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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Infection control. "Hong Kong's top #COVID19 19 doctor shares what HK is doing differently to keep its fatality rate very low. It’s not some fancy drug cocktail alone.
Spoiler: Hong Kong doesn’t wait until you have shortness of breath before admitting you to hospital."
Source:
Commentary: Hong Kong's strategy is quite sound - by admitting and isolating ANYONE with symptoms, regardless of symptom strength, they're effectively controlling the infection at its source, knocking out potential spreaders by getting them off the streets. A very smart strategy.
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More proof of COVID-19's airborne nature from a pre-print study. "SARS-CoV-2 emerged in late 2019 and caused a pandemic, whereas the closely related SARS-CoV was contained rapidly in 2003. Here, a newly developed experimental set-up was used to study transmission of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 through the air between ferrets over more than a meter distance. Both viruses caused a robust productive respiratory tract infection resulting in transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to two of four indirect recipient ferrets and SARS-CoV to all four. A control pandemic A/H1N1 influenza virus also transmitted efficiently. Serological assays confirmed all virus transmission events. Although the experiments did not discriminate between transmission via small aerosols, large droplets and fomites, these results demonstrate that SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can remain infectious while traveling through the air. Efficient virus transmission between ferrets is in agreement with frequent SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in mink farms. Although the evidence for airborne virus transmission between humans under natural conditions is absent or weak for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, ferrets may represent a sensitive model to study interventions aimed at preventing virus transmission."
Source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.19.345363v1
Commentary: As always, a cautionary note that this is a pre-print. However, this is nothing revolutionary: the researchers put ferrets in an environment that only permitted aerosol transmission - no contact, no line of sight interactions - and found that the spread of COVID-19 was efficient.
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A 30-year old female died on the tarmac of COVID-19. "A woman in her thirties died of COVID-19 while she was on a plane about to take off from Arizona to Texas in July, officials said Sunday.
The woman — who was only identified as a resident of Garland, Texas — died while the plane was still on the tarmac in Arizona, Dallas County official Lauren Trimble told BuzzFeed News.
It is unclear if the woman was aware that she had COVID-19 at the time of her death, and officials did not identify which airline the plane belonged to.
Before the woman died, she had trouble breathing and was given oxygen, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins told NBC 5 Dallas–Fort Worth. She also had underlying high-risk health conditions, officials said in a news release Sunday.
Even though the woman died on July 25, the county wasn't notified that it was a COVID-19–related death until only a few days ago, Jenkins told the TV station WFAA.
Trimble told BuzzFeed News that the woman’s case was a confirmed COVID-19 death, per the CDC’s definition.
The county did not provide further information about the case. BuzzFeed News has reached out to Garland's health department for additional details.
Jenkins said that the woman's death was a "reminder that there is no age restriction in COVID."
"I would strongly encourage people to not think they’re invincible from COVID because they don’t think they’re in a high-risk category," he said."
Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/texas-woman-died-of-covid-19-on-a-plane
Commentary: COVID does not respect age, gender, or belief. There's nothing which says you'll make a full recovery. If you have to travel, be sure you're wearing the best protective equipment available to you.
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A 14 year old scientist may have discovered a molecule that can help fight COVID-19. "As scientists around the world race to find a treatment for the coronavirus, a young girl among them stands out.
Anika Chebrolu, a 14-year-old from Frisco, Texas, has just won the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge -- and a $25,000 prize -- for a discovery that could provide a potential therapy to Covid-19.
Anika's winning invention uses in-silico methodology to discover a lead molecule that can selectively bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Anika, who is Indian American, submitted her project when she was in 8th grade -- but it wasn't always going to be focused on finding a cure for Covid-19.
Initially, her goal was to use in-silico methods to identify a lead compound that could bind to a protein of the influenza virus.
"After spending so much time researching about pandemics, viruses and drug discovery, it was crazy to think that I was actually living through something like this," Anika said.
"Because of the immense severity of the Covid-19 pandemic and the drastic impact it had made on the world in such a short time, I, with the help of my mentor, changed directions to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus."
Her next goal, she says, is to work alongside scientists and researchers who are fighting to "control the morbidity and mortality" of the pandemic by developing her findings into an actual cure for the virus.
"My effort to find a lead compound to bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus this summer may appear to be a drop in the ocean, but still adds to all these efforts," she said. "How I develop this molecule further with the help of virologists and drug development specialists will determine the success of these efforts.""
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/us/anika-chebrolu-covid-treatment-award-scn-trnd/index.html
Commentary: An inspiring story. Let's hope she continues her efforts and is encouraged by great mentors along the way.
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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.
6. Participate in your local political process. For Americans, go to Vote.org and register/verify your vote.
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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.