Week of September 12, 2022
Last weekend, at a stoplight, the "Stay in Your Lane, Bitch" window sticker on the car to my right piqued my ongoing curiosity about what compels someone to share such provocative messaging. Who was the intended audience? What circumstance drove the thought, "With this sticker, I can solve the problem of unannounced lane changes!" Perhaps, I wondered, this is a broader political or philosophical statement. It turns out the sticker was a warning to others. As the light changed, the car sped forward, weaving between lanes without signaling.
There are related data on this! A 2008 survey found an association between the number of bumper stickers, but not their content, and the likelihood of road rage.
https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2008.889
And, of course, you can learn about the history of bumper stickers:
https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/life/cars-trucks/auto-history/bumper-stickers/
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In the U.S., COVID case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths are declining in almost all states. On average last week, 385 people died daily, with 35,000 hospitalized patients.
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=eur&areas=usa&areas=twn&areas=nzl&areas=e92000001&areas=fra&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnm&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=ushi&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usco&cumulative=0&logScale=1&per100K=0&startDate=2021-06-01&values=deaths
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In light of my work-related travel and the absence of masking at school, my family received the updated bivalent Pfizer vaccine (and the 2022 flu vaccine) this week. It was ~ 12 months since my last booster, and I was last COVID+ in April 2022 (presumably with Omicron BA.2). The initial 24 to 36 hours were unpleasant (fatigue, low-grade fever, and poor sleep). I expect we will have about 90 days of enhanced protection from infection. More importantly, this booster should prolong and enhance our protection from severe illness, hospitalization, and death against the next few successive variants.
Related Articles:
CDC roundup of information https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7133e1.htm?s_cid=mm7133e1_w
Here is data from a study looking at a 9-month window of time in North Carolina, which is the typical pattern of vaccine response we are seeing. "All three Covid-19 vaccines had durable effectiveness in reducing the risks of hospitalization and death. Waning protection against infection over time was due to both declining immunity and the emergence of the delta variant."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35020982/
Here is a Q&A with Johns Hopkins professors of immunology and epidemiology:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/09/01/bivalent-covid-boosters-q-and-a/
Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist from NYU, writes about the nuance of the updated vaccines. I fear her LA Times OpEd piece will dissuade some from ever getting a booster - but I believe she intends to walk the line of intellectual honesty (what does the data demonstrate).
https://twitter.com/celinegounder/status/1568241205363851268
and
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-09/covid-boosters-cost-efficacy
Dr. Jeremy Faust offered a fantastic review of available data on vaccinating children against COVID. He explains in detail why the benefits outweigh the risks, even in children at low risk for severe complications from a coronavirus infection.
https://insidemedicine.bulletin.com/the-debate-on-covid-vaccines-for-school-aged-children-is-over-the-vaccines-won/
And new variants continue to emerge. Meet Omicron BJ.1
https://twitter.com/EllingUlrich/status/1568193798215286784
University of Colorado Chemistry professor Jose-Luis Jimenez shared a historical perspective on why there is such intellectual resistance to the notion that both airborne and droplets spread COVID. A fascinating look at the history of our understanding of disease transmission. The "miasmatists" may have been right, at least partially.
https://twitter.com/jljcolorado/status/1562112453948755974
Medical Technologies and Trends
Two topics I found interesting this week.
The use of drones to aid distressed swimmers off the beaches of Spain is an excellent example of employing tech to support (but not replace) a previously very analog and human-observation-driven process.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/06/lifeguard-drones/
And an editorial from the CMO of Wolters Kluwer Health in STAT news examines the consequences of new modes of delivering healthcare (team-based care, online platforms, telemedicine, and more significant financial drivers).
https://www.statnews.com/2022/09/09/health-cares-shift-from-covenant-to-commodity-comes-with-consequences/
Here is a related 2020 article on the increasing volume of Venture Capital and Private Equity firms buying up a variety of medical practices:
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/acquisition-physician-practices-by-private-equity-firms-increases-study-finds-which
Infographics!
The Queen's Corgis.
Queen Elizabeth owned thirty corgis over the last 78 years. Those 30 were from fourteen generations and sixty-two descendants of the corgi given to Elizabeth for her 18th birthday.
https://twitter.com/alexsalvinews/status/1567893579225350145/photo/1
Things I learned this week:
In the 1940s (simultaneous to the invention of bumper stickers), some people thought pinball machines contributed to the moral degradation of children. As such, Chicago, New York City, and many other localities outlawed pinball mid-20th century. Some cities did not remove the pinball ban until the 1970s.
https://www.history.com/news/that-time-america-outlawed-pinball
Protecting children from the vice associated with recreation devices reminds me of the song Trouble in River City - from The Music Man - and the many potential ills of pool halls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qam1fbQmA_s
In the 1950s, the first personal computer, Simon, was released by Berkley Enterprises (they sold the plans, and the end-user built it). Edmund Berkley wrote about Simon in his 1949 book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think - a seminal work in early computer science writing. Berkley clearly describes how dual-relay systems can store 0s and 1s - essentially, his earliest efforts at large-scale, affordable computation (albeit on input punched-paper tape and output on four lights).
I suggest reading through the chapter on Simon (page 22 in the linked .pdf). While Simon was more of a proof-of-concept, it was buildable with readily available parts and was the foundation for learning about basic binary calculations in the 1950s.
https://monoskop.org/images/b/bc/Berkeley_Edmund_Callis_Giant_Brains_or_Machines_That_Think.pdf
About Simon
http://madrona.ca/e/simon/index.html
and some other details
https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=95
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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