COVID-19 and Photography: Part 1a, Update - Understanding how the virus spreads

In the U.S., COVID-19 has already killed more than 193,000 people. It's done it in less than seven months. COVID-19 is a serious, highly infectious coronavirus. Since writing Part 1 of this series, nothing has changed about how serious the virus is and that photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, need to determine how to safely make photographs in the COVID-19 pandemic world. The photographic community needs to not only remain stay safe and healthy, but ensure, to the extent possible, that we don't spread the disease to others while making photographs.

While much about COVID-19 is still unknown, since writing Part 1 in late June, scientists have learned a great deal more about how the virus spreads. Here's what we know at this time.

Mask Up! Social Distance! No Touching! — COVID-19 is alive and well

Opinion: From the desk of Ned S. Levi

Today in the world, COVID-19 has infected more than 9.5 million people and taken more than 484,000 lives. In the U.S., COVID-19 has infected more than 2.4 million people and taken more than 124,000 lives.

Just yesterday, there were more than 173,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the world and more than 39,000 in the U.S. The fact is that COVID-19 is alive and well and still infecting and killing people, particularly those who don't remain on guard and cautious.

Any person who says that the fight against COVID-19 is over or remotely close to over is not telling the truth.

COVID-19 and Photography: Part 1, Understanding how the virus spreads

In the U.S., COVID-19 has killed more than 100,000 people. It's done it in less than five months. COVID-19 is a serious, highly infectious coronavirus. Photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, need to determine how to safely make photographs in the COVID-19 pandemic world. We need to not only stay safe and healthy ourselves, but ensure, as much as possible, that we don't spread the disease to others while making photographs.

While much about COVID-19 is still unknown, scientists have learned a great deal about how the virus spreads in the last several months. Here's what we know at this time.

COVID-19 transmission is primarily person-to-person.
 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said for months that the primary way that COVID-19 spreads is person-to-person. It's spread mainly between people who are near to each other, six feet or closer, via respiratory droplets expelled from an infected person when they cough, sneeze, or merely talk. The droplets are inhaled by those nearby, infecting them. The CDC therefore recommends that during the pandemic, everyone “socially distances” by staying six feet or further from those around us.

Study concludes smoking can diminish photographers' color vision acuity

The deadly health effects of tobacco were made known in 1964, when Luther L. Terry, M.D., then Surgeon General of the U.S., released the first report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. From that report and subsequent ones, we know that smokers are more likely than non-smokers to develop heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and a myriad of other serious diseases.

According to the CDC, the statistics about smokers contracting life threatening diseases compared to non-smokers are startling.

• Smokers are more likely to contract coronary heart disease by 200%-400%.
• Smokers are more likely to experience a stroke by 200%-400%.
• Smokers are more likely to die from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) by 1,200%-1,300%.
• Male smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer by 2,500%.
• Female smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer by 2,570%.

Cigarette smoke is extremely toxic. It contains about 4,000 active compounds, including tar, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals.

Zika and Lyme Disease are a problem for millions who spend this summer outdoors in the U.S.

This summer, millions of Americans, and travelers in the U.S. will encounter the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes potentially carrying the Zika virus, along with varieties of the North American black-legged tick carrying Lyme Disease.

How wide-spread the transmission of Zika will become is unknown. This is the first summer since some cases of Zika have been reported in the U.S. On the other hand, the black-legged tick, otherwise known as the Deer Tick, has been transmitting Lyme Disease in the U.S. for many years.

Travelers, wildlife and travel photographers, hikers, campers, and others enjoying parks, wildlife refuges, forests, and other outdoor venues in the range of these disease transmitting insects in the U.S., as shown on the map above, will need to take precautions to avoid their bites to prevent contracting Zika and Lyme Disease.