Monday, March 29, 2021
The Jewish holiday of Passover started this weekend. We had a small group of vaccinated family members join us on our patio. New traditions marked this year's events, including a dulcet serenade from our neighbor's chainsaw and leaf blower, mid-Seder. Though I'm pretty sure the exodus story did not involve power tools, I was grateful not to be on zoom this year. Let my people gas-up their lawn-care equipment and go!
-----Latest Data---
Good: we hit 3+ million vaccine doses injected per day over the weekend.
Bad: 7-day rolling averages for U.S. hospitalizations, deaths, and cases all appear to be trending back up.
CDC National Hospitalization trend data
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#hospitalizations
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=casesf
The U.S. Regionally - N.Y. Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Vaccine Tracker
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends
-----
CDC's Weekly review from 3/26 reflects data as of Friday but has a good round-up of information on a wide range of topics.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
Last week, Dr. Gandhi offered a rundown about the impact of vaccines based on recent data. Spoiler: GET VACCINATED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
https://twitter.com/MonicaGandhi9/status/1375190000506048515
About a year ago, I spent a Saturday morning reviewing a controversial paper by Stanford professor John Ioannidis that claimed the coronavirus's infection fatality rate (IFR) was much lower than reported in California. The study was deeply flawed (the data was from self-selected respondents identified via Facebook), but his main argument was that asymptomatic and undiagnosed infections were much higher than measured. Thus the number of people dying was a much smaller proportion, so COVID was not a big deal. Five hundred thousand deaths later, Professor Ioannidis is back and has stirred the epidemiologic pot with a similar paper, this time global in scope. Ioannidis's articles tend to get used as political footballs by COVID minimizers and vaccine deniers. As such, I offer you the Twitter review and discussion of his most recent work for your edification.
https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1376304539897237508?s=20
Here is a fantastic MIT article on the logical leaps and mental gymnastics of mask deniers, virus skeptics, and anti-vaccine advocates. The paper is a well-done analysis of social media from MIT.
From the article:
"So how do these groups diverge from scientific orthodoxy if they are using the same data? We have identified a few sleights of hand that contribute to the broader epistemological crisis we identify between these groups and the majority of scientific researchers. For instance, anti-mask users argue that there is an outsized emphasis on deaths versus cases: if the current datasets are fundamentally subjective and prone to manipulation (e.g., increased levels of faulty testing), then deaths are the only reliable markers of the pandemic's severity. Even then, these groups believe that deaths are an additionally problematic category because doctors are using a COVID diagnosis as the main cause of death (i.e., people who die because of COVID) when in reality there are other factors at play (i.e., dying with but not because of COVID). Since these categories are subject to human interpretation, especially by those who have a vested interest in reporting as many COVID deaths as possible, these numbers are vastly over-reported, unreliable, and no more significant than the flu."
http://vis.mit.edu/covid-story/
Commentary:
https://twitter.com/MagnetsOh/status/1375242649444081667?s=20
Infographic of the day: Spinach
I eat spinach but cannot recall having "spinach teeth." And the more I type spinach, the weirder the spelling is looking. Fortunately, spinach has other redeeming properties.
https://www.compoundchem.com/2018/07/17/spinach/
And, of course, there is a word for when words start to look oddly spelled: "wordnesia‽"
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-even-simplest-word-looks-weird-and-wrong-you-have-wordnesia-180954539/
---Bonus Round - Real people behind brands
Over the weekend, I found myself reading the story of Tollhouse cookies and Duncan Hines.
https://www.tasteatlas.com/toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookies/recipe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Hines and his Adventures in Good Eating
Which got me wandering around the internet for other real people behind brands:
Oscar Mayer - gained fame for jumping on board with the Roosevelt (Teddy) Administration's 1906 Federal Meath Inspection Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_F._Mayer
Chef Boiardi - Real chef, known for phonetically spelling his name in the 1950s to make it more "pronounceable." Some of his family lived near me in Maryland. Fame and fortune are a double-edged sword.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Boiardi
https://www.myeasternshoremd.com/news/queen_annes_county/living-a-nightmare-maureen-boiardi-battles-back/article_b9dc665d-fe3b-5940-a956-2273b0a2b74a.html
Sara Lee (Lubin) - Her father bought Chicago bakeries and named them after her. Sara Lee (now) Schupf is still alive and an advocate for women in STEM careers:
https://www.amacad.org/person/sara-lee-schupf
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
P.S. - no updates tomorrow, but I will be back on Wednesday.
The Jewish holiday of Passover started this weekend. We had a small group of vaccinated family members join us on our patio. New traditions marked this year's events, including a dulcet serenade from our neighbor's chainsaw and leaf blower, mid-Seder. Though I'm pretty sure the exodus story did not involve power tools, I was grateful not to be on zoom this year. Let my people gas-up their lawn-care equipment and go!
-----Latest Data---
Good: we hit 3+ million vaccine doses injected per day over the weekend.
Bad: 7-day rolling averages for U.S. hospitalizations, deaths, and cases all appear to be trending back up.
CDC National Hospitalization trend data
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#hospitalizations
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=casesf
The U.S. Regionally - N.Y. Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Vaccine Tracker
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends
-----
CDC's Weekly review from 3/26 reflects data as of Friday but has a good round-up of information on a wide range of topics.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
Last week, Dr. Gandhi offered a rundown about the impact of vaccines based on recent data. Spoiler: GET VACCINATED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
https://twitter.com/MonicaGandhi9/status/1375190000506048515
About a year ago, I spent a Saturday morning reviewing a controversial paper by Stanford professor John Ioannidis that claimed the coronavirus's infection fatality rate (IFR) was much lower than reported in California. The study was deeply flawed (the data was from self-selected respondents identified via Facebook), but his main argument was that asymptomatic and undiagnosed infections were much higher than measured. Thus the number of people dying was a much smaller proportion, so COVID was not a big deal. Five hundred thousand deaths later, Professor Ioannidis is back and has stirred the epidemiologic pot with a similar paper, this time global in scope. Ioannidis's articles tend to get used as political footballs by COVID minimizers and vaccine deniers. As such, I offer you the Twitter review and discussion of his most recent work for your edification.
https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1376304539897237508?s=20
Here is a fantastic MIT article on the logical leaps and mental gymnastics of mask deniers, virus skeptics, and anti-vaccine advocates. The paper is a well-done analysis of social media from MIT.
From the article:
"So how do these groups diverge from scientific orthodoxy if they are using the same data? We have identified a few sleights of hand that contribute to the broader epistemological crisis we identify between these groups and the majority of scientific researchers. For instance, anti-mask users argue that there is an outsized emphasis on deaths versus cases: if the current datasets are fundamentally subjective and prone to manipulation (e.g., increased levels of faulty testing), then deaths are the only reliable markers of the pandemic's severity. Even then, these groups believe that deaths are an additionally problematic category because doctors are using a COVID diagnosis as the main cause of death (i.e., people who die because of COVID) when in reality there are other factors at play (i.e., dying with but not because of COVID). Since these categories are subject to human interpretation, especially by those who have a vested interest in reporting as many COVID deaths as possible, these numbers are vastly over-reported, unreliable, and no more significant than the flu."
http://vis.mit.edu/covid-story/
Commentary:
https://twitter.com/MagnetsOh/status/1375242649444081667?s=20
Infographic of the day: Spinach
I eat spinach but cannot recall having "spinach teeth." And the more I type spinach, the weirder the spelling is looking. Fortunately, spinach has other redeeming properties.
https://www.compoundchem.com/2018/07/17/spinach/
And, of course, there is a word for when words start to look oddly spelled: "wordnesia‽"
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-even-simplest-word-looks-weird-and-wrong-you-have-wordnesia-180954539/
---Bonus Round - Real people behind brands
Over the weekend, I found myself reading the story of Tollhouse cookies and Duncan Hines.
https://www.tasteatlas.com/toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookies/recipe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Hines and his Adventures in Good Eating
Which got me wandering around the internet for other real people behind brands:
Oscar Mayer - gained fame for jumping on board with the Roosevelt (Teddy) Administration's 1906 Federal Meath Inspection Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_F._Mayer
Chef Boiardi - Real chef, known for phonetically spelling his name in the 1950s to make it more "pronounceable." Some of his family lived near me in Maryland. Fame and fortune are a double-edged sword.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Boiardi
https://www.myeasternshoremd.com/news/queen_annes_county/living-a-nightmare-maureen-boiardi-battles-back/article_b9dc665d-fe3b-5940-a956-2273b0a2b74a.html
Sara Lee (Lubin) - Her father bought Chicago bakeries and named them after her. Sara Lee (now) Schupf is still alive and an advocate for women in STEM careers:
https://www.amacad.org/person/sara-lee-schupf
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
P.S. - no updates tomorrow, but I will be back on Wednesday.
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