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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"Scientists now believe that asymptomatic carriers are responsible for more than half of COVID cases. Do everyone around you a favor and wear a mask even if you feel perfectly fine. #MaskingForAFriend"
Source:
Commentary: Wear a mask to protect others and yourself.
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Child care centers as hot spots. "As parents and school districts work to determine what steps are the safest, they could look to daycares to give an idea of what may happen when schools restart.
As cases of COVID-19 rise in Texas, they’re also rising in childcare centers. Statewide so far, about 2,000 cases are linked to childcare centers.
Texas has seen a 110 percent increase in cases linked to childcare centers in the past two weeks. Just short of 2,000 cases are now connected to childcare centers in the state. A third of those cases are in children. Most are in childcare workers. In Dallas County, three of those workers have been hospitalized.
“The fact that you’ve got even two adults who have required intensive care hospitalization is concerning,” said Dallas County Health Director Dr. Philip Huang.
Kara Waddell, who is on the governor’s childcare COVID-19 task force, says enrollment at Fort Worth-area daycares is down by about 50 percent. She says enrollment across the state is down. Yet even with smaller class sizes, outbreaks are still happening."
Source: https://www.fox4news.com/news/parents-concerned-as-covid-19-cases-surge-at-childcare-centers
Commentary: Kids aren't immune to COVID-19, and they will spread it to people who will have far more severe health consequences. Keep your kids home as much as practical.
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Hospital data is no longer available to the general public.
Source:
Commentary: For US citizens, contact your elected representatives immediately and ask them to petition for a reversal of this policy change by the federal government. This data is essential to managing and assessing outcomes, regardless of who it makes "look bad".
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What should we be measuring for COVID-19? The Lancet's panel offers these suggestions for KPIs:
"Ability to detect and break transmission chains
• Percentage of cases found by contact tracing
• Compliance of the community to governmental health directives
• Testing; percentage positive, capacity per million population, policy, turnaround time
Ability to minimise deaths and severe complications
• Deaths per million population
• Ventilator capacity per million population
Minimise hospital-acquired COVID-19
• Personal protective equipment availability
• Health-care-associated infections
Fiscal support for individuals and companies
• Programmes functioning for those in isolation or quarantine
• Programmes functioning for those threatened by social restrictions
Maintenance of food and medicine supply chains
• Demonstrable actions in place
Protection and support for vulnerable and neglected populations in the community
• Recent clusters in vulnerable groups
• Demonstrable actions in place
Maintenance of usual health services
• Essential services are never reduced
• Non-essential services are restored promptly"
Source: https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31601-9.pdf
Commentary: This is a solid set of measures that can determine how any nation is performing in its ability to contain COVID-19's effects. Unsurprisingly, nations like the United States, Brazil, and India are struggling to meet any kinds of performance measures.
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What good have lockdowns done? "The curves of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19–related hospitalizations and deaths in various countries show a steep upward slope, followed by a plateau and then a fall by July 2020 (except in the U.S., where nationwide numbers still are rising). Thus, lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and related interventions bent the initial curve. But unarguably, the cost of these measures to the economy has been substantial. So how much benefit has resulted from these costly and unpopular pandemic containment measures compared with the alternative: allowing the pandemic to run its course?
A multinational team of social scientists modeled data on the effects of large-scale anticontagion policies in six countries. The team estimates that these measures already have prevented 285 million cases in China, 38 million in South Korea, 49 million in Italy, 54 million in Iran, 45 million in France, and 60 million in the U.S. — a total of 530 million cases prevented or delayed, thus far. If COVID-19–related mortality is 0.5% (a conservative estimate), such measures have prevented 2.65 million deaths."
Source: https://www.jwatch.org/na51803/2020/07/14/what-have-lockdowns-social-distancing-masks-and-other
Commentary: Prevention or delay of 530 million people from falling ill. That's 7% of the human race - not an insignificant number at all.
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"After a coronavirus outbreak where only those wearing plastic visors were infected, the Swiss government has said plastic shields are inadequate protection and should only be worn in combination with a face mask.
Health officials in the canton of Graübunden studying a recent outbreak among staff at a hotel found a worrying trend - all of those who were infected wore plastic face shields, while those who avoided infection wore face masks."
Source: https://www.thelocal.ch/20200715/only-those-with-plastic-visors-were-infected-swiss-government-warns-against-face-shields
Commentary: This is unsurprising news as virologists have advocated for the recognition of SARS-CoV-2 as an airborne virus. A face shield will do nothing against airborne particles.
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A bit of humor via XKCD.
Source:
Commentary: "Winning a test tube eating contest at a COVID testing lab"
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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.