Week of May 2, 2022
With planes being mask-optional, I have a new variable to add to the "what can I know about this person sitting near me without talking to them?" game. Last week, the passenger across the aisle from me on a plane ride home checked a new combination of boxes. Mr. Seat 36D was an adult watching cartoons, had a selfie as his phone lock screen, no mask, and consumed a complex, multi-part meal on a 90-minute flight. My diagnosis was a narcissist with poor planning skills, but who knows.
https://www.thetravel.com/flight-attendants-are-judging-passengers-for-the-following-20-things/
---- Latest Data
Case rates and hospitalizations are still rising. Deaths are falling still.
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
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COVID re-infection is likely between variant waves, with the vaccines protecting us from severe illness. I now see articles pondering, "How often and will this ever stop?"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-often-do-we-have-to-get-covidto-stop-getting-covid/2022/04/30/8fd1f5a8-c885-11ec-8cff-33b059f4c1b7_story.html
It is an excellent time to explore the definitions of a sporadic, epidemic, and endemic disease. https://twitter.com/Globalbiosec/status/1460371894058708992
The U.S. is operationalizing a test to treat strategy focusing on the antiviral medical paxlovid. The medication is not perfect, but surely, antivirals will help a reasonable plurality of infected individuals (if available promptly).
https://www.statnews.com/2022/04/26/biden-white-house-starts-big-paxlovid-push/
And here are some reports on Omicron BA.4 and BA.5.
"Two new sublineages of the Omicron coronavirus variant can dodge antibodies from earlier infection [BA.1]...but are far less able to thrive in the blood of people vaccinated against COVID-19..."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-study-idCAKCN2MN0NF
and
https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1520114020400787456
A few hundred children under five (from several countries) have been diagnosed with hepatitis (liver inflammation) of unknown etiology. None of the children in the U.K. received the COVID vaccine. However, various posts on social media blamed the COVID vaccine. The best current hypotheses about an actual cause are in the Tweet from Dr. Cevik. Another example of our collective epistemological failure as a species. Social media has amplified our inability to distinguish between known knowns and known unknowns.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61242471
and
https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1520374283910152192
Speaking of not knowing what you don't know, "America's Frontline Doctors' [Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquin] Prescriber Stripped of All State [Medical] Licenses."
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/98407
Random Medical Realities and Technologies
Wearable health monitoring devices are a big deal. Lots of exciting tech, a 30-40 billion dollar market, and the seeming potential to improve health. And yet, aside from counting steps (which is more of a surrogate of overall activity), very few non-invasive monitoring tools have made a significant clinical impact (outside of some small groups of patients - like continuous glucose monitors paired with insulin pumps for some diabetic patients). I see several obstacles, including the enormous volume of user-generated data (noise vs. signal), the fact that meaningful detection of diseases through biometric monitoring is challenging, and a lack of data demonstrating a clinical impact. There are also unresolved concerns about privacy and data use - especially by insurance companies. And yet, bringing users into a tech ecosystem and gaining an intimate understanding of their physiology is appealing. Here are a few articles that hit some of these points. (It is not a comprehensive or exhaustive list, but a few I found helpful.)
Overall market:
https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/wearable-technology-healthcare-medical-devices/
On using wearables for atrial fibrillation
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/skeptical-cardiologist/88928
Using wearables to monitor disease progression during the pandemic
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35480626/
Using wearables to lower insurance costs
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35477495/
Infographics!
Baking powder vs. baking soda vs. cream of tartar - agents of leavening
https://cen.acs.org/food/food-science/Periodic-Graphics-Baking-soda-versus-baking-powder/100/i14
And
Eggs!
https://www.compoundchem.com/2016/03/26/eggs/
And if you want a deep dive on the cream of tartar - try
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cream-of-tar-tar_n_2322569
Randomly, Weinstein is a colloquial German word for the cream of tartar crystals - aka "stone of the wine."
https://www.dict.cc/german-english/Weinstein.html
Things I learned this week
Thanks to a loyal reader, I learned that in 2015 the movie Kung Fury was funded via Kickstarter as an homage to 1980s martial arts and police action films. It included cameo appearances by David Hasselhoff, who also performed "True Survivor," the lead song from the soundtrack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fury
If you grew up in the 1980s, you should have a set of complex feelings when watching the accompanying David Hasselhoff music video. It is three minutes and forty seconds of cringy joy, including a Lamborghini and lousy CGI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTidn2dBYbY
As a pairing, I offer my recent Amazon Prime discovery of Llamageddon - "A killer llama from outer space crash lands on Earth and brings death and destruction to everyone in its path." This movie uncomfortably explores a well-worn sci-fi trope. I suggest watching it in small doses. I felt terrible for the actors who either did not want to participate or didn't realize they were in a movie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4642970/
In the last few days, numerous loyal readers recommended The Cornell Lab's Merlin bird identification app to me. It is free, simple to use, and does a great job identifying birds by sight, recorded sound, or user-submitted pictures. And despite my efforts at making bird noises, I could not get the app to generate false-positive results. It is comforting to know I am not saying inappropriate things when chirping back at the birds.
https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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