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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In India, high courts have held that any industrial use of oxygen must be stopped and those supplies diverted to hospitals. "Essentially, the govt scheduled the industrial use of oxygen to stop tomorrow (22 April). On Monday, the Court held that "economic interests can't override human lives" and directed O2 supplies to be diverted to hospitals.
The Court is hearing now not all supplies were diverted."
Source:
Commentary: This is something that came up during the hospitalization peak in the United States. Medical grade oxygen and industrial grade oxygen differ in purity by the tiniest fraction - 99.5% for medical grade oxygen, 99.2% for industrial oxygen. Both will save lives.
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A new variant developed independently in Angola. "The versatility of SARS-CoV-2 to evolve new variants that increase transmissibility, virulence, and immune evasion is a new troubling feature of the Covid-19 pandemic. The recent discovery of a novel variant emerging from Tanzania adds a new chapter to this disturbing story. Up until the discovery of the new variant, all other variants of interest or concern derive from a common ancestral virus, the B.1 strain that first made its appearance in early 2020. This is not so for the newly described variant. It evolved from an entirely different source, the A lineage, a finding that substantially expands our understanding of the repertoire of mutants we must be prepared to contend with in the months and years ahead.
The Tanzanian variant (which is how I will denote it as it lacks official designation) teaches us that variants of interest and concern may lack all three defining mutations of the B.1 strain. Nonetheless, the new variant is of interest and of possible concern as it carries a number of mutations in the spike protein characteristic of other bonafide variants of concern from the B.1 lineage. Of the 13 mutations that distinguish the spike protein of the Tanzanian variant from the original Wuhan strain, eight are found in the B.1 family of variants. This is a remarkable illustration of convergent evolution. No one B.1 variant carries all these mutations, but each must confer some selective advantage to the A lineage variant. It is worth noting the five spike mutations unique to the Tanzanian virus, as they are likely to appear sooner or later in B.1 linage variants as well.
So why is this new variant relevant? This is another variant we have to be especially vigilant towards. It may be as infectious and immune evasive as the widespread B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants, in addition to potential reinfection capabilities, as they carry similar mutations. It also represents why we need more comprehensive variant surveillance around the world. Were this not detected in the Angolan airport, it may have caused havoc in the country and elsewhere.
We do not yet know exactly how dangerous the Tanzanian variant may be. That is partly due to the new total blackout of information during the pandemic from that country. Official data would have that no infections have occurred in Tanzania since May 2020, which is clearly not the case. The appearance of a new variant of interest and possibly of concern detected in travelers from that country highlights the need for transparency, both for the control of Covid-19 within the country and for the dangers viruses emanating from Tanzania may pose for the rest of the world."
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/04/15/new-tanzanian-variant-detected-in-angola-from-an-entirely-new-branch-of-sars-cov-2/
Commentary: The good news is that our current vaccines are derived from the original wildtype of the virus, which means that the Tanzanian variant probably should be susceptible to present-day vaccines. But this emphasizes just how important continued testing and genetic sequencing are, as well as vaccination in all nations. We can't afford to have pools of virus hiding out in poorer nations, mutating away from our watchful eyes.
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The CDC has released tools for sharing valid information about vaccines and is encouraging community organizers of every kind to take them and use them for free. The tools include social media images, posters, graphics, presentations, and more.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/toolkits/health-departments.html
Commentary: If you work in a community where these tools would be useful, go ahead and make use of them! The more people we vaccinate, the safer everyone is. The United States is probably 6-8 weeks away from vaccine supply outpacing demand, and the next phase of the pandemic is about getting vaccine-hesitant people to get vaccinated by any legal and ethical means possible. A huge part of THAT will be countering fake information about vaccines and their safety.
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COVID-19 will become a young person's disease for a while. "In America, adults are racing headlong into a post-vaccination summer while kids are being left in vaccine limbo. Pfizer’s shot is likely to be authorized for ages 12 to 15 in several weeks’ time, but younger kids may have to wait until the fall or even early 2022 as clinical trials run their course. This “age de-escalation” strategy is typical for clinical trials, but it means this confusing period of vaccinated adults and unvaccinated kids will not be over soon. And the pandemic will start to look quite different.
How different? Vaccination is already changing the landscape of COVID-19 risk by age. In the U.S., hospital admissions have fallen dramatically for adults over 70 who were prioritized for vaccines, but they have remained steady—or have even risen slightly—in younger groups that became eligible more recently. This trend is likely to continue as vaccines reach younger and younger adults. Over the summer, the absolute number of cases may drop as mass vaccination dampens transmission while the relative share of cases among the unvaccinated rises, simply because they are the ones still susceptible. The unvaccinated group will, of course, be disproportionately children. By dint of our vaccine order, COVID-19 will start looking like a disease of the young.
This means vaccines are working, but it also means many Americans are flipping how they think about COVID-19 risk. Adults who spent the past year worrying about their elderly parents are now worrying about their kids instead. The risks are not equivalent, of course: Kids are 8,700 times less likely to die of COVID-19 compared with those older than 85. But “even if the risk is not particularly high, you’re still going to be extra protective of your kids,” says Sandra Albrecht, an epidemiologist at Columbia. “It’s just human nature.”
In coming months, parents may find themselves going back to normal while their kids still have to wear masks indoors. “It’s a very strange relationship to feel protected when your kids are still not,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, told me. But some 30 million households have children still too young to be vaccinated; in these families, parents and caretakers, especially of the youngest children, will have to keep navigating this incongruous world."
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/young-kids-vaccines-covid/618650/
Commentary: The reality is that for any household where you have kids under 16, the pandemic is not only far from over, it's more risky. Schools are dangerous places because of high density populations and poor ventilation. Continue to adhere to protocols for protecting your family, even if you've been fully vaccinated.
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A reminder of the simple daily habits we should all be taking.
1. Always wear the best mask available to you when out of your home and you'll be around other people. 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.
3. Wash/sanitize your hands every time you are in or out of your home for any reason.
4. 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.
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 mercury or other heavy metals in the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/09/1013538/what-are-the-ingredients-of-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine/
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.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.