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.
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Dr. Fauci: "It's no secret a respiratory illness transmitted between people usually in close contact. There was some real misunderstanding about respiratory droplets and so called aerosolized particles. The aerosol and particle physicists that have approached us now have told us that we really have gotten it wrong over many, many years, and that particles greater than five micrometres still stay in the air much much longer than we had thought. When we used to say empirically greater than five micrometres, it drops to the ground five micrometres. This might be aerosolized, we know now that's just not the case. Bottom line is there's much more aerosol than we thought. infected surfaces clearly occurred, the degree to which they contribute to transmission is unclear. The virus is in multiple body fluids, again, what the role in transmission is unknown. And as we know, animals, both domesticated and zoo animals can be infected. And yet again, we do not know and doubt whether this is a major source of human infection. This is an interesting slide that I show just for people to appreciate when someone coughs or sneezes, the kind of droplets that go out. But we know now from good studies that just speaking, and especially singing, in fact, spews out viral particles that probably play a significant role in the transmission that we're seeing."
Source:
Commentary: The key is that we now know bigger particles ALSO hang out in the air longer than thought. At this point, the entire focus for prevention should be having people wear the best masks available to them 100% of the time they are out of their residence, without exception (because it's easier to remember) and extending the 6 foot rule to be "stay away from other people as much as practical". Absolutely no gatherings of any kind indoors, period, from team sports to parties, because indoors concentrates the virus unless you've got massive ventilation of fresh air. A pavilion in a park where there's a roof to protect you from sun and rain but no walls at all is what constitutes a "safe indoors space" - and you should still wear the best mask available to you anyway.
It's also an important point to hear that yes, in the beginning, the science about the disease was wrong. Our understanding of it is better now, and 6 months from now, we will have been wrong about things we believe to be true today. That is the nature of science. There are an astonishing number of people who say that science etc. have no credibility because they were so wrong about the disease early on. Someone whose views have NOT changed despite the introduction of new facts and data is the person who has no credibility; they live in a state of willful ignorance rather than based on science.
Science of the past will almost always be wrong compared to science of the present. That is the nature of science. We once believed the earth was flat, and except for a collection of nutjobs on YouTube, that past science has been retired in favor of better science. The same will be true of everything we know about this pandemic.
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Dr. Scott Gottlieb: "Well, I think there's still a question whether or not this is the beginning of an upsurge heading into the fall in the winter, we're seeing sort of a post Labor Day bounce. Clearly, we've seen a rise in cases across the country right now, hospitalizations, as you said, they were declining, they're no longer declining, there's some indication is starting to rise again, which would be expected. Now the cases are going up. Whether this is a start of a persistent trend heading into the fall in the winter, or it's just a temporary upsurge and we level off again, it's unclear. I think that there's a lot of concern that we could start to see a real upsurge and this is a continuation of a broader trend underway. As we head into the colder months, we were always facing heightened risk of increased spread of coronavirus as we head into the fall in the winter. Now we're there we're starting to see that increase. And we've taken a lot of infection into a very dangerous season for this virus."
On vaccine efficacy:
"Well, look, we don't know yet. We don't have the data. There's major trials underway with more than 30,000 patients needs trial, Pfizer involved 44,000 materna 30,000 j&j just announced a trial with 60,000 patients. These are major outcomes trials. So we should wait and see what the data ultimately shows. But the expectation is that this vaccine is going to be partially protective, a lot like the flu vaccine, where for certain people, it will provide full immunity. But for other people, it's not going to provide as much protection, maybe it will lessen the severity of COVID if they can track the infection, but it's not going to provide what we call sterile immunity, which which means you're not going to be able to get infected with COVID, there will be some people who still get infected with COVID. That's the expectation. Now, it could be that the vaccines proved to be much more effective than we expect. It could be that the vaccines proved to be a lot less effective than we expect. But I think that should be the base case, the the base expectation of individuals"
On susceptibility:
"That's what the data shows. I mean, CDC has some data that they've developed looking at antibodies across the country, basically layering tests onto normal blood draws being done by labcorp, and quest to look at how many Americans have antibodies to Coronavirus. And so they're deriving some of that information from that very large project that they've undertaken. But other studies seem to indicate about the same thing about 10% of Americans have been exposed to this virus, the best modeling that I've seen that suggests that there could be a higher rate of exposure suggest that maybe it's as high as 15%. But most of the models project around 10%. So it means a lot of the countries still very susceptible to this virus. There's a lot of room for it to run."
Source:
Commentary: We are coming up on the end of the first inning of a 10 inning game.
That's where we are in the pandemic right now. The end of the first inning. It's not game over. It's far, far from it. The only way this pandemic ends in sooner than 5 years is to get a safe, working vaccine and then have people take it.
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American Airlines CEO Doug Parker: "For the airline industry, it provided $25 billion of loans to airlines. And that loan you're talking about is just the closing of our prorated share of that loan. But it also provided $25 billion of payroll support, essentially a pass through a pass through to the airlines to pay our people even though we didn't have full work for them to keep airlines moving to keep the country moving. That's the both of those things are really important. The loan program is complete. The payroll Support Program, unfortunately expires on October 1 back in March, we all thought demand would be back, we wouldn't need support beyond this beyond this time. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. So on October 1, that program absent being extended is going to expire. And indeed, they're going to be hundred thousand aviation professionals who are out of work who wouldn't be otherwise we're fighting so hard to get that payroll support extended."
Source:
Commentary: Regardless of my feelings about corporate bailouts, it's important to note that a number of these loan programs sunset on October 1 in America; the fact that the American Congress still has not passed any relief for the program that ended September 1 for individuals bodes ill for renewing additional relief programs.
If you are a business owner, your 2021 planning should assume that a vaccine is not broadly available and administered to the general population for at least half the year, possibly the entire year. Plan accordingly; plan what it looks like for "the new normal" - aka today - to extend through the entirety of calendar year 2021.
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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.
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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.