Tuesday, September 29, 2020
This year's Jewish high holidays were, like so many other rituals, shaped by COVID. We opted to participate in streaming religious services via Zoom. We visited with a small family group for an outdoor meal that ended up indoors due to rain. Then we all sat in different rooms to eat and limited our indoor time. It is remarkable how insidious and disruptive this pandemic is. I found myself unusually focused on utensils and doorknobs. Like Howard Hughes-levels of focus. Washing my hands while holding a plate (having touched the serving spoon) was an exercise testing my dexterity. Internally debating if I get a new plastic fork (since I was unsure what I touched before I picked up my fork last time) was more strategic thinking than I wanted on Yom Kippur. (Pairing the fragrance of hand sanitizer with noodle kugel is a no-go, BTW.) But, I now better appreciate the many lovely doorknobs my sister in law has.
-----Latest Data---
Cases rates are rising in much of the world and U.S. midwestern states. Hospitalization and death rates are stable.
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.
----
It is an excellent time to review Rt.live - one of the best effective reproduction rate websites. They offer data views over time - and you can see the proportion of states below an R0 of 1 is low, and all of the states range of error for the calculation cross 1.0.
https://rt.live/
Rt.live data comes from the COVID tracking project. Their weekly blog last week discusses the never-ending data problems with disparate state definitions of testing and spotty data in other categories. I am still dismayed by the lack of a unified DATA strategy at the national level.
https://covidtracking.com/blog/trends-improve-except-in-the-midwest-this-week-in-covid-19-data-sep-24
The internal politics of the CDC explains part of the failure to offer a national strategy. To be sure, there is a reasonable argument that this article is akin to victim-blaming, however. The Washington Post covered this over the weekend.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/28/cdc-under-attack/
Part of the problem is coronavirus has MULTIPLE modes of transmission - fomite, droplet, and aerosol. And, environmental conditions play a role in which transmission method predominates. I found this FAQ on Protecting Yourself from COVID Aerosol Transmission authored by a consortium of chemists and engineering professors. It is a living document; I suggest saving the link.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fB5pysccOHvxphpTmCG_TGdytavMmc1cUumn8m0pwzo/preview
Your coffee read of the day (and the person I am sending an email of gratitude to) is Florian Krammer. His Tweetorial on vaccines is phenomenal. At 70+ tweets, he should have probably written an article, but take what you can get, right?
https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1310372301314101250?s=10
I would suggest a follow-up Twitter thread on "Vaccine Efficacy 101" from Natalie Dean, Ph.D. - Harvard I.D. Biostatistician.
https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1310613702476017666?s=20
Infographic of the day: Writing Tips from Stephen King.
I appreciated a prolific author who persistently writes high-quality prose and seems to be a decent and thoughtful human being. https://twitter.com/StephenKing I will never forgive him for Pennywise, who permanently lives in my 14-year old head.
http://infographicfacts.com/14-tips-stephen-kings-writing/
---Bonus Round--- Ancient Cities and Ancient Politics
I have lamented that I will likely never visit many ancient cities thanks to unstable politics and safety. For me, Nineveh, Ur, Babylon are probably a no-go for the next few decades.
Over the weekend, I found an article on Thamugadi or Timgad, a well-preserved Roman city in Algeria.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/10/timgad-ancient-roman-city-with-very.html
What I found most interesting was the back-story politics of this city. Though initially a military outpost, Timgad flourished 100-400 AD as a land-grant retirement community for Roman military veterans of non-Roman decent (largely Parthians). The politics are brilliant and illuminating. One needs lots of soldiers to rule the Mediterranean world. Around 100 BC Rome started letting many non-Romans into the military to meet these needs. And to ensure being a Roman soldier was the best job around, 25 years of service earned veterans full Roman citizenship, a pension, and some land. (That is some serious deferred compensation.) Probably better to settle a retired, well-trained Army with varying cultural norms far away from Rome itself. Even better, make sure you build a thriving city with all Rome's cultural and contemporary amenities, to indoctrinate, elevate, and remind your new citizens just who runs the place. Hence Timgad. A separate but equal strategic frontier outpost. People are people, and tribalism, politics, and power do not change. And, the solutions don't change much either.
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
-Adam
This year's Jewish high holidays were, like so many other rituals, shaped by COVID. We opted to participate in streaming religious services via Zoom. We visited with a small family group for an outdoor meal that ended up indoors due to rain. Then we all sat in different rooms to eat and limited our indoor time. It is remarkable how insidious and disruptive this pandemic is. I found myself unusually focused on utensils and doorknobs. Like Howard Hughes-levels of focus. Washing my hands while holding a plate (having touched the serving spoon) was an exercise testing my dexterity. Internally debating if I get a new plastic fork (since I was unsure what I touched before I picked up my fork last time) was more strategic thinking than I wanted on Yom Kippur. (Pairing the fragrance of hand sanitizer with noodle kugel is a no-go, BTW.) But, I now better appreciate the many lovely doorknobs my sister in law has.
-----Latest Data---
Cases rates are rising in much of the world and U.S. midwestern states. Hospitalization and death rates are stable.
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.
----
It is an excellent time to review Rt.live - one of the best effective reproduction rate websites. They offer data views over time - and you can see the proportion of states below an R0 of 1 is low, and all of the states range of error for the calculation cross 1.0.
https://rt.live/
Rt.live data comes from the COVID tracking project. Their weekly blog last week discusses the never-ending data problems with disparate state definitions of testing and spotty data in other categories. I am still dismayed by the lack of a unified DATA strategy at the national level.
https://covidtracking.com/blog/trends-improve-except-in-the-midwest-this-week-in-covid-19-data-sep-24
The internal politics of the CDC explains part of the failure to offer a national strategy. To be sure, there is a reasonable argument that this article is akin to victim-blaming, however. The Washington Post covered this over the weekend.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/28/cdc-under-attack/
Part of the problem is coronavirus has MULTIPLE modes of transmission - fomite, droplet, and aerosol. And, environmental conditions play a role in which transmission method predominates. I found this FAQ on Protecting Yourself from COVID Aerosol Transmission authored by a consortium of chemists and engineering professors. It is a living document; I suggest saving the link.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fB5pysccOHvxphpTmCG_TGdytavMmc1cUumn8m0pwzo/preview
Your coffee read of the day (and the person I am sending an email of gratitude to) is Florian Krammer. His Tweetorial on vaccines is phenomenal. At 70+ tweets, he should have probably written an article, but take what you can get, right?
https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1310372301314101250?s=10
I would suggest a follow-up Twitter thread on "Vaccine Efficacy 101" from Natalie Dean, Ph.D. - Harvard I.D. Biostatistician.
https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1310613702476017666?s=20
Infographic of the day: Writing Tips from Stephen King.
I appreciated a prolific author who persistently writes high-quality prose and seems to be a decent and thoughtful human being. https://twitter.com/StephenKing I will never forgive him for Pennywise, who permanently lives in my 14-year old head.
http://infographicfacts.com/14-tips-stephen-kings-writing/
---Bonus Round--- Ancient Cities and Ancient Politics
I have lamented that I will likely never visit many ancient cities thanks to unstable politics and safety. For me, Nineveh, Ur, Babylon are probably a no-go for the next few decades.
Over the weekend, I found an article on Thamugadi or Timgad, a well-preserved Roman city in Algeria.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/10/timgad-ancient-roman-city-with-very.html
What I found most interesting was the back-story politics of this city. Though initially a military outpost, Timgad flourished 100-400 AD as a land-grant retirement community for Roman military veterans of non-Roman decent (largely Parthians). The politics are brilliant and illuminating. One needs lots of soldiers to rule the Mediterranean world. Around 100 BC Rome started letting many non-Romans into the military to meet these needs. And to ensure being a Roman soldier was the best job around, 25 years of service earned veterans full Roman citizenship, a pension, and some land. (That is some serious deferred compensation.) Probably better to settle a retired, well-trained Army with varying cultural norms far away from Rome itself. Even better, make sure you build a thriving city with all Rome's cultural and contemporary amenities, to indoctrinate, elevate, and remind your new citizens just who runs the place. Hence Timgad. A separate but equal strategic frontier outpost. People are people, and tribalism, politics, and power do not change. And, the solutions don't change much either.
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
-Adam
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