Week of October 17, 2022
While traveling last week, I spent time with someone who became symptomatic and COVID-positive a few hours after our meeting. I came home to an indeterminant expulsion to our guest bedroom. Given the data the most recent data on time from exposure to symptoms (an average incubation period of 3.42 days), I opted for three days masked and two nights in our basement combined with repeated negative testing. Balancing risk and inconvenience have been both micro- and macro-themes of the pandemic. And it is hard not to conflate my compliance with home isolation as a surrogate of my concern for my family's safety. While I think I have more than the 50th percentile amount of love for my family, I really dislike banishment to the guest bedroom.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795489
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In the U.S., reported COVID case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths are stable or decreasing in most areas. I note reports of an uptick in positive tests in some areas. The U.K. and E.U. countries are reporting increasing case rates. We have repeatedly seen that this trend precedes rising case rates in the U.S.
The lack of PCR testing (and reporting) and the decreased sensitivity of the home antigen kits (it takes 2-3 tests over a few days in symptomatic patients to demonstrate positivity) are concerning. I suspect the officially reported data in the U.S. is undercounting cases.
N.Y. Times Tracker
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
Financial Times Data
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=e92000001&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnm&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usnd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2021-09-01&values=deaths
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Children as young as five can now get the updated Pfizer bivalent COVID vaccine booster. The CDC and FDA initially approved the booster for children 12 and older.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/12/coronavirus-booster-young-kids/
The next wave of COVID may be due to BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants of Omicron.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-10-14/new-omicron-subvariants-bq-1-bq-1-1-spread-amid-concerns-of-next-coronavirus-wave
And, read a lively discussion on winter COVID surges from epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina
https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1581375962541092866
Jon Burn-Murdoch (the Financial Times data and infographic guy) published a detailed analysis of partisan differences in COVID death rates across the U.S. over time. The data demonstrate that people skeptical of vaccines died at significantly higher rates. This correlation is stronger amongst U.S. political parties than in other countries.
https://www.ft.com/content/d387d40a-4e8c-4502-8ae9-62d7f1426b93
and
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20350-0
Next question - will the excess deaths amongst specific groups impact voting in either polling districts or state levels? Unclear, but some preliminary discussions:
https://www.penncapital-star.com/covid-19/study-more-republicans-than-democrats-likely-died-of-covid/
and
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-death-rates-higher-republicans-democrats-why-rcna50883
Medical Trends and Technology
German neuroscientists and psychologists recently published data demonstrating that "...listening to birdsongs [...] improves anxiety, while traffic noise is related to higher depressiveness." And birdsong soundscapes were associated with reduced paranoia. Though the study depended on self-reported online surveying, the data seemed good. Moreover, I could find no financial support from the bird feeder and bird seed manufacturers (big bird?).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20841-0
Soundscape psychology seems to be a relatively contentious area of science - several prior studies demonstrate that bird songs have no impact on stress reduction.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?linkname=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=36229489
Infographics
Compound Interest teaches us about the chemistry of ciders
https://twitter.com/compoundchem/status/1579032499115593728/photo/1
And who amongst us does not want the warm, comforting smell of 2-methyl-4-pentyl-1,3-dioxane?
Topics from the newsletter through the "eyes" of our A.I. Overlords!
(What is this section? - https://openai.com/dall-e-2/)
"Edward Munch the scream crying with birds on head and holding an onion and surrounded by traffic."
https://labs.openai.com/s/GeMKY9ve6qUZGAdpWKICqJ3U
and
"A photo of a stressed out girl with birds on her ears walking through traffic."
https://labs.openai.com/s/8T1YS40YkJt2LinRSRpJVhYk
Things I learned this week
What is Adam listening to? Though I found articles on techno-blues that have been around since 2011, the combination of a long plane ride and Spotify accidentally introduced me to the genre. Nothing too quippy here. Just sharing something I enjoy.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E8TdxVjnqdzTp
and
https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2011/01/14/132806260/dragging-the-blues-into-the-21st-century
Emmanuel, the famous TikTok emu, has bird flu. There is a lot to unpack in that sentence. WaPo offers the most emotionally compelling story of an Emu I have seen in the last two weeks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/10/16/emmanuel-emu-avian-influenza-knuckle-bump/
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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