September 16, 2020 Wednesday
Yesterday's MIT lecture featured David Baltimore, the Nobel prize-winning virologist, 82 years old. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1975, the year I was born.
Either way, there is a dearth of coronavirus news today. It is fascinating to see a relative lull in the news cycle on the pandemic. Thanks, hurricanes, fires, and insane politics?
----Latest Data---
Global-View:
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938
Nationally:
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=ustx&areasRegional=usco&cumulative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
Also, look at https://covidtracking.com/data
The U.S. Regionally:
The NY Times state-level data visualization:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
About the data:
https://covidtracking.com/about-data/visualization-guide is the best resource to understand data visualization and data integrity.
----
The Atlantic offers a review of how the pandemic broke the just-in-time supply chain of internet commerce.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/09/pandemic-broke-online-shopping/616353/
Wired profiles a data scientist looking at the tell-tale patterns of social media misinformation campaigns. It is a fascinating read on quantifying critical thinking.
https://www.wired.com/story/data-scientist-cybesecurity-tools-quash-misinformation/
This Washington Post editorial tries to help people think through their aggregated household coronavirus exposure risk. It is interesting but probably too complicated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/16/keep-an-eye-your-coronavirus-budget/
Dr. Ali Nouri is back with a thread about articles demonstrating instances of airborne spread of coronavirus. Takeaway: there is data to support that the viral spread through the air (as opposed to droplet or surface contact). How much transmission is via airborne spread is not clear to me. BUT, as we spend more time indoors and in less humid weather, the conditions are more favorable for airborne spread.
https://twitter.com/alinouriphd/status/1305899457540771847?s=10
One last discussion of note. Canadian Biologist Samantha Yammine reviews some recent data on the psychology of young adults. She reports on and discusses why it is so hard for them to stay isolated in the pandemic.
https://twitter.com/heysciencesam/status/1305751451436802048?s=10
Infographic of the day: Things you see out the airplane window.
Once upon a time, I would go to the airport. After some invasive screening, I would enter a long aluminum tube. After a period of waiting and demonstrations of how nylon straps buckle, said tube would whisk me away to other places, like Denver. For the entire time in the tube, I would see these things out the window: https://i.redd.it/ddpx1k2w47n51.jpg
I hope we retain our knowledge of how all this works.
-----National Nephrology Nurses Week---
This week, instead of a bonus round, I will be sharing some thoughts and data in recognition of National Nephrology Nurses Week.
For the majority of patients with end-stage kidney disease, transplantation is the best option. A kidney transplant is not a cure for kidney disease, but it can help patients live longer, with a better quality of life. But receiving a transplant is a challenging and lengthy process. Nephrology offices and transplant programs have nurse coordinators that carry enormous caseloads of patients, each of whom is "a project" with 20-40 steps to completion, prolonged wait times, and a perpetual need to keep track of ongoing health events. Without the nurse coordinators, transplants would not be possible.
Here is some highlighted data on what these nurses help patients navigate, from https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/transplant-waitlist
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) manages the list of all the people across the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant. UNOS ensures that deceased donor organs are distributed using a transparent system. For kidneys, this is a combination of blood-type and antibody matching, time with kidney failure, and a few other factors that give people priority on the list (including being a child or being a past live kidney donor).
The average time frame for waiting can be 3-5 years at most transplant centers and even longer in some geographical regions of the country.
Blood type, prior pregnancies, blood transfusions, and past transplants can make it harder to find a matching donor. And, the recipient's health plays a crucial role in their transplant eligibility.
-A history of cancer
-Serious heart disease
-Not being healthy enough to survive an operation
-Active infection
-Obesity (being overweight)
-Smoking or substance abuse
are all barriers to transplant.
Post-transplant coordinators, also nurses, play a vital role in the recipient's care as well. The length of time transplanted kidneys last has continued to improve, and the patients that receive kidney transplants continue to live longer. These improvements are due to better management of medications and complications - team-based care is crucial.
Remember:
-Transplantation is more cost-effective than dialysis.
-The waitlists are long, but sustained efforts to increase deceased donor kidneys have kept the lists from growing in the last few years.
-There continue to be racial disparities in the rates of kidney transplantation.
-Living donation is still the ideal type of transplant to receive, but the least common.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29292608/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29734498/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29509285/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29573328/
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
-Adam
Yesterday's MIT lecture featured David Baltimore, the Nobel prize-winning virologist, 82 years old. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1975, the year I was born.
Either way, there is a dearth of coronavirus news today. It is fascinating to see a relative lull in the news cycle on the pandemic. Thanks, hurricanes, fires, and insane politics?
----Latest Data---
Global-View:
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938
Nationally:
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=ustx&areasRegional=usco&cumulative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
Also, look at https://covidtracking.com/data
The U.S. Regionally:
The NY Times state-level data visualization:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
About the data:
https://covidtracking.com/about-data/visualization-guide is the best resource to understand data visualization and data integrity.
----
The Atlantic offers a review of how the pandemic broke the just-in-time supply chain of internet commerce.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/09/pandemic-broke-online-shopping/616353/
Wired profiles a data scientist looking at the tell-tale patterns of social media misinformation campaigns. It is a fascinating read on quantifying critical thinking.
https://www.wired.com/story/data-scientist-cybesecurity-tools-quash-misinformation/
This Washington Post editorial tries to help people think through their aggregated household coronavirus exposure risk. It is interesting but probably too complicated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/16/keep-an-eye-your-coronavirus-budget/
Dr. Ali Nouri is back with a thread about articles demonstrating instances of airborne spread of coronavirus. Takeaway: there is data to support that the viral spread through the air (as opposed to droplet or surface contact). How much transmission is via airborne spread is not clear to me. BUT, as we spend more time indoors and in less humid weather, the conditions are more favorable for airborne spread.
https://twitter.com/alinouriphd/status/1305899457540771847?s=10
One last discussion of note. Canadian Biologist Samantha Yammine reviews some recent data on the psychology of young adults. She reports on and discusses why it is so hard for them to stay isolated in the pandemic.
https://twitter.com/heysciencesam/status/1305751451436802048?s=10
Infographic of the day: Things you see out the airplane window.
Once upon a time, I would go to the airport. After some invasive screening, I would enter a long aluminum tube. After a period of waiting and demonstrations of how nylon straps buckle, said tube would whisk me away to other places, like Denver. For the entire time in the tube, I would see these things out the window: https://i.redd.it/ddpx1k2w47n51.jpg
I hope we retain our knowledge of how all this works.
-----National Nephrology Nurses Week---
This week, instead of a bonus round, I will be sharing some thoughts and data in recognition of National Nephrology Nurses Week.
For the majority of patients with end-stage kidney disease, transplantation is the best option. A kidney transplant is not a cure for kidney disease, but it can help patients live longer, with a better quality of life. But receiving a transplant is a challenging and lengthy process. Nephrology offices and transplant programs have nurse coordinators that carry enormous caseloads of patients, each of whom is "a project" with 20-40 steps to completion, prolonged wait times, and a perpetual need to keep track of ongoing health events. Without the nurse coordinators, transplants would not be possible.
Here is some highlighted data on what these nurses help patients navigate, from https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/transplant-waitlist
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) manages the list of all the people across the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant. UNOS ensures that deceased donor organs are distributed using a transparent system. For kidneys, this is a combination of blood-type and antibody matching, time with kidney failure, and a few other factors that give people priority on the list (including being a child or being a past live kidney donor).
The average time frame for waiting can be 3-5 years at most transplant centers and even longer in some geographical regions of the country.
Blood type, prior pregnancies, blood transfusions, and past transplants can make it harder to find a matching donor. And, the recipient's health plays a crucial role in their transplant eligibility.
-A history of cancer
-Serious heart disease
-Not being healthy enough to survive an operation
-Active infection
-Obesity (being overweight)
-Smoking or substance abuse
are all barriers to transplant.
Post-transplant coordinators, also nurses, play a vital role in the recipient's care as well. The length of time transplanted kidneys last has continued to improve, and the patients that receive kidney transplants continue to live longer. These improvements are due to better management of medications and complications - team-based care is crucial.
Remember:
-Transplantation is more cost-effective than dialysis.
-The waitlists are long, but sustained efforts to increase deceased donor kidneys have kept the lists from growing in the last few years.
-There continue to be racial disparities in the rates of kidney transplantation.
-Living donation is still the ideal type of transplant to receive, but the least common.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29292608/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29734498/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29509285/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29573328/
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
-Adam
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