Monday, March 30, 2020. Good morning!
On a walk yesterday, my younger son and I discussed change. How school is now remote, how our summer plans are coming into question, and how the world feels so different are all unsettling and unsettled. I'm not certain what drove this conversation just now - we've been living with this for weeks. Maybe it was a head full of art-house movies (we watched many films from the Annapolis Film Festival), or perhaps it was a byproduct of two people on a long walk. Nevertheless, we ended up in a good place. Keeping an eye on the opportunity in change is the key, we concluded, to having optimism. And, of course, being brave in the face of fear and unknown is courage. There are a lot of good examples of these notions this morning.
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The latest infographics from The Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
The speed with which media related to various aspects of COVID is astounding. These are marketing materials from Mass General, but are also consumer-friendly and confidence (and brand) building.
https://advances.massgeneral.org/research-and-innovation/article.aspx?id=1145
And on other therapies
https://advances.massgeneral.org/cardiovascular/article.aspx?id=1142
A non-peer reviewed article on viral shedding. Bottom line: wipe those phones and don't touch stuff (especially in a hospital!)
Thanks @kidney_boy
https://twitter.com/kidney_boy/status/1244262333897224193
Article:
https://t.co/ZzRGl5wSFH?amp=1
On sanitizing your phone:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/smarter-living/clean-your-phone.html
Some discussion on using convalescent plasma
https://twitter.com/hvanspall/status/1243359707403702272
The trending hashtag #FlimYourHospital deeply concerns me. There are plenty of issues in healthcare delivery, but I suspect very few are from neglect or malfeasance. I don't see what this is going to accomplish.:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23FilmYourHospital
The discussion is an excellent example of bias and fallacy. The absence of outward signs of being overwhelmed does not mean a hospital isn't full, that there aren't epicenters or overwhelmed hospitals elsewhere, and ignores the fact that this virus travels like a wave - moving community to community. Again, acknowledging the limited sample, here is a representative anecdote of what I am hearing from my colleagues in NY, NJ, and CT this weekend:
https://twitter.com/DrChinazo/status/1244407380349046785
Here's a change that makes one wonder - an article about the economics of sustainable news media that feels like the author had to figure out how to work in the Coronavirus to make it more timely. Good article, but not sure COVID needed to be there...
A "learning from history" piece by David Brooks on social solidarity enhanced by a national crisis. There may be some who take umbrage at comparing The Blitz to a pandemic, but the point is not lost.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/virus-and-blitz/608965/
A very cool way to educate:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2182606/meet-dr-fruit-chinese-surgeon-who-goes-grape-lengths-promote
More video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwwMRBZFdH8
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Bonus Round - People Who Embraced Change Edition
Albert Kahn was a French banker who loved photography and appreciated that the world was changing at the start of the 20th century. He attempted to capture the entirety of human culture between 1900 and 1930's using COLOR glass plate photography. He picked a time just before the homogenizing forces of communication, war, and mass-media fully saturated the globe. The Archives of the Planet collection is haunting and a remarkable undertaking for the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_(banker)
The coffee table book I have stared at for hours
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K0UHGB0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2
Article:
https://museemagazine.com/features/2019/10/22/feature-albert-kahns-archives-of-the-planet
Photos:
http://collections.albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr/
David Henken was an architect who studied under Frank Lloyd Wright. His most famous work, the New York community of Usonia, was a manifestation of materials science, architectural innovation, and political ideologies of cooperative living. Wright and his students had strong political beliefs that informed their work but are not mentioned on the tours of Taliesin (they were socialists, by the way!). Either way, it is a fascinating manifestation of art and ideas, mid 20th Century.
Articles:
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/usonia-ny-best-designed-small-town-in-the-us
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/30/nyregion/usonia-community-remembers-its-past.html
This diary was written by his wife when the Henkens were living at the Taliesin school
https://www.amazon.com/Taliesin-Diary-Frank-Lloyd-Wright/dp/0393733807