COVID Transmissions for 1-5-2021

Jan 05, 2021

Good morning and welcome to COVID Transmissions.

It has been 415 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19.

Some headlines today, showing how certain developments have been playing out around the world.

As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.

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Now, let’s talk COVID.

Scotland will enter a lockdown

The government of Scotland has announced that the country will enter a lockdown until at least the end of January. This is following an extremely sharp rise in case growth in the UK overall, which is quite alarming.

This will be quite a strict lockdown; new laws will require people to stay home from work and other outings as much as possible. Contact with others outside the household will be limited to one person from exactly one other household (an interesting restriction since presumably most individual people are from only one household). Most houses of worship will be closed and group exercise will be banned.

This is the kind of lockdown that has a chance of getting the disease under control in that country. Nothing like this has been implemented in the US.

You can read more about it here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-55531069

New York State identifies its first case of the new variant SARS-CoV-2

Wadsworth Laboratories, as well as Governor Cuomo, have confirmed that the UK variant (now widely named B.1.1.7) of SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in a man from Saratoga with no prior history of travel.

I searched high and low for a source reporting this that does not claim without any reservation that the strain is “more contagious.” The only such source I found is this one: https://www.foxnews.com/health/new-york-confirms-uk-coronavirus-variant-in-man-with-no-travel-history

Sadly, I found a few news sources describing B.1.1.7 as “highly contagious” or simply as “contagious.” I am sorry to report that this is just lazy writing. All SARS-CoV-2 variants are highly contagious. This is a highly contagious virus. And certainly all of them are “contagious.” That is why you can catch the disease from other people. Journalists really need to work on their communications skills in this area.

I am somewhat comfortable at this point with the phrase “is likely to be more contagious than other circulating variants.” This doesn’t make for a snappy headline but it has the upside of being accurate and not trivial.

Anyway, it was expected that we would start to see evidence of this variant all over the US. When it was first detected in the UK, it was found because that country has high growth in cases and a good surveillance program that is regularly sequencing viruses from positive patients. Not all countries—not even the US—have surveillance of this quality. For this reason, the UK may not even be the first place this variant originated; it may just be the first place it was detected. And certainly no controls were in place to prevent it from spreading outside of its place of origin—whether or not that was in the UK.

So, this story simply confirms what was already thought to be true; the variant is in the US and is spreading here. As always, take every measure you can to be safe, regardless of the presence of this virus here. COVID-19 is dangerous; not only can it kill you but it can also induce lifelong disability in a large proportion of patients. That has not changed.

What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:

Sharing a book recommendation from a reader

A reader and an old friend, inspired by yesterday’s content in this space, recommended a book to me and I wanted to pass the recommendation along to you. I haven’t read the book, but it’s no fair if I’m the only person who gets to write content for this segment. Building on themes of isolation, this reader recommended Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, which was written after chronic illness left the author housebound. I’m told that the audiobook edition of it is particularly good.

I’m going to check it out; you should consider it, too!

You might have some questions or comments! Send them in. As several folks have figured out, you can also email me if you have a comment that you don’t want to share with the whole group.

My announcement of a plan to change the frequency of “free” issues of this newsletter has led to some feedback from a couple of paid subscribers. It appears that several people who pay to support this newsletter would much prefer that it continue to provide 5 free issues every weekday. My goal in creating an exclusive issue each week was to thank these paid subscribers. Apparently they instead wish to support continued open access, which I think is really generous of them.

I still want to do something to thank paid subscribers. I intend to add, at least once every two weeks, an evening edition of the newsletter that will go only to paid subscribers. This evening edition will expand on topics that have been requested by paid subscribers or provide additional illumination on things I just happen to think are interesting regarding COVID-19.

Join the conversation, and what you say will impact what I talk about in the next issue.

Also, let me know any other thoughts you might have about the newsletter. I’d like to make sure you’re getting what you want out of this.

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