Weeks of December 20 and 27
My family is heading to Hawaii for the kids' winter break. Despite being vaccinated/boosted and obsessively masked, family travel during a peaking variant spike is, most definitely, out of my comfort zone. But a few years into the pandemic, kids going to college soon, outdoor/topical activities, and a bag of antigen tests have changed my risk/benefit calculation. And, I suppose if I get too annoying, my kids will sacrifice me to Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire. So this is most likely the last email of the year. (Or longer, pending my success in returning from hikes in the coming days).
Please have a safe and peaceful Christmas and New Year's holiday.
P.S. In my favor, the whole sacrificing people in volcanoes thing is probably more lore than reality. And, irrespective of my family's annoyance level, lava-based assassination seems tactically problematic.
---- Latest Data
There is no holiday cheer hiding in these data.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
and
Country Comparison from FT.com
The CDC Weekly Review of Data and Variant Tracking discusses safe holiday celebration advice.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
Omicron is 3% of cases as of this past week.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions
Omicron is even more on our collective mind. Here is what we know:
-it is highly contagious
-it can evade vaccinated immunity, causing illness
-boosted individuals have the best protection from infection
-those who acquired immunity from prior infection are not well protected
-data is still unclear as to which infected individuals are truly experiencing less severe illness, hospitalization, or death (boosted, vaccinated, everyone?)
Currently, my take is that the increased spread will lead to a more significant number of infected individuals, including more breakthrough infections amongst vaccinated and boosted individuals. I suspect the vaccinated will (on average) experience less severe and less prolonged illnesses. Vigilant mask use and avoiding poorly-ventilated, densely-populated spaces will still be essential.
Infectious disease physician Roby Bhattacharyya offered a thread on why it is too soon to know about the severity of Omicron infections. His posts explain that when a metric's denominator pool changes, comparing any two data points over time is a challenge (Delta vs. Omicron, in this example).
https://twitter.com/roby_bhatt/status/1471212023576870912?s=10
John Burn-Murdoch offers the best time-normalized variant comparison data I have seen so far.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1471507639561383948/photo/1
Despite all the Omicron data, the mRNA vaccine and booster offer considerable protection against infection. Here is a good collection of linked studies.
https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1470738170606145539?s=20
The CDC stated a preference for the mRNA vaccines this week. Or, put another way, the CDC is saying that the J&J vaccine is not the best choice.
STAT news interviewed infectious disease specialists about the question, "Will COVID vaccines be needed forever?" The article captures the nuance of COVID knowns and unknowns.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/15/will-we-always-need-covid-19-boosters-experts-have-theories/
Airline CEOs were testifying in front of a Senate committee last week. Scientists and Flight Attendants union leaders refuted the CEOs' scientifically implausible comments about the efficacy of in-cabin HEPA filtration. Plane filtration is good, but you still need to mask on a plane.
and
https://twitter.com/JimRosenthal4/status/1471858001002778637
The gods of irony were not happy with the CEOs' comments either.
And the Wall Street Journal offered, "What to do if you get Omicron" guide.
https://apple.news/AdCf98zQBRMid2BdngmLiJA
Infographics
An excellent guide to critical and systems thinking
https://i2.wp.com/rogerswannell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/system-thinking.png?ssl=1
from The Waters Center for Systems Thinking
https://waterscenterst.org/who-we-are?tab=history
Things I learned this week
There is a World Naked Bike Ride day, which is now not as naked thanks to masking.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2020/07/07/naked-bike-ride-2020-as-bare-as-you-dare-/
Of course, there is an associated organization supporting naked bike rides around the world:
https://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/
And a 2018 Bicycling article on tips for joining such rides
https://www.bicycling.com/rides/g21239838/naked-bike-ride/
There is an unopened container of materials from a 1972 mission to the moon. A NASA engineering group - the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program - has spent years building equipment and processes (The Apollo Can Opener) to remove the moon dust without cross-contamination. They started opening the container last week.
https://gizmodo.com/vacuum-sealed-container-from-1972-moon-landing-will-fin-1848234198
You can watch a 90-second video of their work (which juxtaposes upbeat holiday music with mundane, but speedy, time-lapsed lab work in a fume hood) at https://www.lpi.usra.edu/ANGSA/
Two hundred years after his death, King George III (from whom the American colonists declared their independence) is getting some better P.R. (Sort of - more like moving a stock rating from sell to neutral.) Either way, this book is an in-depth revisit of George's reign - adding nuance and complexity to a highly simplified subject in our history books. Maybe the colonists weren't all good, and George was not an absolute tyrant? It sounds like he was a mediocre leader with headwinds in a turbulent time.
Clean hands and sharp minds team,
Adam
