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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From the weekly talk show roundup, Dr. Scott Gottlieb on the vaccine: "So a lot of things can go wrong, a lot of things can be delayed, it's very hard to get to the point where you're manufacturing at high high quantities, I would say that's probably more likely a 2021 event that we're going to have the vaccine available in sufficient quantities to mass inoculate the population. And remember, there might be 200 million people who want this vaccine who are eligible for it, that might take 400 million doses, and so it's probably a 2021 event. I do think we'll have the vaccine available in the fall for use maybe to ring fence an outbreak if you have an outbreak in a large city or to inoculate a certain portion of the population on an experimental basis to produce Take them because they're at high risk of a bad outcome."
Source:
Vaccine in 2021 even then seems optimistic, given what was stated in recent whistleblower complaints about the availability of supplies to make the needles and vials for distribution. But certainly, no broadly available vaccine in 2020.
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The CEO of Feeding America, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, cited alarming statistics about hunger in the pandemic: "Well, Margaret, I think you use the right term it is, in fact, the perfect storm, we're seeing a marked increase in demand to the tune of on average 60% more people showing up in need of our services. And at the at the time that we're having that increase in demand, we have a decrease in donations, we have an increase in cost of food. And we have a decrease in volunteers. So it is in fact, a perfect storm. I was going to say that 40% on average of the people that we're seeing now have never relied upon the charitable food system before now. So we're definitely seeing different people showing up. So many of the people who are there, they're kind of familiar to us, some of the people donors are now in line in need of our services. So there's been a change, to be sure. But one of the things that I think the American public simply wasn't aware of is that even before this pandemic, there were nearly 40 million people who were food insecure. And over 11 million of them were children. So we've had a challenge for a while. This pandemic has just heightened that challenge, and a lot of people are in need of help right now."
Source:
Grocery costs have surged substantially, up 2.6% month over month in April 2020.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/us-grocery-costs-jump-the-most-in-46-years-led-by-rising-prices-for-meat-and-eggs.html
If you have the means, consider making donations to organizations that provide food to those least able to afford it.
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New peer-reviewed data from the CDC of infectiousness of COVID-19 in a fitness environment. "Before sports facilities were closed, a total of 217 students were exposed in 12 facilities, an attack rate of 26.3% (95% CI 20.9%–32.5%). Including family and coworkers, transmissions from the instructors accounted for 63 cases. We followed up on 830 close contacts of fitness instructors and students and identified 34 cases of COVID-19, translating to a secondary attack rate of 4.10% (95% CI 2.95%–5.67%). We identified 418 close contacts of 34 tertiary transmissions before the quarantine and confirmed 10 quaternary cases from the tertiary cases, translating to a tertiary attack rate of 2.39% (95% CI 1.30%–4.35%)."
Source: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-0633_article
An attack rate of 26.3% is insanely high. In the home, when you live with someone else infected, the attack rate is closer to 5-10%. Thinking about going to the gym when it reopens? I wouldn't unless you've had COVID-19 or you've been vaccinated.
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JAMA has an excellent writeup on the efficacy of face shields as societal PPE (meaning for everyone, not just healthcare workers): "Face shields offer a number of advantages. While medical masks have limited durability and little potential for reprocessing, face shields can be reused indefinitely and are easily cleaned with soap and water, or common household disinfectants. They are comfortable to wear, protect the portals of viral entry, and reduce the potential for autoinoculation by preventing the wearer from touching their face. People wearing medical masks often have to remove them to communicate with others around them; this is not necessary with face shields. The use of a face shield is also a reminder to maintain social distancing, but allows visibility of facial expressions and lip movements for speech perception. Most important, face shields appear to significantly reduce the amount of inhalation exposure to influenza virus, another droplet-spread respiratory virus. In a simulation study, face shields were shown to reduce immediate viral exposure by 96% when worn by a simulated health care worker within 18 inches of a cough.10 Even after 30 minutes, the protective effect exceeded 80% and face shields blocked 68% of small particle aerosols, which are not thought to be a dominant mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. When the study was repeated at the currently recommended physical distancing distance of 6 feet, face shields reduced inhaled virus by 92%, similar to distancing alone, which reinforces the importance of physical distancing in preventing viral respiratory infections. Of note, no studies have evaluated the effects or potential benefits of face shields on source control, ie, containing a sneeze or cough, when worn by asymptomatic or symptomatic infected persons. However, with efficacy ranges of 68% to 96% for a single face shield, it is likely that adding source control would only improve efficacy, and studies should be completed quickly to evaluate this."
Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765525
If you have the means available to make one, or you have one, consider adding a face shield to your personal PPE arsenal. With something like a piece of clear acetate or other plastic, some tape, and a baseball cap, you can make a shield quickly and inexpensively to supplement a cloth covering over your face.
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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.
2. Wear gloves and a mask when out of your home. Consider wearing a face shield.
3. Stay home as much as possible.
4. Get your personal finances in order now. Cut all unnecessary costs.
5. Donate any PPE you can. https://getusppe.org/give/
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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/
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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.