In no particular order:
- The top, top thing on my mind is ventilators. This is maybe the most fixable near term way to save lives. Tom Inglesby at the Center for Health Security gives a great status update here. In WWII, we retrofitted car manufacturing to produce A LOT of tanks, pronto. I think we gotta do the same here AS WELL AS generate the workforce to operate these things.
- John Ioannidis, famed researcher and medical skeptic, threw down some more skepticism. This one really made me stop and think. With information so spotty, perhaps the social interventions will be needed for many months, and once we resume normal life, COVID will come rushing back?
- This preprint claims that the virus is 1,000 times less infectious after 48 hrs on its favorite surfaces, plastic and steel. Cardboard can support it for about an hour tops. When it gets aerosolized (lighter than air, so it can persists with air currents and travel all over), it still weakens, becoming ten times less infectious in 3 hours. This is good news.
- This thread from Defender of Seattle Trevor Bedford shows the simplest explanation I know of for the nationwide spread leading up to this past weekend. Short version - maybe 20,000 people COVID positive in the US. We are flying blind.
- The Brits are impressive. Gutsy. Their (ironic) plan is to wait until they see the whites of their eyes. By not closing schools (kids will spend less time with grandparents) and not shutting down the country (economy will function, which matters, particularly for people living paycheck to paycheck), they plan to absorb the shock by relying on sick people to stay home. At a time where everyone else is ramping up extreme measures, the Brits seem to be gambling. Except they are using good science. Which reminds me that we're all gambling. I hope it goes well for them. It'll be fascinating to see how it works out.
- This paper from Imperial College London seems to be the talk of Twitter today and, it's a downer. See a good breakdown here. Bottom line - the least bad options still look bad.
- Tyler Cowen posts some great COVID material, from well outside the usual sources. If you want perspective, I'd check out Marginal Revolution daily (I'd do that anyway, it's the best website.)
- Give it a rest with handwringing about ibuprofen. Until there's a reason that this largely safe anti-inflammatory is a bad idea, it's not a bad idea.
- MGH telecast their grand rounds. Dynamite. Maybe we'll learn how to be better knowledge workers in medicine when this is all over - if it's worth saying, it's worth recording.
No comments:
Post a Comment