Dr. Xavier Fonseca's Amazing COVID-19 Presentation!
Our speaker for the April 16, 2020 meeting was Xavier Fonseca, our frequent guest, contributor, and Sunrise friend. Xavier is not only a dentist but also has a doctorate in Public Health. He met Rich Randolph and other Sunrisers through our 2010 Nicaraguan dental mission while he was working for Colgate. Xavier’s presentation was about Covid-19. (Note that Xavier’s slides have been recently been sent to all by President Marty.) Xavier mentioned that there are actually 2 pandemics; the disease itself and a related information pandemic in which factually inaccurate information seems to be coming from the highest levels of governments worldwide. There are now two variants of Covid-19, one more aggressive than the other. Javier also discussed the 5 types of tests, including the promising Rapid in-clinic Antigen test and the Abbot Labs Test, which can provide in-clinic test results within minutes and is being ramped-up to 50,000 units per day. Xavier also provided an amazingly comprehensive set of slides with important information about virus spread, life span on various surfaces, infection and death rates, prevention methods, masks, death rates, social distancing laws, death rate by age (increasingly serious at over 60, 70 and 80 years-of-age), death rate by gender (guys winning this category), common symptoms, and average incubation rates.
Xavier provided some points which were new information to me. First, his step-by-step approach to grocery shopping was both helpful and frightening. Once you get to your car with your groceries, take your mask off and put it in a ziplock bag, spray inside the ziplock bag with disinfecting spray, clean your hands with disinfecting wipes, then clean your grocery items one-by-one before you put them in the car, and spray your shoes! Also, throw your mask away as biohazard trash. Second, Xavier discussed some of the key ‘pre-existing conditions’ that result in more difficult outcomes and mentioned that cardiovascular disease is one of the worst. Finally, while we all now know that C-19 is much worse than the flu, it isn’t as bad globally as some preventable causes of death, including hunger (2,500,000 have died this year from hunger!) and smoking (1,340,000 so far this year).
Thank you, Xavier; this was a great presentation and the slide collection is fantastic. Great job!
