Covid19

[davids]

It is very complicated.
This article had my head spinning a bit.

How to Test Every American for COVID-19, Every Day - The Atlantic

A fascinating and exciting article! Thanks for sharing it.

This throw-away fact jumped out at me:

About twice as many Americans have been infected with the coronavirus as have contracted HIV since 1981.

Holy fucking hell. Forty years of AIDS. Six months of COVID-19.

[beeatnik]

Holy fucking hell. Forty years of AIDS. Six months of COVID-19.

Nearly 675,000 Americans have died from AIDS. Hope to Dog that in 4 months or 4 years or 40 years, Covid-19 doesn't reach that number.

[thollandpe]

UNC "revises" its reopening plan.



Editorial: We all saw this coming
Subtitle: clusterfuck (n) : a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged situation

Live updates: As schools struggle to return, UNC-Chapel Hill suspends classes one week in

[htwoopup]

“Many governments and public health systems around the world have failed at communicating critical Covid-19 information, according to a new analysis published on the JAMA network (pdf). The average American, for example, reads at an 8th grade level—that’s about 13-14 years old—but the study showed that literature made available about Covid-19 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assumed an 11th grade reading level. The Netherlands made its information the simplest to understand, at just below an 8th grade level.
The researchers didn’t compare countries’ reading levels with Covid-19 outcomes like the infection and mortality rate. But they did touch on how these scores can be correlated with how a country manages the coronavirus: “Nonadherence to readability standards may have a greater influence in communities with lower health literacy, potentially exacerbating the disparate effects of the pandemic,” the researchers write.”

Comparison of Readability of Official Public Health Information About COVID-19 on Websites of International Agencies and the Governments of 15 Countries | Global Health | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

[deano]

UNC "revises" its reopening plan.



Editorial: We all saw this coming
Subtitle: clusterfuck (n) : a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged situation

Live updates: As schools struggle to return, UNC-Chapel Hill suspends classes one week in

Hoo boy. Yeah, I can't say I am watching these situations with schadenfreude, but it's hard not to see the writing was on the wall. I could tell tales of a local secondary school that would curl your hair. No one needs a crystal ball to see there are a handful of institutions that can just flat out weather a shutdown unscathed. But completely missing from the reopening (some of which IS rational, but NOT looking at you, Duke and UNC), seems to be real leadership and also extending grace to one another over gee whiz a global pandemic.... Like can't we adjust everyone's expectations? Anyway, if we weren't quite as flat-footed over social safety net type stuff like supporting parents/children/childcare, it might be easier. But people have obligations, question is where the buck stops.

On topic, What I wouldn't give to have heard the conversation with Duke and UNC hospital admins about whether they could sustain the ramifications of students returning.

[ides1056]

"The administration continues to prove that they have no shame, and the bar for basic decency keeps getting lower."

so much winning

[vertical_doug]

Notre Dame is temporarily moving classes online to control an outbreak.
The University of Notre Dame announced on Tuesday that it would move to online instruction for at least the next two weeks in an attempt to control a growing coronavirus outbreak and would shut down the campus entirely if those measures failed to stop the spread.

“If these steps are not successful, we will have to send students home, as we did last spring,” Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, said in a video address to students, noting that he had been inclined to take that step before consulting with health officials.


I just dropped my daughter off at UMICH. She knows what to do after months of confinement in NY. But after months of separation from her friends, I just think normal social interactions will take hold and spread is inevitable. She's smart, her friends are smart, but they rather be social then isolated and miserable.

Add packs of students (mostly male BTW) roaming maskless and throw in a Buffalo Wild Wings and you just accelerate the whole process.

Many talking heads on TV talk about one size does not fit all for reopening. I think they are so wrong. The one commonality which overrules all others is young people behavior. One size will fit all. People are just suspending disbelief and not addressing the issue.

[Matthew Strongin]

Notre Dame is temporarily moving classes online to control an outbreak.
The University of Notre Dame announced on Tuesday that it would move to online instruction for at least the next two weeks in an attempt to control a growing coronavirus outbreak and would shut down the campus entirely if those measures failed to stop the spread.

“If these steps are not successful, we will have to send students home, as we did last spring,” Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, said in a video address to students, noting that he had been inclined to take that step before consulting with health officials.


I just dropped my daughter off at UMICH. She knows what to do after months of confinement in NY. But after months of separation from her friends, I just think normal social interactions will take hold and spread is inevitable. She's smart, her friends are smart, but they rather be social then isolated and miserable.

Add packs of students (mostly male BTW) roaming maskless and throw in a Buffalo Wild Wings and you just accelerate the whole process.

Many talking heads on TV talk about one size does not fit all for reopening. I think they are so wrong. The one commonality which overrules all others is young people behavior. One size will fit all. People are just suspending disbelief and not addressing the issue.

UNC-Chapel Hill too. I mean, who would have guessed that a college campus would be ripe for spread.

[gregl]

Since nearly all colleges will fail at re-opening campuses, better that it happens now rather than later. My daughter’s boyfriend’s school (Ithaca College) just announced that they are cancelling plans for in-person teaching this fall in light of the ongoing pandemic. They saw the handwriting on the wall.

Greg

[sine]

UNC-Chapel Hill too. I mean, who would have guessed that a college campus would be ripe for spread.

Requests to have students who are now coming home tested for C19 are starting to trickle into my wife's office. Parents too.

[Chik]

“Many governments and public health systems around the world have failed at communicating critical Covid-19 information, according to a new analysis published on the JAMA network (pdf). The average American, for example, reads at an 8th grade level—that’s about 13-14 years old—but the study showed that literature made available about Covid-19 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assumed an 11th grade reading level. The Netherlands made its information the simplest to understand, at just below an 8th grade level.
The researchers didn’t compare countries’ reading levels with Covid-19 outcomes like the infection and mortality rate. But they did touch on how these scores can be correlated with how a country manages the coronavirus: “Nonadherence to readability standards may have a greater influence in communities with lower health literacy, potentially exacerbating the disparate effects of the pandemic,” the researchers write.”

Comparison of Readability of Official Public Health Information About COVID-19 on Websites of International Agencies and the Governments of 15 Countries | Global Health | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

Interesting, thanks. I think similar rules apply in marketing / corporate comms perhaps less because the audience isn't up to par but more because most can't be arsed to process complicated or complex information. K.I.S.S. seems to apply everywhere, and in a pandemic, the consequences can be lethal.

[Mark Kelly]

This throw-away fact jumped out at me:

About twice as many Americans have been infected with the coronavirus as have contracted HIV since 1981.

Holy fucking hell. Forty years of AIDS. Six months of COVID-19.

STDs are STDs because it takes intimate contact to effect transmission. Respiratory viruses, not so much.

[j44ke]

An immunologist friend who worked in HIV/AIDS research back during the early years of that epidemic said we are really lucky that HIV is relatively fragile outside the body.

[vertical_doug]

COVID-19: Data Details on Deaths - NYC Health

I am not sure if links are still disabled, so the link www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-deaths.page

This is the large study on NYC Boroughs for covid infections.
If you scroll toward the bottom, and toggle percentages on the map, you can see the areas hardest hit. The top corner is Elmhurst. This is where they famously drove in the refrigerator trunks because the hospital morgue was full.

As expected, the poorer the neighborhood, the harder hit.

[Too Tall]

Links are restored. Yeah?

The concept of herd immunity, once again, is challenged and redefined >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ge%2Fstory-ans

Worth the read. Don't jump to a conclusion, as usual with epidemiology the answers are complicated.

[Chik]

Links are restored. Yeah?

The concept of herd immunity, once again, is challenged and redefined >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ge%2Fstory-ans

Worth the read. Don't jump to a conclusion, as usual with epidemiology the answers are complicated.

Interesting read, thanks.

Complicated, indeed. Different strain, immunity lifespan, etc.

Hong Kong man becomes first patient to be reinfected with coronavirus, researchers say

[cash05458]

well, altho I am not taking a side here one interesting thing is the average age of death in america is 78...and the average age of someone who dies from covid is 78...so make of that what you will...

On more personal note...My wife is a pre k teacher...here in Vermont our governor came up with a really great list of things they are required to do via hygiene and anti covid stuff...she works in a school with 90 kids...on paper and in front of media, his stuff looks great...he's got an 80 percent approval rating via how he has dealt with covid stuff...meanwhile, on the ground and in reality, her school and every single one they talk to can't even get the supplies to make sure they follow those orders...not even close! every one knows this who works in these places...they can't even buy the cleaning supplies they used to get PRE covid to follow gov mandates to keep normal colds and whatnot out of rooms and spreading...I am talking baby wipes, rubbing alcohol, gloves, masks....anything...so they are cutting corners like you wouldn't believe to get thru the days....it's really a joke...but boy it sounds good on tv when the gov trots out what he has done...and this is Vermont! There is no gov help whatsoever...no warehouse of supplies to help schools (this after getting over a billion for such things from the feds)....nothing...you are on your own....my wife drives around to dollar stores and whatnot trying to find a single bottle of rubbing alcohol...as do all the other teachers....they send out memos begging parents if they have any supplies...huge difference between appearance and actual reality...as always of course...

[davids]

well, altho I am not taking a side here one interesting thing is the average age of death in america is 78...and the average age of someone who dies from covid is 78...so make of that what you will...

Are you familiar with the concept of Excess Deaths? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/c...ess_deaths.htm

[Chik]

The search for the origin of Covid-19 continues, but it sounds like there isn't a singular source.

Long read but interesting:

Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic?

[thollandpe]

One meeting in Boston spread the virus to 20,000 people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/h...e=articleShare

Researchers identified the Boston mutation in samples collected later in Virginia, North Carolina and Michigan. Overseas, it turned up in Europe, Asia and Australia.