I have an unhealthy focus and am unsettled by watching a crowd-sourced, near-live-streamed war. Like many social media commentators, overlapping unprecedented events are exhausting. I am surprised and not surprised that a Russian autocrat has managed to make the pandemic seem unimportant.
---- Latest Data
Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to decline. We are still seeing about 1800 deaths a day, but the trends are declining for now.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
and
https://theuscovidatlas.org/map
(You need to play with the variables on this one)
Country Comparison from FT.com
The CDC weekly review discusses the CDC's updated monitoring and updated guidance on wearing masks.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
The CDC updated guidance - moving to a model of masking and testing in the context of community infection rates. The guidelines assume several realities that may not be true. Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves does a great job breaking down the new guidance.
https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1497890136901791744
Dr. Bob Wachter sums up his risk tolerance in the setting of the new CDC guidelines.
https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1497271651431444481
Here is an excellent infographic summary of these thoughts:
https://twitter.com/rassler13/status/1497302143786569732/photo/1
I am still watching the BA.2 variant. Hong Kong is still the major epicenter, with the suspicion that it will spread further.
https://twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel/status/1498170572878282752
Two very detailed studies looking at the origins of SARS-CoV-2 lend increased evidence for an animal to human transmission in the Wuhan markets - not from a lab.
https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey/status/1497607313397481472
Article 1
https://zenodo.org/record/6299116#.YhwXzN9OnBt
Article 2
https://zenodo.org/record/6291628#.YhwX3t9OnBs
There is evidence for the ongoing bidirectional deer/human transmission of COVID. "Our findings represent the first evidence of a highly divergent lineage of SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer and deer-to-human transmission" - as someone in the thread quipped, the venison variant.
https://twitter.com/SusanAShriner/status/1497556988787494913
Infographics
The chemistry of wine
https://twitter.com/compoundchem/status/1494786095061610500/photo/1
from
https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/05/28/redwinechemicals/
Things I learned this week
The Bluetooth logo is a combination of nordic runes and refers to the poor dentition of a Danish king from 1200 years ago.
https://www.creativebloq.com/news/bluetooth-logo-secret
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Bluetooth
I love finding words where connotation changes over time. The term "fascinate" is a great example - and has a bit of a lurid etymology.
http://www.antiquitatem.com/en/fascinating-evil-eye-apotropaic-phallus/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascinus
Despite having over 300 books in my Audible library, I have always thought of audiobooks as "cheating." Not so, says [some] science!
and
https://time.com/5388681/audiobooks-reading-books/
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam