COVID Transmissions for 11-5-2020
Good morning! It has been 354 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19.
Headlines only today; still waiting on some election results here in the US.
As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.
Keep the newsletter growing by sharing it! I love talking about science and explaining important concepts in human health, but I rely on all of you to grow the audience for this:
Now, let’s talk COVID.
History of contact tracing
An interesting perspective piece in The New England Journal of Medicine discusses the history of contact tracing, compulsory vaccination and health cooperation, and other complex public health and individual rights topics that are relevant in the present pandemic. Read it here, I thought it was really interesting: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2021887
Does pollution increase severity of COVID-19?
STAT News has reported on a recent study that suggests that prevalence of severe COVID-19 correlates with air pollution: https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/04/covid19-coronavirus-air-pollution
As you might imagine from my phrasing this as a question, you might have guessed that I don’t agree that a causal relationship has been demonstrated. There are a lot of factors that correlate with air pollution, because air pollution tends to be worse in areas with a lot of human activity. There are a lot of human reasons that severe COVID-19 might occur in these areas; close proximity of people to each other, prevalence of low income neighborhoods, availability of public transportation, and many other options.
Yes, it’s appealing that a respiratory illness could be worsened by the presence of air pollution—and I’m not ruling the idea out—but there are a lot of confounding factors here that need to be considered.
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
Watching
This is more about coping with the election, but instead of watching the returns on election day as well as last night, we decided to rewatch The West Wing. It’s a nice fantasy of a less divisive time, under different circumstances. It was nice to escape into it for a little while.
Another recommendation that I’d make for a similar feeling is Parks and Recreation, although you can probably skip the first season of that which doesn’t really do the show much justice. It’s a show about competent people in local government doing their jobs—mostly—and being generally kind of each other, in ways that are often funny. Also a nice palate cleanser from the tone of current US national politics.
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No corrections since last issue.
Thanks for reading, everyone!
See you all next time.
Always,
JS