What Adam is Reading 2-28-22

Week of February 28, 2022

 

I have an unhealthy focus and am unsettled by watching a crowd-sourced, near-live-streamed war.   Like many social media commentators, overlapping unprecedented events are exhausting.   I am surprised and not surprised that a Russian autocrat has managed to make the pandemic seem unimportant.

 

 

---- Latest Data

Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to decline.  We are still seeing about 1800 deaths a day, but the trends are declining for now.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

and

https://theuscovidatlas.org/map

(You need to play with the variables on this one)

 

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 weekly review discusses the CDC's updated monitoring and updated guidance on wearing masks.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

------------------

 

The CDC updated guidance - moving to a model of masking and testing in the context of community infection rates.   The guidelines assume several realities that may not be true.   Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves does a great job breaking down the new guidance.

https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1497890136901791744

 

Dr. Bob Wachter sums up his risk tolerance in the setting of the new CDC guidelines.

https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1497271651431444481

 

Here is an excellent infographic summary of these thoughts:

https://twitter.com/rassler13/status/1497302143786569732/photo/1

 

I am still watching the BA.2 variant.  Hong Kong is still the major epicenter, with the suspicion that it will spread further.

https://twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel/status/1498170572878282752

 

Two very detailed studies looking at the origins of SARS-CoV-2 lend increased evidence for an animal to human transmission in the Wuhan markets - not from a lab.

https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey/status/1497607313397481472

Article 1

https://zenodo.org/record/6299116#.YhwXzN9OnBt

Article 2

https://zenodo.org/record/6291628#.YhwX3t9OnBs

 

There is evidence for the ongoing bidirectional deer/human transmission of COVID.   "Our findings represent the first evidence of a highly divergent lineage of SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer and deer-to-human transmission" - as someone in the thread quipped, the venison variant.

https://twitter.com/SusanAShriner/status/1497556988787494913

 

Infographics!

The chemistry of wine

https://twitter.com/compoundchem/status/1494786095061610500/photo/1

from

https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/05/28/redwinechemicals/

 

 

Things I learned this week

 

The Bluetooth logo is a combination of nordic runes and refers to the poor dentition of a Danish king from 1200 years ago.

https://www.creativebloq.com/news/bluetooth-logo-secret

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Bluetooth

 

I love finding words where connotation changes over time.  The term "fascinate" is a great example - and has a bit of a lurid etymology.

http://www.antiquitatem.com/en/fascinating-evil-eye-apotropaic-phallus/

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascinus

 

Despite having over 300 books in my Audible library, I have always thought of audiobooks as "cheating."   Not so, says [some] science!

https://www.kut.org/science/2015-04-24/why-reading-audiobooks-isnt-a-shortcut-listening-vs-reading-and-your-brain

and

https://time.com/5388681/audiobooks-reading-books/

 

clean hands and sharp minds,

 

Adam

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