early research shows clusters in vacation spots, like ski resorts, even back in January and February. Also consider the spring breakers who partied hard, caught the virus, and flew home to shed it. Once it got into the community, it spread and Detroit is a poor city full of poor people with poor health. Here's an article discussing these and other factors. Michigan is going to lose many people over the coming months and so will Louisiana, Florida, and other states that weren't taking it seriously back in March when the data and math were irrefutable. Exponential math is unforgiving even though it looks harmless in early days. We are headed toward hundreds of thousands of dead. I hope enough Americans take it seriously to keep the body count as low as possible.

Exactly so. This is another consequence of our distorted economy. Endless focus on short-term results coupled with excessive efficiency creates a system highly vulnerable to unplanned disruptions. Further, extreme inequality significantly reduces the velocity of money and creates economic fragility and precarity that makes the entire system vulnerable to collapse when shocked. This is part of why the USA, with our economy configured extremely in "crisis capitalistic" and "crony capitalistic" themes, tends toward the kinds of bad and good extremes we've seen over the last forty years.

At least 40% of Americans can't pay a $400 emergency. Consumers drive 70% of economic activity, but 40-60% of them live on a knife's edge and this has pushed them over the edge. All of us in the top 10% or higher have ignored how distorted and dysfunctional our country is and it may get ugly when unemployment hits 20-30%.

What do you mean by effective? N95 masks don't technically protect against dry particle airborne virus transmission or even very small aerosol virus transmission. But, they're a large improvement compared to nothing. They should be reserved for healthcare workers because the environment they're working in has much greater probability of infection-level concentrations of virus particles in respiratory droplets and aerosol because of all the respiratory therapy and support required for patients infected with COVID-19. Masks in public are about a physical and visible reminder not to touch your face, maintain physical distance, and also provide improved community protection when the infected or suspected infected wear them since they dampen the velocity of the output from every cough, sneeze, and exhale while also providing some physical material to catch some of the infectious particles thereby reducing range and concentration in hotzones like grocery stores. For healthy people, it's much more about the masks being on sick people. The issue is that perhaps one third of infected people may be asymptomatic and they do appear to shed. The only way to get them covered up and reduce their shedding, is to make masks a thing for everyone in public spaces too. This article explains the rationale and provides supporting links for more details: https://medium.com/@Cancerwarrior/covid-19-why-we-should-all-wear-masks-there-is-new-scientific-rationale-280e08ceee71

This is getting creepy. This person has a life and likely wouldn't want his day job learning about this side hustle. Would you want your coworkers, family, and friends to know about this hobby?

Practicing safer sleeping is important.

@m_writer, please take what @MrMattBig wrote to heart. He's dead on in his thinking around breathplay with someone new. His suggested protocol and the importance of being aware of the sub's physical body are critical to a successful session for both of you. This was an initial session, yes? It's critical to start with baby steps and build the session. You have to get the sub physically and psychologically to trust you and since you're doing it as strangers and in one session, following the protocol @MrMattBig spells out is probably your best bet. Good luck!

Research continues. There may be something to the "fraternal order" idea, but it's only one idea and it doesn't seem to fit the majority of homosexual males. Human sexuality is incredibly complex. We're talking about subtle interactions between many different genes driving sexual behavior. It will not be explained by any one idea. Here are two pretty interesting recent papers in this area. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600923/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7031179/

That sort of breathplay is intense even for an established connection. Expecting a complete stranger to handle it with another stranger feels like a stretch to me. Something that's much more rare than our porn fantasies suggest. Human psychology doesn't work that way unless we're talking about a real masochist sub, often with fetishes around death, rape, and unconsciousness. Another possibility would be a sub who's an extreme risktaker or thrillseeker. It's important not to underestimate how much anxiety and fear is tied up with meeting a stranger in this "profession." People have been physically assaulted, raped, robbed, and killed. I think you're smart to be explicit going forward. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to want a breathplay session with someone brand new, I would be very explicit about it to make sure they understood what they were getting into and also make sure they understand if they have any potential triggers. If someone's every been assaulted before, restrained against their will, or felt completely helpless against their will, then this could trigger them. Doing it within the bounds of the legality of this profession could be a discussion about favorite porn. Find some breathplay videos on the Internet that show what you're thinking and share them so they have a clear picture of what you're into.

Thanks. It was part of what drove me to join the forum. I believe our species is best and strongest together so I found a community where I could contribute and process and grow forward.