Week of March 28, 2022
Last week, I was maskless at the first in-person medical convention I've attended in two years. All attendees were required to demonstrate proof of vaccination. Though the timing was ideal - national and local (to the meeting) rates of COVID are low - it did not feel normal to be bare-faced in a room of people. My kids are debating if they want to try school without masks. My wife feels like shopping without masks is letting her fellow shoppers down. We are now in an ideal window of time to try living in a less conservative, PPE-less peri-pandemic world. At least in our family, the perception of risk is deeply ingrained.
---- Latest Data
Case rates, hospitalizations, and death rates are still low. Wastwater data demonstrates rising RNA quantities in some but not all localities. The U.S. map looks as good as I have seen in a year. Hopefully, this is sustainable.
CDC Wastewater Surveillance tracker
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance
N.Y. Times Tracker
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
Cases in the U.K., China, and Australia are rising; Hong Kong case rates are now falling :
Country Comparison from FT.com
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&areas=hkg&areas=chn&areas=jpn&areas=aus&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usla&areasRegional=usnv&areasRegional=usar&areasRegional=usks&areasRegional=usmo&cumulative=0&logScale=1&per100K=0&startDate=2021-06-01&values=cases
The CDC weekly review discusses their wastewater tracking
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
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Dr. Bob Wachter spawned a wide range of commentary with the comment, "...case rates are very low...".
https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1507752069414866948
and
https://twitter.com/bob_wachter/status/1507785454170615817
Questions debated in the thread included:
Are case rates low, or are we just under-testing and under-reporting? It certainly appears the former when accounting for hospitalization rates:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/current-covid-patients-hospital?country=USA
Are we going to have the right degree of sensitivity monitoring for a new surge? It will take more cases and more time to detect a rising case rate since testing will no longer be free for uninsured Americans.
https://www.kqed.org/news/11909026/finding-a-free-covid-test-without-insurance-just-got-harder-heres-how-to-get-one
and
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/policy/experts-worry-about-how-us-will-see-next-covid-surge-coming
Should we be thinking about fourth vaccine doses, and what is the current data on vaccine effectiveness over time?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/26/health/covid-19-second-booster-shot/index.html
and
Shane Crotty (La Jolla Institute for Immunology) shared his preprint paper comparing the immune response of Moderna, Pfizer, J&J, and Novavax vaccines over six months. His summary conclusion is that mRNA vaccines induce good long-term immune memory. However, it is far more nuanced - Professor Crotty summed up the paper in this thread:
https://twitter.com/profshanecrotty/status/1506082155180351497
For those looking for an immunology refresher, here is a link to a well written 2020 article from The Atlantic - Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/covid-19-immunity-is-the-pandemics-central-mystery/614956/
Infographics!
It's time to revisit the infographics library on Alan's Factory Outlet (Offering America's Premium Custom Carports, Garages, and Metal Buildings) website. I (again) wonder why a company that sells metal outbuildings (of purported premium quality) generates such a wide array of infographics. Nevertheless, here is a comprehensive infographic on the cost of elements (as in the periodic table) per Kg. I had no idea polonium was so expensive. https://alansfactoryoutlet.com/how-much-do-elements-cost-the-price-of-75-elements-per-kilogram/
It does make me look at polonium poisoning in a slightly different light:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko#Poisoning_and_death
Things I learned this week:
Dr. Eric Weinhandl pointed me to the medically dubious history of Dr. Pepper. First off, Dr. Pepper's "Dr." was a pharmacist. Second, the drink maker marketed the beverage as a meal replacement and an essential war production product during WWII. Nowadays, the soda lobby advocates for the right to consume high-calorie drinks as a "freedom." Advocacy and marketing evolve, to be sure.
https://twitter.com/eric_weinhandl/status/1508152949293428736
The Online Dr. Pepper Museum:
Meal replacement: https://drpeppermuseum.com/10-2-4/
Dr. Pepper is necessary in times of crisis:
https://drpeppermuseum.com/dr-pepper-deemed-necessary-in-times-of-crisis/
Dr. Pepper's "formula" is more secret than Coke?
https://www.mashed.com/126570/the-untold-truth-of-dr-pepper/
Daylight Savings time is a far more politically and scientifically charged topic than I could have ever imagined. School systems, farmers, and sleep doctors have debated the tradeoffs of DST for decades. In 1973, congress and President Nixon paused daylight savings for two years. Senator Bob Dole authored a bill to restore DST in 1974, only nine months into the DST trial.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-permanent-daylight-saving-time-is-bad-for-your-health-sleep-scientists-say-11648002326
and
https://twitter.com/ktumulty/status/1503880844720619529
and
https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-daylight-saving-time-in-the-70s-people-hated-it/
Clean hands and sharp minds, team
Adam
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