May 6, 2020
Wednesday
(It is my wife's birthday so I am damn sure of this.)
Yesterday, an author who I very much enjoy reading released a new short story and long-novel. It is science fiction, and I found myself engrossed in the short story for an hour. It was delightful. However, it is the first serious science fiction I have enjoyed in a while. It is interesting what the pandemic has done to my tastes in entertainment - nature shows, science documentaries, and history are tolerable. Dystopian settings and fantasy, not so much. Fiction and science fiction are highly variable, depending on the ideas explored. This set of thoughts points to the (maybe not so) subtle psychologic impact of these events. And I am not on the front lines of this, by any means. I suspect this collective and individual angst will be around for a while.
----------
Data Visualization Update
I found a new Tableau-driven visualization of COVID information.
The US - totals change over time: https://public.tableau.com/profile/peter.james.walker#!/vizhome/Coronavirus-ChangeovertimeintheUSA/00_Overlay
This data set has State comparisons, Rt, Ranking, and on and on. It is going to be top of my daily views. Here is the most valuable view, I think:
https://public.tableau.com/views/Coronavirus-ChangeovertimeintheUSA/2_Corona?:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link
FT data is still the best visualization I have found for country comparisons...
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
-------
As states open up, we will need to watch the various indicators of spread to see how infections rate change (see above), if at all, as people begin to interact. Wyoming, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, and Missouri never closed. It is, I think, a little too soon to know if "staying open" was wise or not. We will have to let the data of the coming weeks be our guide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/05/republican-governors-our-states-stayed-open-covid-19-pandemic-heres-why-our-approach-worked/
Testing popped up a bunch in the last 24 hours:
Dr. Krammer tweeted about a pre-release paper he co-authored correlating PCR testing to antibody response in COVID+ patients. Here is what the paper found:
PCR+ patients almost all, eventually, have an antibody response, but timing is variable.
PCR+ patients stay PCR+ after symptoms resolve, further pointing to the fact that viral RNA are still present in the respiratory tract (for weeks).
Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1257828922638700546
Paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.30.20085613v1.full.pdf+html
Wired has a thoughtful and digestible article on antibody testing.
https://www.wired.com/story/everything-we-know-about-covid-19-antibody-tests-so-far/
On our Phys. Exp. Q&A someone asked about the impact of the pandemic on influenza. Here is a quick graphic I found year to year and 2020 detail in Australia:
https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1257885449864929281
Here is a well-written review of the knowns and unknowns of smoking and COVID. It is an excellent example of how to think through bias in reviewing medical studies:
https://theconversation.com/does-nicotine-protect-us-against-coronavirus-137488
Despite working at DaVita, I must admit I did not appreciate the clinical value of hugging. I can admit when I am wrong. This article, however, does not cover the hugging use case and awkward social issues surrounding two people of significantly different height having to hug. I am thinking of you Matt Brill \ (^0^) /
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/skin-hunger-coronavirus-human-touch
I am glad to know that someone is exploring the social psychology of teleconference meetings. And, most importantly, their thoughts and my sentiment align. It seems to be data-free observations, but an interesting read on a topic we are living in real-time.
hhttps://theconversation.com/5-reasons-why-zoom-meetings-are-so-exhausting-137404
More reading!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/sunday-review/zoom-video-conference.html?smid=em-share
It is nice to know I am in a band of courier-using states. I am not sure what to make of the Century Schoolbook-belt in the south. Infographic of the day
https://i.redd.it/z8lobhvz0zw41.jpg
And, in follow up to yesterday's comments about language, I offer a map of Aboriginal Languages of Australia from 1966. Amazing.
https://i.redd.it/gl46bsgj80x41.jpg
-----Bonus Round - Boys (and girls) go to Jupiter edition
NASA has been retouching photos. These images of Jupiter and its moons are phenomenal. 1) I feel like I know these places thanks to The Expanse series. 2) There are days it seems enticing to go. Now. Like give me a ship, and I am ready. Elon, where are you?
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/05/photos-jupiter-and-its-galilean-moons/611176/
Galileo saw these moons in 1609.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/307/galileos-observations-of-the-moon-jupiter-venus-and-the-sun/
And, if you haven't read the story of Galileo's battle with the Pope and the Church about heliocentrism, it is an excellent read on the politics of science, 1600s-style. (I covered this peripherally a few weeks back when writing about Paolo Sarpi.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Moral of the story - History tends to smile more on those that think with logic and use data. The trade-off, though - many examples of this trope find the historically "correct" person very dead, often having been persecuted, by the time they are vindicated.
See the book that caused the controversy - https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/sidereusnuncius00gali
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
-AW
(It is my wife's birthday so I am damn sure of this.)
Yesterday, an author who I very much enjoy reading released a new short story and long-novel. It is science fiction, and I found myself engrossed in the short story for an hour. It was delightful. However, it is the first serious science fiction I have enjoyed in a while. It is interesting what the pandemic has done to my tastes in entertainment - nature shows, science documentaries, and history are tolerable. Dystopian settings and fantasy, not so much. Fiction and science fiction are highly variable, depending on the ideas explored. This set of thoughts points to the (maybe not so) subtle psychologic impact of these events. And I am not on the front lines of this, by any means. I suspect this collective and individual angst will be around for a while.
----------
Data Visualization Update
I found a new Tableau-driven visualization of COVID information.
The US - totals change over time: https://public.tableau.com/profile/peter.james.walker#!/vizhome/Coronavirus-ChangeovertimeintheUSA/00_Overlay
This data set has State comparisons, Rt, Ranking, and on and on. It is going to be top of my daily views. Here is the most valuable view, I think:
https://public.tableau.com/views/Coronavirus-ChangeovertimeintheUSA/2_Corona?:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link
FT data is still the best visualization I have found for country comparisons...
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
-------
As states open up, we will need to watch the various indicators of spread to see how infections rate change (see above), if at all, as people begin to interact. Wyoming, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, and Missouri never closed. It is, I think, a little too soon to know if "staying open" was wise or not. We will have to let the data of the coming weeks be our guide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/05/republican-governors-our-states-stayed-open-covid-19-pandemic-heres-why-our-approach-worked/
Testing popped up a bunch in the last 24 hours:
Dr. Krammer tweeted about a pre-release paper he co-authored correlating PCR testing to antibody response in COVID+ patients. Here is what the paper found:
PCR+ patients almost all, eventually, have an antibody response, but timing is variable.
PCR+ patients stay PCR+ after symptoms resolve, further pointing to the fact that viral RNA are still present in the respiratory tract (for weeks).
Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1257828922638700546
Paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.30.20085613v1.full.pdf+html
Wired has a thoughtful and digestible article on antibody testing.
https://www.wired.com/story/everything-we-know-about-covid-19-antibody-tests-so-far/
On our Phys. Exp. Q&A someone asked about the impact of the pandemic on influenza. Here is a quick graphic I found year to year and 2020 detail in Australia:
https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1257885449864929281
Here is a well-written review of the knowns and unknowns of smoking and COVID. It is an excellent example of how to think through bias in reviewing medical studies:
https://theconversation.com/does-nicotine-protect-us-against-coronavirus-137488
Despite working at DaVita, I must admit I did not appreciate the clinical value of hugging. I can admit when I am wrong. This article, however, does not cover the hugging use case and awkward social issues surrounding two people of significantly different height having to hug. I am thinking of you Matt Brill \ (^0^) /
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/skin-hunger-coronavirus-human-touch
I am glad to know that someone is exploring the social psychology of teleconference meetings. And, most importantly, their thoughts and my sentiment align. It seems to be data-free observations, but an interesting read on a topic we are living in real-time.
hhttps://theconversation.com/5-reasons-why-zoom-meetings-are-so-exhausting-137404
More reading!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/sunday-review/zoom-video-conference.html?smid=em-share
It is nice to know I am in a band of courier-using states. I am not sure what to make of the Century Schoolbook-belt in the south. Infographic of the day
https://i.redd.it/z8lobhvz0zw41.jpg
And, in follow up to yesterday's comments about language, I offer a map of Aboriginal Languages of Australia from 1966. Amazing.
https://i.redd.it/gl46bsgj80x41.jpg
-----Bonus Round - Boys (and girls) go to Jupiter edition
NASA has been retouching photos. These images of Jupiter and its moons are phenomenal. 1) I feel like I know these places thanks to The Expanse series. 2) There are days it seems enticing to go. Now. Like give me a ship, and I am ready. Elon, where are you?
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/05/photos-jupiter-and-its-galilean-moons/611176/
Galileo saw these moons in 1609.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/307/galileos-observations-of-the-moon-jupiter-venus-and-the-sun/
And, if you haven't read the story of Galileo's battle with the Pope and the Church about heliocentrism, it is an excellent read on the politics of science, 1600s-style. (I covered this peripherally a few weeks back when writing about Paolo Sarpi.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Moral of the story - History tends to smile more on those that think with logic and use data. The trade-off, though - many examples of this trope find the historically "correct" person very dead, often having been persecuted, by the time they are vindicated.
See the book that caused the controversy - https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/sidereusnuncius00gali
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
-AW
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