Tuesday, March 9, 2021
One of my vaccine-hesitant patients texted me yesterday that he and his wife received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Sunday. He and I chatted on Saturday about his list of "things we don't know about the vaccines." I suspect my end of the Saturday conversation was animated? Emphatic? Informationally enthusiastic? It is gratifying to have another small victory for logical thought and ending the pandemic.
-----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=casesf
The U.S. Regionally - N.Y. Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Vaccine Tracker
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
-----
The COVID Tracking project has ended its work. There last round of posts on the analysis and updates page is a good map of the CDC data. Moreover, if you are in the business of using large data sets, it is a good roundup of techniques and pitfalls.
https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates
Their last weekly roundup (from 3/5) talks about the somewhat confusing pictures emerging from the most recent data and whether we see a continued decline or a plateau in the dropping case rates from the last few weeks.
https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/our-final-week-this-week-in-covid-data-mar-4
Professor Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale Immunologist, compiled her thoughts on the limited data pointing toward clinical improvement in COVID patients with prolonged symptoms who improve after receiving the vaccine. A good, though academic, discussion on the intersection of the immune system and study design.
https://elemental.medium.com/how-vaccines-might-improve-long-covid-c1f41c4d7378
Also
https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1366067849480048643?s=20
From the CDC yesterday:
"When you've been fully vaccinated" - updated guidance. Here, in my opinion, is the most crucial sentence: "We're still learning how well COVID-19 vaccines keep people from spreading the disease."
https://apnews.com/article/cdc-fully-vaccinated-can-gather-without-masks-b9775dcde0254037e012ea9447e49917
and
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
MMWR's article on the risk of BMI and severity of COVD-19 infection is eye-opening and a great example of finding relationships that help drive understanding of high-risk populations. The study was a retrospective look at data from an extensive hospital and claims data set possibly biased by missing or unknown data (such as older adults who do not know their accurate height). Nevertheless, given the media coverage, it is good to spend some time looking at the data and reading the discussion.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm?s_cid=mm7010e4_w
Infographic of the day - My brief foray into growing things last summer taught me one does not merely put seeds in the dirt.
https://cdn.insteading.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Gardening-Infographic.jpg
from
https://insteading.com/blog/when-to-plant-vegetables-infographic/
----Bonus Round - Bias in my Education
I was poking around my bookshelves recently (thank you, moving) and came upon several books, which marked moments of realized ignorance. These books forced me to question assumptions and demonstrated how little I knew about a topic. Here are two examples worth sharing:
Ancient Egypt's history was far more complex than I was lead to believe (thanks to Hebrew School and elsewhere). Like other pre-modern societies, it had complex social structures and skilled laborers, with a complex economy, including periods in which a citizen worked for the central government. It was far more nuanced than Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments.
A relatively quick read that reminded me of this topic: https://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
Here is the childhood book I found:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64239.Pyramid
The Western Hemisphere, before the arrival of the Spanish, was also a complex place, with robust trade, agriculture and filled with various societies. I found the book 1491, which painted a much richer picture than the elementary school images of Indians and Pilgrims or Captain John Smith. The book has its flaws (in the analysis), but the factual information presented is a nuanced, well-written, and wide-ranging survey of the pre-European native world. I thought the discussions about the well-groomed trees of the Amazon delta and the trading patterns of the New England tribes most illuminating.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491
Here is the author in a March 2002 Atlantic article on the same topic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
One of my vaccine-hesitant patients texted me yesterday that he and his wife received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Sunday. He and I chatted on Saturday about his list of "things we don't know about the vaccines." I suspect my end of the Saturday conversation was animated? Emphatic? Informationally enthusiastic? It is gratifying to have another small victory for logical thought and ending the pandemic.
-----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=casesf
The U.S. Regionally - N.Y. Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Vaccine Tracker
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
-----
The COVID Tracking project has ended its work. There last round of posts on the analysis and updates page is a good map of the CDC data. Moreover, if you are in the business of using large data sets, it is a good roundup of techniques and pitfalls.
https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates
Their last weekly roundup (from 3/5) talks about the somewhat confusing pictures emerging from the most recent data and whether we see a continued decline or a plateau in the dropping case rates from the last few weeks.
https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/our-final-week-this-week-in-covid-data-mar-4
Professor Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale Immunologist, compiled her thoughts on the limited data pointing toward clinical improvement in COVID patients with prolonged symptoms who improve after receiving the vaccine. A good, though academic, discussion on the intersection of the immune system and study design.
https://elemental.medium.com/how-vaccines-might-improve-long-covid-c1f41c4d7378
Also
https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1366067849480048643?s=20
From the CDC yesterday:
"When you've been fully vaccinated" - updated guidance. Here, in my opinion, is the most crucial sentence: "We're still learning how well COVID-19 vaccines keep people from spreading the disease."
https://apnews.com/article/cdc-fully-vaccinated-can-gather-without-masks-b9775dcde0254037e012ea9447e49917
and
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
MMWR's article on the risk of BMI and severity of COVD-19 infection is eye-opening and a great example of finding relationships that help drive understanding of high-risk populations. The study was a retrospective look at data from an extensive hospital and claims data set possibly biased by missing or unknown data (such as older adults who do not know their accurate height). Nevertheless, given the media coverage, it is good to spend some time looking at the data and reading the discussion.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm?s_cid=mm7010e4_w
Infographic of the day - My brief foray into growing things last summer taught me one does not merely put seeds in the dirt.
https://cdn.insteading.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Gardening-Infographic.jpg
from
https://insteading.com/blog/when-to-plant-vegetables-infographic/
----Bonus Round - Bias in my Education
I was poking around my bookshelves recently (thank you, moving) and came upon several books, which marked moments of realized ignorance. These books forced me to question assumptions and demonstrated how little I knew about a topic. Here are two examples worth sharing:
Ancient Egypt's history was far more complex than I was lead to believe (thanks to Hebrew School and elsewhere). Like other pre-modern societies, it had complex social structures and skilled laborers, with a complex economy, including periods in which a citizen worked for the central government. It was far more nuanced than Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments.
A relatively quick read that reminded me of this topic: https://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
Here is the childhood book I found:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64239.Pyramid
The Western Hemisphere, before the arrival of the Spanish, was also a complex place, with robust trade, agriculture and filled with various societies. I found the book 1491, which painted a much richer picture than the elementary school images of Indians and Pilgrims or Captain John Smith. The book has its flaws (in the analysis), but the factual information presented is a nuanced, well-written, and wide-ranging survey of the pre-European native world. I thought the discussions about the well-groomed trees of the Amazon delta and the trading patterns of the New England tribes most illuminating.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491
Here is the author in a March 2002 Atlantic article on the same topic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
Comments
Post a Comment