Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Politicizing science is, in essence, wishful thinking. But the data are what the data are; science prevails over wishful thinking. Data on trade-offs of vaccines, mask-wearing, and the immune impact of COVID are in the news today.
-----Latest Data---
The US is now diagnosing an all-time high number of new cases - 68,000 per day and rising (7-day rolling average). The death rate is increasing, and now at >800 deaths per day (7-day rolling average).
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 US Regionally - NY. Times:
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.
----
STAT news offers an outstanding article on next steps with COVID vaccines - an excellent overview of last week's FDA vaccine meeting. This article is a few days old but has numerous insights into the trade-offs of EUA vs. maintaining current phase-3 blinding for the trials.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/23/fda-shows-signs-of-cold-feet-over-emergency-authorization-of-covid-19-vaccines/
Get a cup of coffee and watch this - Dr. Fauci may be out of the mainstream media but is delivering publicly available talks to healthcare professionals. He was at Yale's School of Public Health earlier this week. I strongly advise watching the video, which is a thoughtful Q&A. Here are the take-home messages: go by the data, admit when you don't know, The goal is not to show how smart you are. It is to get people to understand what you are talking about. I want this poster.
https://twitter.com/YaleSPH/status/1320827040526905344
video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5q2WegIeBM&feature=youtu.be
In an October 21 article published in the American Society for Microbiology journal, Japanese researchers report on the effectiveness of various masks in a simulator that used actual SARS-CoV-2 virus. Bottom line: All masks were helpful, but no mask (cloth, surgical, or N95) could 100% prevent viral spread. And when both the infected wearer and the non-infected recipient wore masks, the decrease in viral spread was even more significant.
https://msphere.asm.org/content/5/5/e00637-20
commentary, which included my favorite phrase, "In a real-world situation, masks are likely even more effective than these numbers suggest because people aren't disembodied heads in an enclosed glass tank with no ventilation."
https://twitter.com/DrZoeHyde/status/1321052454654332930?s=20
Remember your swiss cheese model of coronavirus protection:
https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1319901144836026368
The New York Times reported on the increasing understanding of COVID-related autoimmune signs and symptoms. This data supports a physiologic explanation for the "long hauler'" symptoms. My favorite lines from the NYT article were: "The results were reported Friday on the preprint server MedRxiv, and have not yet been published in a scientific journal. But other experts said the researchers who carried out the study are known for their careful, meticulous work, and that the findings are not unexpected because other viral illnesses also trigger autoantibodies." (The transitive property of reputational legitimacy?!?)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/covid-antibodies-autoimmunity.html
The preprint, not yet peer-reviewed article referenced in the NYT article:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.21.20216192v1
Infographic of the day: Ideal hard shell taco stacking order
Not only is there a graphic, but there is also an article. And, there is a discussion on the merits of the author's proposed stacking method. Only the internet could provide such data on a mundane topic. And, yet, more research is needed!
https://davidseah.com/2011/06/optimal-taco-ingredient-stacking/
----Bonus Round - The History of Washington and the District of Columbia
As a teenager, learning to drive in DC was very stressful - this was before turn-by-turn navigation tools. Even today, there are parts of the capital where GPS and cell phone signals are jammed (making Waze and maps behave oddly). I found this delightful article on the history of DC's design and layout. I did not realize it was the last world capital planned before the industrial revolution, which means the plan favored aesthetics over practicality.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/is-washington-a-square
And, of course, thanks to the loyal reader who reminded me of the Atlas Obscura website!
clean hands and sharp minds, team
-Adam
Politicizing science is, in essence, wishful thinking. But the data are what the data are; science prevails over wishful thinking. Data on trade-offs of vaccines, mask-wearing, and the immune impact of COVID are in the news today.
-----Latest Data---
The US is now diagnosing an all-time high number of new cases - 68,000 per day and rising (7-day rolling average). The death rate is increasing, and now at >800 deaths per day (7-day rolling average).
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 US Regionally - NY. Times:
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.
----
STAT news offers an outstanding article on next steps with COVID vaccines - an excellent overview of last week's FDA vaccine meeting. This article is a few days old but has numerous insights into the trade-offs of EUA vs. maintaining current phase-3 blinding for the trials.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/23/fda-shows-signs-of-cold-feet-over-emergency-authorization-of-covid-19-vaccines/
Get a cup of coffee and watch this - Dr. Fauci may be out of the mainstream media but is delivering publicly available talks to healthcare professionals. He was at Yale's School of Public Health earlier this week. I strongly advise watching the video, which is a thoughtful Q&A. Here are the take-home messages: go by the data, admit when you don't know, The goal is not to show how smart you are. It is to get people to understand what you are talking about. I want this poster.
https://twitter.com/YaleSPH/status/1320827040526905344
video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5q2WegIeBM&feature=youtu.be
In an October 21 article published in the American Society for Microbiology journal, Japanese researchers report on the effectiveness of various masks in a simulator that used actual SARS-CoV-2 virus. Bottom line: All masks were helpful, but no mask (cloth, surgical, or N95) could 100% prevent viral spread. And when both the infected wearer and the non-infected recipient wore masks, the decrease in viral spread was even more significant.
https://msphere.asm.org/content/5/5/e00637-20
commentary, which included my favorite phrase, "In a real-world situation, masks are likely even more effective than these numbers suggest because people aren't disembodied heads in an enclosed glass tank with no ventilation."
https://twitter.com/DrZoeHyde/status/1321052454654332930?s=20
Remember your swiss cheese model of coronavirus protection:
https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1319901144836026368
The New York Times reported on the increasing understanding of COVID-related autoimmune signs and symptoms. This data supports a physiologic explanation for the "long hauler'" symptoms. My favorite lines from the NYT article were: "The results were reported Friday on the preprint server MedRxiv, and have not yet been published in a scientific journal. But other experts said the researchers who carried out the study are known for their careful, meticulous work, and that the findings are not unexpected because other viral illnesses also trigger autoantibodies." (The transitive property of reputational legitimacy?!?)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/covid-antibodies-autoimmunity.html
The preprint, not yet peer-reviewed article referenced in the NYT article:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.21.20216192v1
Infographic of the day: Ideal hard shell taco stacking order
Not only is there a graphic, but there is also an article. And, there is a discussion on the merits of the author's proposed stacking method. Only the internet could provide such data on a mundane topic. And, yet, more research is needed!
https://davidseah.com/2011/06/optimal-taco-ingredient-stacking/
----Bonus Round - The History of Washington and the District of Columbia
As a teenager, learning to drive in DC was very stressful - this was before turn-by-turn navigation tools. Even today, there are parts of the capital where GPS and cell phone signals are jammed (making Waze and maps behave oddly). I found this delightful article on the history of DC's design and layout. I did not realize it was the last world capital planned before the industrial revolution, which means the plan favored aesthetics over practicality.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/is-washington-a-square
And, of course, thanks to the loyal reader who reminded me of the Atlas Obscura website!
clean hands and sharp minds, team
-Adam
Comments
Post a Comment