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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Fascinating: the technology for masks that detect COVID-19. "Integrating synthetic biology into wearables could expand opportunities for noninvasive monitoring of physiological status, disease states and exposure to pathogens or toxins. However, the operation of synthetic circuits generally requires the presence of living, engineered bacteria, which has limited their application in wearables. Here we report lightweight, flexible substrates and textiles functionalized with freeze-dried, cell-free synthetic circuits, including CRISPR-based tools, that detect metabolites, chemicals and pathogen nucleic acid signatures. The wearable devices are activated upon rehydration from aqueous exposure events and report the presence of specific molecular targets by colorimetric changes or via an optical fiber network that detects fluorescent and luminescent outputs. The detection limits for nucleic acids rival current laboratory methods such as quantitative PCR. We demonstrate the development of a face mask with a lyophilized CRISPR sensor for wearable, noninvasive detection of SARS-CoV-2 at room temperature within 90 min, requiring no user intervention other than the press of a button."
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00950-3
Commentary: As with so many other things, the pandemic is creating a legion of new innovations and ideas that we will likely be able to repurpose for other things once all is said and done. A mask that can detect a specific contaminant in the environment you're in? That's fascinating and exciting.
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Why we don't know if Delta is deadlier. "The coronavirus is on a serious self-improvement kick. Since infiltrating the human population, SARS-CoV-2 has splintered into hundreds of lineages, with some seeding new, fast-spreading variants. A more infectious version first overtook the OG coronavirus last spring, before giving way to the ultra-transmissible Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant. Now Delta (B.1.617.2), potentially the most contagious contender to date, is poised to usurp the global throne.
Alphabetically, chronologically, the virus is getting better and better at its primary objective: infecting us. And experts suspect that it may be a while yet before the pathogen’s contagious potential truly maxes out. “A virus is always going to try and increase its transmissibility if it can,” Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Otago, told me.
In years to come, we’ll probably have to tinker with our vaccine recipes to keep pace with the fast-changing virus. But every vaccine we debut has the potential to block a route the virus might have otherwise taken. Viral genomes aren’t infinitely mutable—they can edit only the starting material they’ve been given, and they can’t make certain changes without hamstringing their precious capacity to spread. With time, we might be able to use shots strategically, to force SARS-CoV-2 onto more predictable evolutionary paths, Turner told me: “That’s the way we gain control.” If we’re going to live with this virus long-term—as we absolutely must—then vaccines are our key to building a sustainable relationship, one in which we turn the tables. We can make the virus’s evolution react to us, and not the other way around."
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/06/coronavirus-evolution-virulence/619301/
Commentary: Here's the important thing to remember when it comes to viruses. A deadlier virus is generally speaking BAD for a virus. Why? A dead host is no use to a virus. The most successful viruses are the ones like the common cold that are inconvenient, but not enough that we'll wage all-out war on them. They survive, they evolve, and they continue to infect. The deadlier a virus is, the fewer hosts it has to infect and reinfect.
Right now, SARS-CoV-2 has been mutating for infectivity, for transmissibility. What's likely is that it will evolve to start beating early vaccines as well, so we'll need to keep adapting along with it.
This is why vaccination is so important. The more hosts there are, the more chances it has to mutate. The more people who get partially vaccinated, the easier it is for the virus to evolve and work around it, eventually negating the vaccines.
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Delta infects 100% of unvaccinated people at birthday party. "The highly contagious Delta strain of COVID-19 infected everyone who attended a Sydney birthday party except for the six people who were vaccinated, the NSW Government said.
The West Hoxton party — described as a "super spreader" event — has become one of the most significant transmission events in the NSW breakout with 24 of the 30 attendees, and many of their household contacts, all testing positive for COVID-19.
The virus would have had a near 100 per cent transmission rate were it not for six people who attended the party who had already received a jab.
"To emphasise just how important vaccinations are … not one of those 24 people were vaccinated," NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Monday.
"I can also advise that six health workers who attended the party, who were fully vaccinated, not one of those people has been infected.""
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-28/vaccinated-attendees-west-hoxton-birthday-party-avoid-covid-19/100249612
Commentary: Delta's transmissibility is incredibly high. If you have unvaccinated people in your household, they are at substantial risk. Make sure they're masked up and protected. There is no safe duration of time unvaccinated people can be gathering with the new variant. Kids birthday parties. Activities. Sports. Sleepovers. If someone in your household is not vaccinated, keep them away from other unvaccinated people, period.
Here's a good rule of thumb: in any gathering, there should be a maximum of one unvaccinated household. So if your family is getting together, and everyone except one kid is vaccinated, that's safe, even if it's four or five different households. But two kids, each from a different household, is unsafe. Two kids from the same household is safe as long as everyone else is vaccinated.
That also means that schools for kids until 12 should absolutely not be open in any capacity right now. Same for daycares, etc.
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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 gettings an mRNA single shot booster (Pfizer/Moderna).
3. Wash/sanitize your hands every time you are in or out of your home.
4. Stay 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.