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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Clever. "This is a list of places in Ontario that have announcements about their staff's vaccination status and/or vaccine policies, so you can make an informed decision about where you feel safe visiting. **Please see the "Notes" column for specific details about the policies at each location.**"
Source: https://safetodo.ca/
Commentary: This is a very clever way to encourage businesses to be active participants in vaccination - by making it a marketing tactic. These companies all warrant that their staff are vaccinated, so doing business with these companies is likely safer than doing business with companies who have unknown vaccination status among their employees.
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What changes minds? "What helps move people from vaccine skeptical to vaccinated? The Kaiser polls point to three main themes.
(The themes apply to both the 23 percent of people who said they would not get a shot, as well as to the 28 percent who described their attitude in January as “wait and see.” About half of the “wait and see” group has since gotten a shot.)
1. Seeing that millions of other Americans have been safely vaccinated.
This suggests that emphasizing the safety of the vaccines — rather than just the danger of Covid, as many experts (and this newsletter) typically do — may help persuade more people to get a shot.
2. Hearing pro-vaccine messages from doctors, friends and relatives.
For many people who got vaccinated, messages from politicians, national experts and the mass media were persuasive. But many other Americans — especially those without a college degree — don’t trust mainstream institutions. For them, hearing directly from people they know can have a bigger impact.
3. Learning that not being vaccinated will prevent people from doing some things.
There is now a roiling debate over vaccine mandates, with some hospitals, colleges, cruise-ship companies and others implementing them — and some state legislators trying to ban mandates. The Kaiser poll suggests that these requirements can influence a meaningful number of skeptics to get shots, sometimes just for logistical reasons."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/briefing/vaccine-skepticism-vaccination-drive.html
Commentary: These are important lessons for all of us when we're communicating with non-vaccinated people and attempting to persuade them. The COVID-19 vaccines are among the safest and most effective vaccines humanity has ever made.
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Check in with your dentist. "With the pandemic causing uncertainty, isolation and disruptions in routine, research has continued to show increases in far-reaching physical and mental health problems -- and now, dentists are noting that teeth grinding and jaw clenching, known as bruxism, also seem to be on the rise.
"Since the pandemic, patients have been coming to me with new complaints of jaw pain, tooth pain, broken or chipped teeth or just because their partners are telling them they’re grinding -- in numbers that I’ve never seen before," Dr. Saul Pressner, a family dentist in New York City, said.
Clenching and grinding is a common problem, but Pressner said he has even treated adults whose teeth clenching issues are brand new.
"I’m really seeing both -- people who were pre-disposed to clenching and grinding, who already had appliances made for them, and some who had no evidence to show they were ever clenching or grinding before," Pressner said."
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/dentists-teeth-grinding-surging-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=78692695
Commentary: Check in with your dentist. A simple mouthguard could save you thousands of dollars and hours of agony for fixing broken teeth and other side effects.
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USA citizens, lobby your elected officials. "Millions of unused Covid-19 vaccines are set to go to waste as demand dwindles across the United States and doses likely expire this summer, according to public health officials.
Several state health departments told STAT they have repeatedly asked the federal government to redistribute their supply to other countries, many of which are facing a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Officials in Washington have rejected those requests, citing legal and logistical challenges.
“We’re drowning in this stuff,” said Robert Ator, a retired colonel in the Arkansas Air National Guard who is leading that state’s Covid-19 vaccine distribution drive. “It’s starting to get a bit silly and we want to make sure we’re being good stewards.”
Many states started seeking federal assistance in redistributing excess vaccine internationally in April, Plescia said, with the Covid-19 crisis flaring in India. Some wealthier states, such as New York and California, have the financial capability to arrange international transportation themselves, said Plescia. And there are plenty of vaccines close to the border, where it would be easy for providers to give supply to those in Canada or Mexico. The federal government owns these vaccines, however, and does not permit states to redistribute them.
Kody Kinsley, operations lead for North Carolina’s Covid-19 response, said he was also told he didn’t have the rights to arrange redistribution: “It was a U.S. government-funded product, and it was given to us. We can’t just give it away.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it has looked into redistributing vaccines currently held at state level, but said moving doses from 80,000 providers has so far been too legally and logistically complex. “Overall, the federal government has done a very efficient job of managing vaccine supply, and we are doing everything we can to help states use the supply they ordered and still have in their inventory,” said spokesperson Kirsten Allen. “We are doing everything we can to help states administer all of their doses and avoid any wastage and maximize getting shots in arms.”"
Source: https://www.statnews.com/2021/07/20/states-are-sitting-on-millions-of-surplus-covid-19-vaccine-doses-as-expiration-dates-approach/
Commentary: Contact your elected officials today if you're a USA citizen and ask them to lobby for the federal government to redistribute those doses to other countries. The faster we vaccinate the world, the faster we stave off even more powerful variants.
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A reminder of the simple daily habits we should all be taking.
1. Wear the best mask available to you when you'll be around other people, even after you've been vaccinated. Respirators are back in stock at online retailers, too. Wear an N95/FFP2/KN95 that's NIOSH-approved or better mask if you can obtain it. If you can't get an N95 mask, wear a surgical mask with a cloth mask over it.
2. Get vaccinated as soon as you're able to, and fulfill the full vaccine regimen. Remember that you are not vaccinated until everyone you live with is vaccinated. If you received an adenovirus vaccine (J&J/AstraZeneca), consider getting an mRNA single shot booster (Pfizer/Moderna) if permitted.
3. Wash/sanitize your hands every time you are in or out of your home.
4. Stay out of indoor spaces that aren't your home as much as practical. Minimize your contact with others and avoid indoor places as much as you can; indoor spaces spread the disease through aerosols and distance is less effective at mitigating your risks.
5. Get your personal finances in order now. Cut all unnecessary costs.
6. Replenish your supplies as you use them. Avoid reducing your stores to pre-pandemic levels in case an outbreak causes unexpected supply chain disruptions.
7. Ventilate your home as frequently as weather and circumstances permit, except when you share close airspaces with other residences (like a window less than a meter away from a neighboring window).
8. Masks must fit properly to work. Here's how to properly fit a mask:
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Common misinformation debunked!
There is no basis in fact that COVID-19 vaccines can shed or otherwise harm people around you.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid19vaccine-reproductivepro-idUSL1N2MG256
There is no mercury or other heavy metals in the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/09/1013538/what-are-the-ingredients-of-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine/
There is no basis in fact that COVID-19 vaccines pose additional risks to pregnant women.
Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104983
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/
Source: https://www.smh.com.au/national/are-we-ignoring-the-hard-truths-about-the-most-likely-cause-of-covid-19-20210601-p57x4r.html
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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Disclosures and Disclaimers
I declare no competing interests on anything I share related to COVID-19. I am employed by and am a co-owner in TrustInsights.ai, an analytics and management consulting firm. I have no clients and no business interests in anything related to COVID-19, nor do I financially benefit in any way from sharing information about 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.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.