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.
You are welcome to share this.
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In the United States, because of testing delays, the data you're seeing now may be 7-10 days old.
Source:
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Commentary: Two companies handle the majority of testing in the United States. That doesn't have to be the case - more lab capacity can help. So can bringing the number of overall cases needing testing down by locking down again. More and more states are turning 'bruised red' on COVID Exit Strategy now that hospital data is available again - 7 more states have gotten worse in the last 10 days.
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Unchecked, anti-vaccination views are becoming the dominant point of view on social media. "Distrust in scientific expertise is dangerous. Opposition to vaccination with a future vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the causal agent of COVID-19, for example, could amplify outbreaks, as happened for measles in 2019. Homemade remedies and falsehoods are being shared widely on the Internet, as well as dismissals of expert advice. There is a lack of understanding about how this distrust evolves at the system level. Here we provide a map of the contention surrounding vaccines that has emerged from the global pool of around three billion Facebook users. Its core reveals a multi-sided landscape of unprecedented intricacy that involves nearly 100 million individuals partitioned into highly dynamic, interconnected clusters across cities, countries, continents and languages. Although smaller in overall size, anti-vaccination clusters manage to become highly entangled with undecided clusters in the main online network, whereas pro-vaccination clusters are more peripheral. Our theoretical framework reproduces the recent explosive growth in anti-vaccination views, and predicts that these views will dominate in a decade. Insights provided by this framework can inform new policies and approaches to interrupt this shift to negative views. Our results challenge the conventional thinking about undecided individuals in issues of contention surrounding health, shed light on other issues of contention such as climate change, and highlight the key role of network cluster dynamics in multi-species ecologies."
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2281-1
Commentary: At what point does a narrative like anti-vaccination become harmful enough to require systemic suppression? These are questions we'll need to tackle, and come up with answers that balance public good/public health with freedom of speech. There is no lack of consensus in the scientific and medical communities that vaccines are effective and safe, and no lack of consensus that the only way we achieve herd immunity to COVID-19 is through vaccination. How will we resolve this? I don't know, but the fact that private corporate systems are the ones distributing misinformation is an easier challenge to solve. Things like freedom of speech and other Constitutional doctrines in the United States apply ONLY to the government (for the most part), not private entities. Should Facebook want to, they could turn off entire points of view tomorrow with no legal challenge because they are privately owned.
For now, continue to share and amplify solid, scientifically-proven information from actual experts as best as you can.
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Can you re-catch COVID-19? "But the anecdotes are just that — stories without evidence of reinfections, according to nearly a dozen experts who study viruses. “I haven’t heard of a case where it’s been truly unambiguously demonstrated,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Other experts were even more reassuring. While little is definitively known about the coronavirus, just seven months into the pandemic, the new virus is behaving like most others, they said, lending credence to the belief that herd immunity can be achieved with a vaccine.
It may be possible for the coronavirus to strike the same person twice, but it’s highly unlikely that it would do so in such a short window or to make people sicker the second time, they said. What’s more likely is that some people have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after their initial exposure.
People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies. Several teams have recently reported that the levels of these antibodies decline in two to three months, causing some consternation. But a drop in antibodies is perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/health/covid-antibodies-herd-immunity.html
Commentary: In short, it's very, very unlikely you can re-catch COVID-19 right now. Could that change? Yes, if the virus mutates sufficiently to defeat the body's immune systems. Right now, it has no survival advantage to do so because we are largely not immune to it. Only a tiny percentage of the human race has had COVID-19, so there's plenty of room for it to keep growing.
That said, if you're worried about someone re-catching it, good news. The same tactics you employ to stop it from spreading to new victims can be used to stop it from spreading to those who have had it.
Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Watch your distance. Stay home as much as you can.
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Senator Feinstein of California proposes something novel. "“Research shows that masks reduce transmission of the coronavirus. CDC Director Redfield said this surge in COVID-19 cases could end within two months if we adopt ‘universal masking.’ Businesses like Walmart, Kohl’s and Kroger now require masks. And countries that are successfully controlling this virus require masks. So why doesn’t the United States have a national mask mandate?
“Wearing masks in public should be mandatory. Period. Leader McConnell said the Senate will take up the next coronavirus economic relief bill later this month. At that time, I intend to offer an amendment to prohibit sending funds to states that haven’t adopted a statewide mask requirement."
Source: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2020/7/feinstein-states-without-mask-mandate-shouldn-t-receive-direct-federal-funds
Commentary: That's reasonable, especially since the science behind wearing masks is not controversial in the least. Masks work.
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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. Wear gloves and a mask when out of your home. 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. 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.