Tag: covid

covid tracing

California finally has an app that links the Apple/Google contact tracing API with the state public health system

https://canotify.ca.gov/

This is the one that exchanges rotating random numbers between phones over bluetooth, building a pseudonymous list of other people’s phones you’ve been near. You can use the app to report a positive covid result linked to your numbers, or check for exposures against its local list of contact events.

https://www.google.com/covid19/exposurenotifications/

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I remember listening to a podcast on the design way back in…May? It’s an interesting approach to balancing a legit use of tracking vs. limiting chances for abuse of the data by limiting how much is actually collected.

It’s woefully incomplete, of course, but then it’s not like interviews would be complete either, even if we had enough trained people to run them for every single patient.

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covid

I’m shocked, shocked to find that a student at the kid’s elementary school has tested positive for covid-19 during the week after (checks notes) a holiday that traditionally involves large gatherings over an extended period of time with lots of talking and eating.

OK, not that shocked. Especially with cases *already surging* in the LA area before Thanksgiving.

I wonder if they’re still planning on opening up the TK-2 grades to hybrid on-campus learning.

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This is cool: recycling discarded PPE into plastic bricks

This is cool: recycling discarded PPE into plastic bricks for construction.

“First, the PPE material from body coverings, masks and head caps is isolated for three days. Then Desai’s team of 20 employees sanitizes the fabric and uses a machine to shred it before sanitizing it again. Next it is mixed with 47 percent paper sludge and a binding agent and pressed by hand into various molds. Each brick weighs around 3 pounds and costs about 4 cents.”

The pandemic is generating tons of discarded PPE. This entrepreneur is turning them into bricks.

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Covid measures metaphor

Covid measures metaphor: Think of each measure (masks, distance, limiting crowds, ventilation, etc.) as a slice of Swiss cheese. Sure, there are holes in each slice, but you stack them together and they cover each other’s gaps.

A Swiss cheese approach to pandemic safety

Also, a nice visual display of how coronavirus spreads in indoor scenarios and how different actions reduce the risk.

A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air

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Covid news, Africa (+)

Wow. Comparing these numbers for an *entire continent* to the numbers in the US alone is amazing: “Slightly more than 34,000 deaths have been confirmed on the continent of 1.3 billion people….Africa is doing a lot of things right the rest of the world isn’t”

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-22/defying-predictions-africa-coronavirus-response-praised

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germs, covid-adjacent

As it’s become clear that surfaces are so much less of an issue for covid-19 than droplets, I’ve been trying to go back to being less paranoid about touching crosswalk buttons when I’m out walking.

But today I saw someone reach out her leg as she approached the corner and press the button with the *bottom of her shoe*.

I mean, yay flexibility, but now the paranoia is justified for *non*-covid reasons

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WHO says corticosteroids really do save lives of people critically ill with COVID-19

Reply to a post about The evidence is in. WHO says corticosteroids really do save lives of people critically ill with COVID-19, finding that they help treat severe cases.

I’m surprised that the article doesn’t say more about the immunosuppressant effect that corticosteroids have.

Some of the articles I was looking at last week (when I was prescribed a course of prednisone for an unrelated condition) were looking at whether steroids might make mild cases worse by allowing the virus to make more progress.

If that holds up, then it’s *definitely* important to save them for severe cases where the anti-inflammatory effect makes a bigger difference!

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dream/covid-adjacent

Dreamed I went into the office with several co-workers to fix some problem on-site. When we finished, I decided to grab some things I’d left at my desk back in March.

Found 3 pairs of reading glasses, 2 pairs of sunglasses and a Coraline figurine that I don’t actually have, a desk fan that I do, and 2 computers, a printer, and a fax machine that had been moved onto my desk and left powered on but unused for months.

Fortunately, no 6-month-old banana in the drawer.

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Guess there’s some anxiety about electricity use going on…

Also, IRL, I really was worried for a while about whether I’d left a banana in the drawer. I was out with the flu for the week before the office closed, so I never had a chance to go in and pick anything up. Fortunately I always take my laptop home anyway, and even if I didn’t, we’d been directed back in February to start taking them home nightly. I did have to buy & expense a charger, though.

Link: Sorting out Covid-19 “super-spreaders” and “super-spreading events”

Link: Sorting out Covid-19 “super-spreaders” and “super-spreading events”

COVID-19 “super-spreaders” and “super-spreading events”: The controversy

Evidence is emerging suggesting that COVID-19 does not spread equally. A minority of infected individuals seem to spread the virus easily to many people, while most infected individuals spread it to few others or no one at all, likely through a combination of circumstance, environment, and possibly biology. Why is this, and what does it mean for coronavirus containment strategies?

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covid mask studies

It’s starting to look like wearing a mask may not only reduce your chance of spreading the virus to others, but it might also reduce your chance of getting a severe case.

Outbreaks with higher mask-wearing seem to have higher rates of asymptomatic cases among positive tests, and lower death rates.

Speculation is that it might reduce the viral load you get so that you’re still infected & infectious, but not impacted as severely.

Masks offer much more protection against coronavirus than many think

The article is paywalled, but some of the interesting cases they point to include:

– an outbreak at a seafood plant in Oregon where employees had masks, and 95% of those infected were asymptomatic

– a cruise ship where all passengers & crew got masks, & 81% of those testing positive were asymptomatic

-death rates staying low even when cases have surged in places like southeast Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore & the Czech Republic

More research needed, of course!

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Waiting at home for a video link is in some ways better…

Waiting at home for a video link is in some ways better than waiting at the doctor’s office, because you’re *home*, but there’s always that nagging suspicion that the email with the conference link has been lost and they’ve been waiting for you to connect for the last 10 minutes and will just move onto the next patient.

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It has now been an hour since the front office called to do check in over the phone. No message has arrived with the link to video chat with the actual doctor.

*yawn*

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So it turns out the zoom link was buried in a message from way back when I scheduled the appointment, and they marked me as a no show. Rescheduled with another doctor at the practice who has an open slot this afternoon.

The appointment info in their portal said that directions would be sent in a message…but not that they already had been.

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covid and asthma (+/-)

Good: Asthma alone doesn’t seem to increase your risk of Covid-19 hitting so bad you need to be hospitalized.

Bad: Other co-morbidities might.

Weird: Stress/exercise-induced asthma does seem to increase your risk of a severe case…but allergy-induced asthma doesn’t. In fact, some researchers are speculating that allergies might reduce ACE2 expression and actually *protect* from infection! (Don’t worry, I won’t rely on that even if it pans out.)

Does asthma increase Covid-19 risk? Emerging research suggests a complicated connection – STAT News

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covid/masks/uspol

So if I understand the conservative position, a business should be allowed to refuse service to anyone based on their gender identity, sexual orientation, race, religion, etc., but *not* based on whether they’re wearing enough clothing?🙄


Shoppers are suing over mandatory mask rules, but doctors don’t buy it

A Pittsburgh grocery chain is facing multiple lawsuits over its no-exceptions mask policy

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No shirt, no shoes, no service, right?

(And I’ve always found it amusing that they don’t specify pants.)

And now I’m thinking of the news story about a group of Czechs who were sunbathing nude back in, idk, April, and were cited for not wearing masks.

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