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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It's being called SuperSpreaderBowl.
Source:
Commentary: If you happened to attend a party - or know someone who did - take the safe route. Isolate yourself and get tested in 5 days.
In places where celebrations were largest - like Florida - expect to see a large spike in cases in a few weeks. Florida is already the fastest growing state for the new B.1.1.7 strain.
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Dr. Monica Gandhi urges that countries express EUA every vaccine that has passed Phase 3 trials and get them into arms ASAP.
Source:
Commentary: In Dr. Gandhi's chart, all vaccines that have passed Phase 3 trials have a 100% effectiveness rate at stopping deaths and hospitalizations. With the rise of B.1.1.7 and other variants, we need the firewall that vaccines can provide as fast as possible. Every day we wait is a day the new strains gain ground.
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Women may be long-haulers more than men. "Diana Berrent, founder of Survivor Corps, a group for covid long-haulers, said that of the 150,000 members, 82 percent are women and 18 percent are men. Likewise, Amy Watson, founder of Long Haul Covid Fighters, says that membership in the two large Facebook groups she manages has maintained a fairly constant breakdown of about 80 percent female and 20 percent male. There are about 12,000 people in both groups combined.
Doctors aren’t sure why there may be a difference in how the virus plays out in the long run between men and women. One possibility may be fundamental differences in the immune system, Hurt said.
Aside from biology, there may be deep sociological or cultural underpinnings accounting for the split — simply that women may be more willing to seek medical attention and speak openly about symptoms, especially those affiliated with mood and cognitive issues.
James C. Jackson, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University’s intensive-care recovery center, says that although the higher instances of women reporting long-term issues are notable, he’s hesitant to identify a gender split.
“In my experience, women are relatively more willing than their male counterparts to be vulnerable about the struggles that they’re having in this mental health, cognitive space. That’s a fairly durable finding, I would say, in the work that I’ve done with survivors of various kinds of medical illness, most notably in survivors of critical illness,” he said."
Source: https://www.thelily.com/way-more-women-are-reporting-long-haul-covid-symptoms-doctors-arent-sure-why/
Commentary: 80/20 is a heck of a split for sociological reasons only. Early on, it was identified that COVID-19 tended to outright kill more men than women; perhaps this is the tradeoff?
Either way, regardless of your gender or biology, you don't want COVID-19. Protect yourself.
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If you've had COVID-19, you may not be immune to the new strains. "In the placebo group of the trial for Novavax’s vaccine, people with prior coronavirus infections appeared just as likely to get sick as people without them, meaning they weren’t fully protected against the B.1.351 variant that has swiftly become dominant in South Africa. The variant has been detected only a handful of times in the United States, including a case reported Friday in Virginia, which became the third state to identify the presence of the virus variant.
The preliminary finding from the South African vaccine trial, based on a data set with limitations, stirred debate and concern among researchers as results first hinted at in a news release last week were revealed more broadly this week.
“The data really are quite suggestive: The level of immunity that you get from natural infection — either the degree of immunity, the intensity of the immunity or the breadth of immunity — is obviously not enough to protect against infection with the mutant,” Fauci said.
Even if they don’t agree on the scope of the threat, scientists said reinfection with new variants is clearly a risk that needs to be explored more. There is no evidence that second cases are more severe or deadly, and a world in which people may have imperfect protection against new versions of the virus is not necessarily a world in which the pandemic never ends."
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/05/virus-variant-reinfection-south-africa/
Commentary: This is a solid clinical finding in the placebo group that the new strains of COVID-19 are able to evade some immune responses.
The message here is clear and abundant: if you've had COVID-19, behave as though you have not. If you've been vaccinated, behave as though you have not. Keep wearing masks, watching your distance, and staying out of large groups and indoor spaces as much as possible.
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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 or better mask if you can obtain it.
2. Get vaccinated as soon as you're able to.
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. 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.