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.
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Blood donations yield useful data. "Of 953 926 donations tested, 17 336 (1.82% [95% CI, 1.79%-1.84%]) were reactive; 4786 (28%) were from first-time donors and 12 550 (72%) from repeat donors for anti–SARS-CoV-2 rates of 2.99% (95% CI, 2.90%-3.07%) among first-time donors and 1.58% (95% CI, 1.55%-1.61%) among repeat donors (P < .001) (Table). In the 2 weeks prior to initiation of testing, 11% of donors were first-time donors compared with 17% (P < .001) after that time. By multivariable analysis, the odds of reactivity were higher in donors aged 18 to 24 years compared with donors who were aged 55 years and older (odds ratio [OR], 2.43 [95% CI, 1.94-3.04]; P < .001), African American (OR, 2.58 [95% CI, 1.71-3.88]; P < .001), and Hispanic (OR, 2.31 [95% CI, 1.77-3.00]; P < .001) compared with White donors, and donors from the Northeast compared with the West (OR, 1.83 [95% CI, 1.57-2.12]; P < .001). Reactive rates increased over the study period, from 1.18% (95% CI, 1.11%-1.25%) to 2.58% (95% CI, 2.48%-2.69%; P < .001). Rates increased significantly in all Census regions except the Northeast (1.46% [95% CI, 1.3%-1.64%] to 2.06% [95% CI, 1.86%-2.28%]; P = .09), with the greatest increases in the South (1.09% [95% CI, 0.97%-1.23%] to 2.96% [95% CI, 2.75%-3.19%]; P < .001) and West (0.88% [95% CI, 0.75%-1.03%] to 2.42% [95% CI, 2.19%-2.67%]; P < .001) (Figure)."
Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2770771
Commentary: The fact that blood donations only had 1.82% of donors demonistrating antibodies shows that our overall infected rate is still probably a small part of the population...
Which means the vast majority of us are still at risk. Wear a mask.
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How can you open schools when the parents themselves cannot be trusted to make the right choices for public health? "A Massachusetts high school student went to in-person classes on the first day of school despite having tested positive for coronavirus days earlier, officials said.
Now, about 30 people who came in contact with the student at Attleboro High School are under a two-week quarantine.
The mayor of Attleboro, a city about 39 miles southwest of Boston, said the student was tested Sept. 9 and that the positive result came in Sept. 11. The student then went to school for the first day of classes on Sept. 14.
Mayor Paul Heroux said a public health nurse for the city spoke to the family on Tuesday and confirmed that the parents had known for days that their child had the virus before sending him to school.
"There's no question about whether or not the parent knew," Heroux said.
The high school's principal, Bill Runey, said administrators learned of the student's positive test result Tuesday.
“I knew that we were going to end up having some cases, but I didn’t expect they would be on the first day,” he said."
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mass-parents-knew-kid-had-coronavirus-sent-him-1st-day-n1240295
Commentary: I truly hope that these parents get hit with a lawsuit and the bills for the people they knowingly and willingly infected. There's no excuse for this, period.
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What might have been. "The U.S. Postal Service had drafted a press release announcing plans to send 650 million masks across the U.S. early in the coronavirus crisis, but the plan was abandoned, The Washington Post first reported.
In April, Postal Service leaders drafted an announcement saying the USPS would deliver five reusable face masks to every residence and post office box in the country.
The White House ultimately canceled the program, senior administration officials told the Post.
The U.S. Postal Service had drafted a press release announcing plans to send 650 million masks out across the U.S. early in the coronavirus crisis, but the White House ultimately abandoned the plan, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The plan would have sent a pack of five reusable masks to every residential address in the country, the Post reported, citing one of thousands of internal post office documents obtained by watchdog group American Oversight.
“Our organization is uniquely suited to undertake this historic mission of delivering face coverings to every American household in the fight against the COVID-19 virus,” then-Postmaster General and CEO Megan J. Brennan said in the scrapped news release, which was dated to be released in April.
The idea to have USPS ship out personal protective equipment came from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Post reported. The reported plan was to start distributing masks in April, with Covid-19 hot spots getting first priority."
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/17/white-house-abandoned-plan-to-deliver-650-million-face-masks-across-us-report-says.html
Commentary: Lamenting what might have been; that said, it's still not too late. There's no reason this can't happen in the United States (or in any locality with a mail delivery service) right now, today. Contact your elected representatives and urge them to dust off this plan and implement it.
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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. Always wear a mask when out of your home and if going to a high risk area, wear goggles. 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, preferably more. Avoid indoor places as much as you can; indoor spaces spread the disease through aerosols and distance is less effective at mitigating your risks.
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.