Lunchtime pandemic reading.
Standard disclaimer: this is a roundup of informative pieces I've read that interest me on the severity of the crisis and how to manage it. I am not a qualified medical expert in ANY sense; at best I am reasonably well-read laity. ALWAYS prioritize advice from qualified healthcare experts over some person on Facebook.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.
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COVID lingers. "This study found that in patients who had recovered from COVID-19, 87.4% reported persistence of at least 1 symptom, particularly fatigue and dyspnea.
Patients were assessed a mean of 60.3 (SD, 13.6) days after onset of the first COVID-19 symptom; at the time of the evaluation, only 18 (12.6%) were completely free of any COVID-19โrelated symptom, while 32% had 1 or 2 symptoms and 55% had 3 or more. None of the patients had fever or any signs or symptoms of acute illness. Worsened quality of life was observed among 44.1% of patients. The Figure shows that a high proportion of individuals still reported fatigue (53.1%), dyspnea (43.4%), joint pain, (27.3%) and chest pain (21.7%)."
Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768351
Commentary: This study aligns with what many patients are anecdotally saying, that COVID-19 lingers for a long time after you've "recovered".
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The WHO revises its guidelines to include airborne. "Outside of medical facilities, some outbreak reports related to indoor crowded spaces (40) have suggested the possibility of aerosol transmission, combined with droplet transmission, for example, during choir practice (7), in restaurants (41) or in fitness classes.(42) In these events, short-range aerosol transmission, particularly in specific indoor locations, such as crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons cannot be ruled out. However, the detailed investigations of these clusters suggest that droplet and fomite transmission could also explain human-to-human transmission within these clusters. Further, the close contact environments of these clusters may have facilitated transmission from a small number of cases to many other people (e.g., superspreading event), especially if hand hygiene was not performed and masks were not used when physical distancing was not maintained.(43)"
Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/transmission-of-sars-cov-2-implications-for-infection-prevention-precautions
Commentary: Confirmation from the WHO that the disease is also airborne, aligned with the letter in OUP that virologists sent earlier this week. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Watch your distance.
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Corpus Christi has run out of morgue space. "The Nueces County Medical Examiners Office is not receiving the bodies of those who have died from COVID-19.
Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales said she received a letter yesterday from the Nueces County Medical Examiner Dr. Adel Shaker stating there was a need for a FEMA Morgue trailer.
"That's why we're asking people to wear face masks," she said. "I am now having to order additional body bags and morgue trailers. People have to understand how real it is."
Canales said the county has one morgue trailer but she has issued an order asking for another one.
"There is a need. We have certain resources that are in crisis," she said. "I've worked on (acquiring) the morgue trailer already as of yesterday. In addition, we have technology coming in that will monitor temperature in the trailers so nothing happens.""
Source: https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/nueces-county-medical-examiners-office-not-taking-covid-19-victims
Commentary: This will be a story we hear often in the next few weeks. Every day, I see people on Facebook saying, "the death rate has gone down, how do you explain that, huh?" when challenged about wearing a mask.
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How long does it take to really clear the air? "Indoor air ventilation is needed to clear aerosols & reduce airborne transmission risk. Video demonstrates time needed to clear smoke from room:
- opposite doors: 7 min
- 1 door: 45 min
- 1 door w/ fan: 21 min
- 1 door w/ 2 fans circulating: 12 min"
Source:
Commentary: This video and commentary ably demonstrates the challenges of keeping the air clear in an enclosed space like a bar, gym, or restaurant. Don't go to these places without proper precautions, and minimize your time in them. This morning, I watched people inside the local Anytime Fitness, working out - not a mask on any of them.
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The virus doesn't discriminate, but we do. "Racial disparities in who contracts the virus have played out in big cities like Milwaukee and New York, but also in smaller metropolitan areas like Grand Rapids, Mich., where the Bradleys live. Those inequities became painfully apparent when Ms. Bradley, who is Black, was wheeled through the emergency room.
โEverybody in there was African-American,โ she said. โEverybody was.โ
Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But the new federal data โ made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention โ reveals a clearer and more complete picture: Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups.
Latino and African-American residents of the United States have been three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors, according to the new data, which provides detailed characteristics of 640,000 infections detected in nearly 1,000 U.S. counties. And Black and Latino people have been nearly twice as likely to die from the virus as white people, the data shows."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/05/us/coronavirus-latinos-african-americans-cdc-data.html
Commentary: Why? Straightforward: tighter housing, more people in a home, more reliance on public transporation, and most important, more minorities occupy essential jobs that keep them at work and exposed to the disease.
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A reminder of the simple daily habits we should all be taking.
1. Wash/sanitize your hands every time you are in or out of your home for any reason. Consider also spraying the bottoms of your shoes with a general disinfectant (alcohol/bleach/peroxide) when you return home. Remember that cleaners are never to be ingested or injected.
2. Wear gloves and a mask when out of your home. Consider wearing a face shield if you can't breathe at all through a mask. Respirators are back in stock at online retailers, too.
3. Stay home as much as possible. Minimize your contact with others and maintain physical distance of at LEAST 6 feet / 2 meters. Avoid indoor places as much as you can.
4. Get your personal finances in order now. Cut all unnecessary costs.
5. Replenish your supplies as you use them. Avoid reducing your stores to pre-pandemic levels in case an outbreak causes unexpected supply chain disruptions.
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Common misinformation debunked!
There is no genomic evidence at all that COVID-19 arrived before 2020 in the United States and therefore no hidden herd immunity:
Source:
There is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 was engineered, nor that it escaped a lab somewhere.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/
There is no evidence a flu shot increases your COVID-19 risk.
Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/no-evidence-that-flu-shot-increases-risk-of-covid-19/
Source: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa626/5842161
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A common request I'm asked is who I follow. Here's a public Twitter list of many of the sources I read.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1260956929205112834
This list is biased by design. It is limited to authors who predominantly post in the English language. It is heavily biased towards individual researchers and away from institutions. It is biased towards those who publish or share research, data, papers, etc. I have made an attempt to follow researchers from different countries, and also to make the list reasonably gender-balanced, because multiple, diverse perspectives on research data are essential.