October 8, 2020 Thursday
There was a head-on collision between politics and science yesterday with the publication of a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) editorial on the U.S. response to the pandemic. It is hard to express how atypical it is to have such a politically charged editorial in a major medical journal. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, listening to the debate that must have occurred in the NEJM's editorial meetings. While public policy, science, and politics overlap, there are lines that are increasingly blurry.
-----Latest Data---
Case rates trending up in many places.
Death rates still stable or falling - remember it is often a 2+ week lagging indicator.
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.
----
Live Science reports on a Japanese study looking at various viruses' lifespan on human skin, using cadaveric skin samples. Short story - wash your hands. Nine to eleven hours is a long time for a virus to live on you. Alcohol kills coronavirus in 15 seconds.
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-survives-9-hours-on-skin.html
Here is the accepted manuscript (which I think is peer-reviewed at this point):
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1517/5917611
GISAID, the German non-profit that tracks influenza, and now coronavirus strains, offers a unique interactive website on the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2.
https://www.gisaid.org/epiflu-applications/hcov-19-genomic-epidemiology/
Here is some recent analysis of by a science reporter, Laurie Garrett.
https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1313576218281811969
The take-away is this - there is a natural evolution of the coronavirus; we can track it. Unclear what the consequences are at this point.
NextStrain is an open-source website with similar functionality using GISAID data.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
Here is some analysis of coronavirus strains in various regions of the U.S.
https://twitter.com/nextstrain/status/1313907101236973568
I apologize in advance for this next one. It is an excellent example of how doctors think, though. Amy Cho is an ER doc who wrote about things she worries about as a mother and physician. You will note that these are all based on her experiences, and all are preventable (or at least manageable events). It is remarkable how common it is for healthcare workers to have a series of 1-off cases that stick with you.
https://twitter.com/amychomd/status/1313489190399684609?s=10
Lastly, I share a series of articles that emphasize, as one of my colleagues said (on Twitter), "Medicine didn't move into politics, politics moved into medicine." Which may be a bit hyperbolic, but still, points for pithiness.
Op-ed from the editors at the New England Journal of Medicine (this is unprecedented):
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812
I'll save you the click. Here's the part I liked, "The response of our nation's leaders has been consistently inadequate. The federal government has largely abandoned disease control to the states. Governors have varied in their responses, not so much by party as by competence. But whatever their competence, governors do not have the tools that Washington controls. Instead of using those tools, the federal government has undermined them."
Op-ed from a physician at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-1008-politicizing-pandemic-20201007-yg6tsty6vjclvingwsjijqjhly-story.html
Notre Dame's students and Faulty are outraged at the failure of their president to protect himself from coronavirus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/us/notre-dame-president-covid.html
Infographic of the day: Infographic on Infographics
I found this amusing - http://philipemmanuele.net/infographic-irony/
Oddly, the author of this blog post titled the infographic on infographics "Infographic Irony." I don't think this is ironic. Luckily, there are infographics on irony as well:
https://7esl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Types-of-Irony-1.jpg
from
https://7esl.com/irony/
---Bonus Round -- Social Media, Behavior Shaping, and Cults
Twitter and Instagram have filled a larger portion of my time. Twitter, in particular, is handy for quickly scanning for new articles and trending sentiment (in a skew population sample). A loyal reader pointed me to The Social Dilemma on Netflix, which scared me. I'm sure I am not alone. However, this leads me down the path of behavior shaping in negative ways, groupthink and cults. It is an interesting mental game to play - watch the ads you are shown, pay attention to the nudging you receive, and monitor how the cohort of people you interact with on social media are often so homogenous. Walking further down these paths is even more enlightening. As I tell my kids, everyone has an agenda; it is good to understand yours and theirs.
Some reading for your consideration:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/psychology-behind-social-media-engagement
http://cultresearch.org/thought-reform-system/
http://www.openculture.com/2017/11/christopher-hitchens-dismisses-the-cult-of-ayn-rand.html
Clean hands and sharp minds team, team
(Remember - 9-11 hours on the skin!)
-Adam
Back on Monday. Friday is clinic day!
There was a head-on collision between politics and science yesterday with the publication of a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) editorial on the U.S. response to the pandemic. It is hard to express how atypical it is to have such a politically charged editorial in a major medical journal. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, listening to the debate that must have occurred in the NEJM's editorial meetings. While public policy, science, and politics overlap, there are lines that are increasingly blurry.
-----Latest Data---
Case rates trending up in many places.
Death rates still stable or falling - remember it is often a 2+ week lagging indicator.
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.
----
Live Science reports on a Japanese study looking at various viruses' lifespan on human skin, using cadaveric skin samples. Short story - wash your hands. Nine to eleven hours is a long time for a virus to live on you. Alcohol kills coronavirus in 15 seconds.
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-survives-9-hours-on-skin.html
Here is the accepted manuscript (which I think is peer-reviewed at this point):
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1517/5917611
GISAID, the German non-profit that tracks influenza, and now coronavirus strains, offers a unique interactive website on the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2.
https://www.gisaid.org/epiflu-applications/hcov-19-genomic-epidemiology/
Here is some recent analysis of by a science reporter, Laurie Garrett.
https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1313576218281811969
The take-away is this - there is a natural evolution of the coronavirus; we can track it. Unclear what the consequences are at this point.
NextStrain is an open-source website with similar functionality using GISAID data.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
Here is some analysis of coronavirus strains in various regions of the U.S.
https://twitter.com/nextstrain/status/1313907101236973568
I apologize in advance for this next one. It is an excellent example of how doctors think, though. Amy Cho is an ER doc who wrote about things she worries about as a mother and physician. You will note that these are all based on her experiences, and all are preventable (or at least manageable events). It is remarkable how common it is for healthcare workers to have a series of 1-off cases that stick with you.
https://twitter.com/amychomd/status/1313489190399684609?s=10
Lastly, I share a series of articles that emphasize, as one of my colleagues said (on Twitter), "Medicine didn't move into politics, politics moved into medicine." Which may be a bit hyperbolic, but still, points for pithiness.
Op-ed from the editors at the New England Journal of Medicine (this is unprecedented):
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812
I'll save you the click. Here's the part I liked, "The response of our nation's leaders has been consistently inadequate. The federal government has largely abandoned disease control to the states. Governors have varied in their responses, not so much by party as by competence. But whatever their competence, governors do not have the tools that Washington controls. Instead of using those tools, the federal government has undermined them."
Op-ed from a physician at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-1008-politicizing-pandemic-20201007-yg6tsty6vjclvingwsjijqjhly-story.html
Notre Dame's students and Faulty are outraged at the failure of their president to protect himself from coronavirus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/us/notre-dame-president-covid.html
Infographic of the day: Infographic on Infographics
I found this amusing - http://philipemmanuele.net/infographic-irony/
Oddly, the author of this blog post titled the infographic on infographics "Infographic Irony." I don't think this is ironic. Luckily, there are infographics on irony as well:
https://7esl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Types-of-Irony-1.jpg
from
https://7esl.com/irony/
---Bonus Round -- Social Media, Behavior Shaping, and Cults
Twitter and Instagram have filled a larger portion of my time. Twitter, in particular, is handy for quickly scanning for new articles and trending sentiment (in a skew population sample). A loyal reader pointed me to The Social Dilemma on Netflix, which scared me. I'm sure I am not alone. However, this leads me down the path of behavior shaping in negative ways, groupthink and cults. It is an interesting mental game to play - watch the ads you are shown, pay attention to the nudging you receive, and monitor how the cohort of people you interact with on social media are often so homogenous. Walking further down these paths is even more enlightening. As I tell my kids, everyone has an agenda; it is good to understand yours and theirs.
Some reading for your consideration:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/psychology-behind-social-media-engagement
http://cultresearch.org/thought-reform-system/
http://www.openculture.com/2017/11/christopher-hitchens-dismisses-the-cult-of-ayn-rand.html
Clean hands and sharp minds team, team
(Remember - 9-11 hours on the skin!)
-Adam
Back on Monday. Friday is clinic day!
Comments
Post a Comment