Week of January 3, 2022
Happy 2022. Lots to share.
Hawaii was beautiful and felt safe, despite the rising COVID case rates. Venues, stores, and restaurants required some combination of vaccine cards, photo ID, and masks to enter. (Just entering Hawaii required proof of vaccination or a negative PCR.) I was pleasantly surprised by the uncomplaining compliance with masking I observed. Of course, outdoor activities with tropical breezes made the whole experience feel nearly normal. Nevertheless, and even with all the barriers in place, Omicron is there. My iPhone's COVID exposure notification has already alerted me once.
During our time away, we decided our kids were mature enough for a Quintin Tarantino movie festival. For 16 years, I've anticipated sharing Mexican stand-offs, the best of Samuel L. Jackson, and the many facial expressions of Uma Thurman with my kids - a vision of father-son bonding over gratuitous violence and profanity. But our New Year's Eve viewing of Pulp Fiction crushed my dream. My kids didn't like it, which begs the question, "Do my kids have better or different tastes than me?" Is this like me finding All in the Family uncomfortable to watch with my parents? Generational gaps or evolving social norms?
For those too young to remember All in the Family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_in_the_Family
---- Latest Data
Case rates are rising, along with hospitalizations and deaths. However, deaths and hospitalizations are not increasing in proportion to cases, as in previous peaks. The unvaccinated are at a much higher risk for hospitalization and death. The East Coast is currently experiencing the highest case rates.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
and
https://theuscovidatlas.org/map
Country Comparison from FT.com
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=gbr&areas=rus&areas=rou&areas=lva&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usla&areasRegional=usnv&areasRegional=usar&areasRegional=usks&areasRegional=usmo&cumulative=0&logScale=1&per100K=1&startDate=2021-06-01&values=cases
The CDC has not updated the Weekly Review of Data and Variant Tracking since 12/17/21.
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Testing, quarantine time, and the ongoing debate about Omicron's severity have predominated articles and commentary. And keep in mind, there is no one perfect Omicron mitigation strategy - masking, vaccines, and avoiding indoor gatherings are all risk reducers.
Professor Joseph Allen (environmental health at Harvard) shared an excellent review of mask efficacy - cloth vs. surgical vs. KN94/N95. It is a good reminder that we should all be in N95s at this point
https://twitter.com/j_g_allen/status/1476176934568611843?s=10
The Wall Street Journal had a more in-depth article on masks this weekend as well
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cloth-face-mask-omicron-11640984082
Professor Allen also had a 12/20/21 NY Time opinion piece on NOT closing schools again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/opinion/omicron-schools-do-not-close.html
The CDC will authorize boosters for 12 to 15-year-olds this week:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/12/30/fda-booster-kids-covid-wrap-the-lead-foreman-vpx.cnn
Israel started administering the 4th dose of the COVID vaccine to high-risk patients.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/world/israel-4th-dose-covid-vaccine.html
MMWR published two studies with very comforting data on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in children aged 5-11. The vaccines are protective and rarely lead to any significant side effects. Get your younger kids vaccinated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/science/covid-vaccine-5-11-years-old-cdc-report.html
The Studies:
Characteristics and Clinical Outcomes of Children and Adolescents Aged <18 Years Hospitalized with COVID-19
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm?s_cid=mm705152a3_w
and
COVID-19 Vaccine Safety in Children Aged 5–11 Years — United States, November 3–December 19, 2021
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm?s_cid=mm705152a1_w
The CDC is receiving a lot of "feedback" regarding the quarantining (after exposure or a positive test) recommendations from last week.
https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1477686769122529292
Here is an infographic put together by Emory epidemiologist Dr. Jodie Guest
https://twitter.com/Jlguest/status/1476368308576436224/photo/1
My take: these guidelines are confusing. But it is not a black and white issue. The guidance aims to balance protection with the need to keep people working in a community of people who have varying degrees of immune protection. However, some people actively shedding coronavirus (albeit in lower amounts than earlier in their illness) will exit isolation. I get the struggle of finding the right balance - and these guidelines reinforce my comments above - wear N95 masks, minimize indoor exposures to people, get boosted, and be thoughtful about your potential to spread the virus if exposed or have a positive test. It appears CDC will clarify (and hopefully simplify) this week.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/politics/fauci-cdc-to-clarify-guidelines/index.html
For reference, here is a helpful guide on viral load over time published in the NY Times in October 2020. (Omicron has a shorter incubation period, it appears, but the concepts are the same).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/02/science/charting-a-coronavirus-infection.html
In addition to all the Omicron data, I found some very entertaining commentary about COVID from Harvard epidemiologist Keletso Makofane. Amongst other gems, "for people in a queue, the virus weakens and dies if it must travel perpendicular to the direction of the queue. That's why people must stand 6 feet apart from the people ahead of and behind them, but not the people next to them in a winding queue. It hates right angles."
https://twitter.com/klts0/status/1475705938548084739?s=10
And, while we are at it, I found an interesting discussion on the data behind why we should not be using hand air-dryers in public restrooms.
https://twitter.com/adamcifu/status/1476212301300707332?s=10
Infographics!
Is there ever a wrong time to learn about deuterium?
https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemistry/Periodic-Graphics-science-uses-deuterium/99/i43
--------Things I learned in the last few weeks:
The history of Hawaiian colonialism parallels the rest of the Pacific during the 18th and 19th centuries. Disease, sugar, and pineapples were powerful drivers of politics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Kingdom
In 2015, Business Insider published an article about the 2005 photo of a lion receiving a CAT scan for spinal stenosis.
https://www.businessinsider.com/story-behind-the-lion-who-got-a-cat-scan-2015-10
Winnie the Pooh (and many other publications and movies) copyright expired on 1/1/22. Check out the complete list of works that are now "free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose."
https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2022/01/public-domain-day-2022
Despite social media posts (coinciding with the James Webb Space Telescope launch), NASA DID NOT hire theologians to explore the impact of extraterrestrial life discoveries. There was a grant to a third-party academic institution in 2015, however. Inverse, an online magazine exploring science and culture, tracks how the rumor got started and the kernels of truth hidden in the story.
https://www.inverse.com/science/no-nasa-didnt-hire-a-theologian
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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