Week of April 25, 2022
My wife and I had a rough few days with COVID. However, we are improving, and our kids were not infected, perhaps due to in-home masking and open windows. And amongst the nights of congestion and poor sleep, I also experienced how loud our neighborhood frogs, birds, and screaming foxes are. They all have a lot to talk about between midnight and 4 AM. And, based on the volume, I wonder if our foxes' have uniquely diminished hearing or are just not good listeners?
Fox noises. I suggest playing this while you sleep to appreciate the full experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-42P_iYrthM
---- Latest Data
Case rates and hospitalizations are rising. Deaths are still down. But, you know the story - hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators.
N.Y. Times Tracker
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
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
------------------
Following the mid-week mask mandate repeal, the most common articles I found were "if I am the only person on a plane wearing a mask, am I still protected?" If the mask fits well and case rates are low enough, the short answer is yes. But if you are immunocompromised, maybe not so much.
From The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/does-it-help-wear-mask-if-no-one-else/621177/
NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/02/25/1083046757/coronavirus-faq-im-a-one-way-masker-what-strategy-will-give-me-optimal-protectio
Dr. Faust of Inside Medicine
https://insidemedicine.bulletin.com/when-will-one-way-masking-be-safe-enough-for-everyone/
It is also an excellent time to recall how important good ventilation is in decreasing the spread of airborne illnesses. Outdoor gatherings are safer than indoor gatherings with good ventilation, which are better than gatherings in enclosed and poorly ventilated spaces.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/good-ventilation-helps-prevent-covid-spread-if-businesses-invest-in-it
and
https://twitter.com/helenessex2/status/1517337117537583105
For 1-off events and trips, I recommend understanding the risk of infection by event size and other variables, including zip-code level prevalence.
https://mycovidrisk.app/
Random Medical Realities and Technologies
Part II of thinking about medical therapies and data. I received numerous positive comments regarding last week's discussion about when I feel comfortable recommending new treatments. Here is a little more about how physicians think about, evaluate, and operationalize data. Numerous recent articles have captured the thought process, complexity, and challenge of advancing care in near real-time.
First: Inside Medicine offered a great round-up of COVID therapies that seemed promising and didn't make a difference - prone positioning, the plexiglass intubation box, and home O2 monitors for escalating care. These three are all thoughtful examples of hypothesis testing - and idea rejection.
https://insidemedicine.bulletin.com/three-early-promising-covid-19-innovations-that-didn-t-work
Second: Science Vs. Podcast on Ivermectin
This Podcast episode covers the (now debunked) promising ivermectin data and the discovery of numerous fraudulent papers. Plus, the journalists offer a comprehensive list of references in the transcript. The interviews with the physician accountable for the ivermectin craze- Pierre Kory, MD - are remarkable. The episode offers a roadmap for critically thinking about journal articles and demonstrates how bias and ego can poison a scientific debate.
Podcast
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/z3ha7ko/the-story-of-a-covid-wonder-drug
Transcript with references
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSpXaN4xf9sXSnDml3VEoBvt7-wi1JTaWG34_s1ukmU1p8KnLkLwHEr2QeiwM6qv1HwVr06XURSkn5r/pub
And while you are listening, the Science Vs. analysis of Joe Rogan's famous anti-vax Podcast with Dr. Robert Malone is fantastic at demonstrating logical fallacies like the Texas sharpshooter (cherry-picking) and the slippery slope.
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/49hngng/joe-rogan-the-malone-interview
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
Infographics
This infographic on The Global Income Distribution is quite thought-provoking:
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-1536x1317.png
from
https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality-introduction
Things I learned this week
Last week, we visited the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum Virginia annex, which bears the marketing challenge of being named "The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center."
https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center
Nevertheless, the museum is fantastic. Among the many remarkable exhibits (The space shuttle Discovery, an SR-71, a concord, and the Enola Gay), my son asked what happened to all the data from the Space Shuttle experiments. Angry space bacteria and flying Nematodes are just some of the papers published.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03085-8
and
https://www.space.com/12150-6-coolest-space-shuttle-science-experiments.html
For the next six weeks, the New York Public Library offers free access to an e-Reader and a selection of banned books - for anyone.
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2022/04/13/books-for-all-nypl-supports-right-read-banned-books
The Brooklyn Public Library provides a broader selection of free e-books for U.S. residents aged 13 to 21. "For a limited time, young adults ages 13 to 21 nationwide, will be able to apply for a free eCard from BPL, unlocking access to the library's extensive collection of eBooks."
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/media/press/brooklyn-public-library-94
Here are a few background articles of note:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/books/book-ban-us-schools.htm
and
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/learning/students-book-bans.html
Despite signing up for email from The World Rock Paper Scissors Association, Gmail sorted their messages to spam. I was late learning about the 2022 Video-Based Professional Rock Paper Scissors Tournament. My dream of "competing as a professional athlete" is yet again delayed.
https://wrpsa.com/
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
Comments
Post a Comment