I know; it has been a while. I got burnt out on the constant news following, to be honest. I was also very busy with work. And I worried about contributing to information overload, especially when things were changing quickly.
We seem to be moving in a new stage of all of this, one where some aspects of normal life have returned but it’s also become clear that this is not ending any time soon. With that in mind, I though a newsletter with an update and some new things to read might be useful. I’m not a medical expert and I hope I have been clear about that; where I think/hope I can be helpful is in curating and distilling information, because I do have experience with that.
Also, I do enjoy writing and sending out these newsletters. I am not a medical expert (or any kind of expert, probably!) but I am a nerd and a know-it-all and few things please me more than sharing information and hearing that it was interesting or useful. I’m just going to start varying the information a bit, working in some fun stuff. I hope it continues to be worthwhile for you all.
Around the World
The COVID-19 situation in Canada (110K cases, 8.8K deaths) continues to be different depending where you are in the country. Most of Ontario will move into a new stage of virus control on Friday, for example, while in Quebec a handful of outbreaks have been tied to Montreal bars.
COVID-19 cases are rising steadily in 49 of the 50 states in the United States (3.4 million cases, 136K deaths), and daily deaths are now beginning to slowly climb again as well. The NYT put together an informative and sobering look at how the virus began, then went from declining to exploding in places like Texas and Florida.
Deaths from COVID-19 are Brazil (1.9 million cases, 74K deaths) are approaching American numbers, especially when considering that cases are suspected to be underreported. The virus appears to be hitting Black Brazilians and Indigenous people in the country — many of whom are isolated from medical care — most severely.
A coronavirus red alert has been declared in Tokyo as daily new cases recently spiked in the largest city in Japan (22K cases, 984 deaths). Infections are also rising in the country in Osaka prefecture and there is an outbreak at an American base on Okinawa.
In the Philippines (58K cases, 1.6K deaths), 250K people in Manila went back on lockdown for two weeks after a spike in infections. The restrictions are set to expire today but could be extended by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The border between the two most populous states in Australia (10.4K cases, 111 deaths) was closed a few days ago in an attempt to control a virus outbreak in Melbourne, where police raided a party after a large food order was made.
As many other European countries shut down, Sweden (76.4K cases, 5.5K deaths) took a different approach. Did it work? As it turns out, not really, in either death prevention or economic protection.
Further south in Europe, Greece (3.8K cases, 193 deaths) did manage to avoid the fate of nearby Italy and avoided a serious COVID-19 toll. The country’s approach included the early closure of public spaces and effective public-health campaigns.
New Zealand (1.5K cases, 22 deaths) has declared itself officially COVID-19 free, meaning that while the country’s border remains closed, social distancing is no longer required and gatherings are allowed.
Medical Stuff
Last week the World Health Organization said that COVID-19 can be airborne indoors, which means the virus could linger in the air in crowded indoor spaces and spread from person to person.
If COVID-19 is airborne, then that means we should fight its spread in particular ways. The role masks have is debated in this article, with one expert saying strict mask use for anyone leaving their home would help and another saying masks do little for the smallest particles. What is clearer, based on this, is that disinfecting every surface isn’t where our focus on protecting ourselves should be as much as controlling where we spend time, and for how long.
Scientists continue to learn more about the various ways that the virus affects people. For example, scientists in the UK released some data on serious COVID-19 side effects seen in the brains of patients who were (or appeared to be) mildly affected or recovering from the virus. It is just 40 people so far, but certainly something to watch. There is also some early evidence of a link between coronavirus and diabetes due to an affect on insulin-producing cells — again, from study in tissues and a handful of people but worth knowing, especially because we do know that having diabetes is a risk factor for experiencing the more serious effects of COVID-19.
Other identified risk factors for those most serious COVID-19 effects include being male, being older, having severe asthma, and having Black or South Asian ethnicity. But it’s important to note that none of those things mean a person will definitely experience serious side effects, and it’s not necessarily clear why these factors are tied to the more serious side effects as of now.
The good news is that this increased knowledge means that doctors are getting better at treating COVID-19 patients. That’s due in part to studies like the ones above, but also to medical professionals sharing information about what has worked for them and their patients — for example, having patients lie on their stomachs in order to allow their lungs to expand more. These changes in advice and recommendations can make people suspicious about the information released by public health professionals, but it can actually be a good sign: it shows that we’re learning more and applying what we learn to best practices.
And of course, COVID-19 is new and a lot remains unknown. Why do people experience this coronavirus so differently? How long does any potential immunity last? When might we get a vaccine, and how effective could it be? And how will the virus mutate next? Research on all of this, and more, is ongoing and changing. If you’re especially keen but also unfamiliar with reading medical research, this guide might help.
Life and Stuff
The longer this goes on, the more clear it becomes that it will continue to go on — that this is the way we’ll be living, to some degree, for at least months more and that a lot will be different going forward.
Of course, nobody can really say what things will be like in that future. I can’t even reliably say if my son will be in school in person seven weeks from now. Millions of parents in Canada and the United States are in that position, while others already know their kids won’t be returning to classrooms in person in August or September.
There is some evidence from other countries that schools do not cause as much spread as feared, but right now the local circumstances across the states and provinces are very different. In Canada, we might be able to get children back in classrooms with a relative degree of safety. In the United States, where many kids go back in August, a lot depends on the local government and the degree of safety in a particular region.
It’s also stressful to think about the effect of all of this on the long-term economy. Income and wage supports were and are necessary, but they will have a long-term impact on government revenues and, likely, taxation. Several countries expect unemployment to surge and younger workers are likely to bear a large burden of the economic fallout. But don’t worry, Jeff Bezos and his contemporaries got richer. Guess I’ll just have to cut back on avocado toast!
A Happy Thing
Every time I look at NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest poster I see some new, outrageous thing. I’m not sick of it yet.