Ironic how the Seattle Freeze will save us all. (Tongue firmly in cheek)
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Epidemiology seems like an interesting field. It turns out there are currently 4 coronavirus strains in circulation right now. COVID-19 could become the fifth. This article discusses what that would look like? A lot of uncertainty exists around how mutable it is.
The Bedford Lab at the Fred Hutch center here in Seattle has a blog that publishes some interesting genetic research on virology. They are mostly discussing COVID-19 these days as you’d expect.
The first Washinton case is a person that came over from China on January 15th. They brought the WA1 strain. It has since mutated to a WA2 strain which looks like it is related to WA1 directly. This projects that right now until the end of March is a critical time for us to contain the spread.
This falls into the category of informative.
A new weekly podcast devoted to the coronavirus from Scientific American. I listened to the first on my run today. W. Wayt Gibbs is a SA contributing editor and lives in Kirkland, the center of the US outbreak. This one talks about why kids don’t seem to get symptoms and the pros and cons of canceling school.
This story is getting a lot of play today. I think it is cast as the heroic researcher who fights the immobile bureaucracy but what’s interesting about it is that it was a difficult ethical choice. The rules she defied are good rules that help ensure ethical behavior. In retrospect, we all see that she probably made the right choice but I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision to make.
Here is the data (in a github repo, natch) assembled by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. It includes a spiffy dashboard visualization
for your desktop and a mobile edition for your phone.
[EDIT: This data isn’t very reliable I think. I’m seeing lots of fluctuations that don’t make sense. For example, there were about a dozen cases in Colorado yesterday but there are zero now. I’ve seen other reports about cases in Colorado so that seems wrong. It’s difficult to know what is reliable and what isn’t but that is true of all data at this point. ]
Based on the NY Times article I linked to yesterday it would seem that WA2 is the flu study teenager subject they refer to.
This is the best reference I’ve seen yet. Lots of detailed information which is indexed and is being updated regularly. This is worth bookmarking.
There’s still a lot of news swirling around this. ESPN withdrew their story about this as far as I can tell. I imagine there is a lot of phone calls going on right now between the NCAA and the two schools.
I do applaud my alma mater (and that other school) in doing this though. KU is the presumptive number 1 team so they have a lot to lose here. This should make everyone think twice about whether or not it is worth it for all those people to be traveling all over the country at a critical time.
[EDIT: and now it is official]
This really lays it all out. We have a crisis of leadership.
It’s understandable that the president hoped the travel restrictions would work. But he knew perfectly well that he hadn’t shut off all travel to the United States (which would have been economically ruinous) and thus that it was possible border control would fail. Experts were nearly unanimous in their judgment that travel restrictions would not work, and Trump not only overruled their advice to put restrictions in place, he ignored their warnings and did nothing to create any kind of fallback plan. And since he’s stubborn and vainglorious, he continues to insist that the moral of this whole story is that the experts were wrong and he was right so we should bank on further travel restrictions to save us. It’s absurd.
Because data analysis is my coping strategy, I’ve started a spreadsheet tracking King County case numbers. Will continue to update this so I can follow trends.
One thing I’ll say is that these might look a lot different if testing were more widely available. This might be in the cards.
Just some random thoughts:
- Keep an eye on the places that are “ahead” of us on the progression. What’s it like in Italy today? What do I need to do today to prepare for that? Seattle is that for the rest of the US. Keep an eye on what is happening here.
- I’ve settled into a good routine with cleaning. Habituation is a good thing. Start forming habits now and keep improving yourself.
- Don’t spend too much time on facebook and twitter. They are stress multipliers that you do not need. Keep yourself informed though. Don’t shut everything down.
- I work from home and am on a lot of conference calls. I end every call with, “wash your hands”. It’s important to bring everyone into the fight (yes, it’s a fight!)
- I see signs that Seattle is coming together on this. I believe that we want to help each other and it will work.
- I’m going to keep saying it. You aren’t just protecting yourself. You are responsible for the safety of the more vulnerable people you come in contact with. They need you!
- Man! I need a picture of my kitty. Here’s Ollie:
Yeah! We are beginning to make progress.
An interactive model that shows how important early and aggressive measures make a difference.
The article ends with this:
We’ll be honest: We worried that the clean lines in the graphics here risk suggesting a false precision. None of us know what lies ahead. But the wise uncertainty of epidemiologists is preferable to the confident bluster of television blowhards. The one thing we can be confident of is that enormous risks lie ahead — including a huge loss of life — if we don’t take aggressive action.
We have already squandered weeks in which the president scoffed at the coronavirus and tried to talk up the stock markets, but it’s not too late: We can still change the course of this epidemic.
This is an eye opener.
If you’ve never seen a Kurzgesagt video before I’m happy to introduce you to it. These things are always interesting and informative, regardless of the subject.
There was a spike in confirmed cases today in King County. I am guessing that the test availability has increased here.
One thing that I think most people don’t appreciate is how much or understanding of viral propagation is dictated by simple math. I think this epidemic calculator does a good job of illustrating that.
It’s all interactive. It shows the equations and allows you to adjust the parameters to see the effect. It is very useful.
It’s important to look for optimism in times like these. Here’s my submission
Here’s my optimistic take: The world has given us an opportunity to rewrite the old rules. The power structures in place will try to maintain the status quo, but we don’t have to follow if we think of something better. We need to think about what should change and how to do it. A lot of these predictions are in that spirit.