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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US weekly job claims have set a new record, doubling last week's. It's now at 6.65 million new claims. "“Not only was the number worse than expected, but with lockdowns becoming stricter and being extended, we should anticipate further surges in jobless claims over the coming weeks,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “We’ve lived through the recession and 9/11. What we’re seeing with this decline is actually worse than both of those events,” said Irina Novoselsky, CEO of online jobs marketplace CareerBuilder. At a profession level, the biggest groups looking for work are bartenders, athletic coaches and wait staff, according to CareerBuilder. Taxi and truck drivers along with food prep workers and supervisors also are high on the list. “Minorities are being disproportionately affected in the displacement,” Novoselsky said. “So a lot of the positive wage differential that we’d seen shrinking over the past 10 years both from females and African Americans, we’re going to see some of it going away.”"
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/02/weekly-jobless-claims.html
This is going to take a substantial amount of time to recover from, and those differences for minorities will take even longer. During and after this crisis, do your best, as circumstances and options allow, to shop with minority and women owned businesses, and those businesses who support through their actions equal pay for all.
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Yesterday, I read a thread on issues with domestic violence during the pandemic, and pulled the data. Searches for "domestic violence hotline" have shot up substantially during the pandemic lockdowns. If you or someone you know is in a dangerous relationship, offer them shelter until this pandemic passes, if you're able.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/cspenn/posts/10163628363675122
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A serology test has been emergency approved by the FDA. "Because antibodies can take time to develop, the FDA has previously warned against using antibody tests to definitively diagnose coronavirus. But in issuing what is known as an Emergency Use Authorization for the new test, the FDA signaled that the benefits of using the new blood test outweighed the risks. "Based on the totality of scientific evidence available to FDA, it is reasonable to believe that your product may be effective in diagnosing COVID-19," said the agency, adding that "the known and potential benefits of your product when used for diagnosing COVID-19, outweigh the known and potential risks of your product.""
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/health/fda-coronavirus-antibody-test-authorization/index.html
Serology testing is more important for detecting who has had the virus and the antibodies in their blood that indicate immunity. Glad we're starting to catch up to other, more advanced nations - Singapore has been doing serology testing for some time now.
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The Lancet has an excellent podcast interview on the topic of misinformation. "And if that doesn't work, we can always try to debunk, but we need various stages to protect people from being you know, quote, unquote, infected by by misinformation, because it does spread much like a virus and it does harm for society in similar ways that that a virus does so I think we Can you know at least in our lab, we kind of treat it very similar to a virus actually."
Source: https://www.buzzsprout.com/861868/3210619
Transcript: https://otter.ai/s/QanuFTYoQD2J8O45gaG_OA
Misinformation is as harmful as the disease itself. Doubly so when government figures are citing incorrect information. Do your homework before sharing something - validate that the information came from a reliable, scientific source if possible, and from credible news outlets otherwise. You'll note that a fair number of articles in these lunchtime readings come from the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Stat News, and The Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Aerosol emission of virus particles increases with voice loudness. Singing aloud throws particles just as efficiently as coughing or sneezing, according to a paper in Nature magazine. "Here we show that the rate of particle emission during normal human speech is positively correlated with the loudness (amplitude) of vocalization, ranging from approximately 1 to 50 particles per second (0.06 to 3 particles per cm3) for low to high amplitudes, regardless of the language spoken (English, Spanish, Mandarin, or Arabic). Furthermore, a small fraction of individuals behaves as “speech superemitters,” consistently releasing an order of magnitude more particles than their peers. A second key epidemiological implication of our results is that simply talking in a loud voice would increase the rate at which an infected individual releases pathogen-laden particles into the air, which in turn would increase the probability of transmission to susceptible individuals nearby. For example, an airborne infectious disease might spread more efficiently in a school cafeteria than a library, or in a noisy hospital waiting room than a quiet ward. Moreover, our data suggest a related hypothesis, that infected individuals could be transmitting significant numbers of respiratory pathogens via speech in the absence of overt clinical signs of illness like coughing or sneezing."
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38808-z
Social distancing means also not hanging out with people and having conversations with them. Those conversations transmit virus particles by aerosol just from talking. If you need to have a conversation with someone who's not in your household, do so outside and at a safe distance of 10-12 feet away.
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The Pentagon has confirmed it is seeking 100,000 body bags to help the US government manage COVID-19 fatalities. "The Pentagon confirmed that it’s seeking to provide as many as 100,000 military-style body bags for potential civilian use as the U.S. warns that deaths could soar in the coming weeks from the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has requested 100,000 body bags, known as Human Remains Pouches, through an interagency group that directed it to the Defense Department."
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/pentagon-seeking-100-000-body-bags-for-civilians-in-virus-crisis
In good times, logistics are seen as unsexy and boring. In bad times, the real importance of logistics shines through. I'm glad to see the United States finally getting its act together on the logistics front to move resources in place. Since we spend a substantial portion of our tax dollars on the military, glad some of it is being used in this crisis.
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Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine still have no evidence of effectiveness. "“Whether hydroxychloroquine works in vivo is not proven for any virus, and in fact in randomised controlled trials against a number of viruses, including influenza, it doesn't work at all,” says Douglas Richman, a virologist and infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Diego. “It's my personal prejudice that this is also going to be the case with coronavirus.” Hydroxychloroquine has shown activity in vitro against many viruses, including influenza and coronaviruses, but that has largely failed to translate into success in either animals or humans. In 2005, the drug showed in vitro activity against SARS-CoV, which is closely related to the current pandemic virus, but it failed to decrease viral load in mice, and clinical interest drifted away, says Christopher Tignanelli, a surgeon at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who is involved in clinical trials of COVID-19 treatments. “There is not a huge amount of pre-clinical data for this drug,” says Tignanelli. “It's mostly test-tube and anecdote.”"
Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9913(20)30089-8/fulltext
With no clinical evidence to support its use, definitely do NOT go out and buy or ask to buy hydroxychloroquine. If you just want a quinine compound in your diet, drink tonic water. It'll probably have the same effect, and you can mix it with gin for a decent drink.
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A reminder of the simple daily habits we should all be taking.
1. Wash/sanitize your hands often, and 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 appropriate protective equipment if you have it when out of your home in any enclosed airspace (stores, etc.).
3. Stay home. Just stay home.
4. Get your personal finances in order now. Cut all unnecessary costs.
5. Donate any PPE you can. https://getusppe.org/give/