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America Dances (part 4): US vs EU pandemic response
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-cases-3-day-averageIn my previous America Dances posts earlier this month (July 2020 part 1, 2, 3), I summarized where we are now in this pandemic; highlighted the unfavorable comparison we’re making with the...
Amy talks coronavirus immunity on Zoom
I was delighted to share some information about coronavirus immunity with my local Rotary Club this week (July 14 2020), and to answer a few questions on people's minds. Curious to hear what I had to say? My talk was recorded! Here it is. Need a speaker for your...
Trusted sources
Photo by Markus Winkler on UnsplashSomeone asked me if there is a place to find "the truth" about the coronavirus pandemic. Here's a list of secondary sources I use. Whenever possible, I read any associated journal articles or preprints. Johns Hopkins Center for...
Coronavirus incubation period
Photo by Michael Marais on Unsplash Thank you Sacramento Rotary Club for inviting me to speak and answer your questions over Zoom yesterday. I received some excellent questions in a follow up email so I'm sharing my answers with everyone. The quotes come from a...
Is going back to school too dangerous for kids?
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash In a word, no. It's the teachers we have to worry about. A heartfelt, honest post is making the rounds on FB, written by a parent trying to decide whether her children should be allowed to attend in-person school. In that post,...
America Dances (part 3): How did we get here?
Source: New York TimesAmerica Dances (part 3): How did we get here? When I was young I learned a saying: You made your bed, now you have to lie in it. As I demonstrated in my previous post, the United States has made its coronavirus bed, and it’s not as comfortable as...
America Dances (part 2): American Exceptionalism
Image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory; public domainAmerica Dances (part 2): American Exceptionalism If pandemic control were an Olympic event, the US would lose in the quarterfinals, if it earned the right to compete at all. As I said in my previous post, the US...
America Dances (part 1)
Source: US CDC, July 5, 2020 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html America "Dances" with Coronavirus Back in early May I wrote the final post in my Endgame series, talking about Tomas Pueyo’s “hammer and dance” strategy to living...
A commentary on coronavirus and fear
Source: NY Times coronavirus tracker https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html#casesA commentary on coronavirus and fear I believe that one primal force predominantly drives our decisions, determines our tribe, and frames the story that we...
Coronavirus mutation D614G: does it matter?
SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus strain An article in today's Washington Post reports that scientists are busy investigating the emergence of a dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that differs slightly from the version that originally came out of China. Let's talk about...
Pandemic Progress Report: California, June 24
Pandemic Progress Report: Sacramento California, June 24 Hold tight. The coronavirus is on the move. Back during shelter-in-place days, hubby and I would talk about how the pandemic felt like something that was happening to other people in other places. We mused about...
Can other vaccines protect against coronavirus?
Can a vaccine against a different microbe provide protection against SARS-CoV-2? Nonspecific immune enhancement by BCG or MMR vaccines: Maybe, but I wait for data. A few days ago, the American Society for Microbiology wrote a press release about an article in...
Advance Care Planning in time of pandemic
Death of Raphael, Engraver John Sartain, American, 1808–1897. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Open access.Early in the pandemic, a reader suggested that I write something about advance directives. I agreed this was an important topic, but in the vortex of...
Pandemic misinformation
Pandemic misinformation & conspiracies Conspiratorial thinking has been on the rise on both the left and the right in the US for years (The Atlantic just ran an entire issue on the topic). The coronavirus pandemic provides fertile ground for conspiracies to grow,...
US and the World Health Organization
World Health Organization (WHO) logoTrump and the World Health Organization (WHO) My internet is blowing up over President Trump's announcement that he wishes to de-fund the World Health Organization (WHO) and pull the US out of the international public health agency....
Pandemic Progress Report: California, May 27
Pandemic Progress Report: California, May 27 California's governor continues to (slowly) devolve authority to the county public health agencies across the state. Sacramento, which earlier this month had the lowest coronavirus infection rate of the fifty largest...
Not Coronavirus Public Health News: A cause for celebration
Link to full report https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr-8-508.pdf Teen pregnancy rate reaches another record low As humans we have a natural tendency to focus on bad news, sensational news, news that is sudden and immediate. Long-term trends are boring....
Pandemic Progress Report: California, May 19
Pandemic Progress Report: California, May 19 I commend Gov. Newsom for his flexibility in dropping the "zero deaths" requirement for county reopening, and shifting the focus from raw case numbers to the number of COVID hospitalizations. In my opinion, keeping COVID-19...
COVID-19 and the Immune System of Children and Adults
Information about rare coronavirus-related syndrome in kids, courtesy of New York City Health COVID-19 and the Immune System of Adults and Children My PhD is in the field of immunology. Thirty years ago I took an immunology class at MIT and I was hooked. (If you’re...
Pandemic Progress Report: California, May 15
COVID-19 death rates per 100,000 population, by age. New York Health https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.pagePandemic Progress Report: California, May 15 In my final Endgame post (#5) I introduced Tomas Pueyo’s idea of “the dance.” All across the US, we...
More coronavirus testing: New antigen test
Sofia antigen test by QuidelNew antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 infection A few days ago, the US FDA issued an emergency use authorization for a third category of coronavirus test. I've written previously about the RT-PCR test for coronavirus RNA indicating active...
Bats and zoonotic viruses
Image courtesy of CDC Public Health Image Library Coronaviruses and bats SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus that infected a human for the first time in the autumn of 2019. We believe this virus originated in some kind of bat because its genetic sequence is most similar to a...
What’s the deal with contact tracing?
PCR reagent test kits. Image courtesy of CDC Public Health Image Library Testing and Contact Tracing Yesterday the Sacramento Bee reported an escalation in the tension between California’s governor and the counties in the Sacramento region over loosening the pandemic...
Coronavirus on campus: The UCSD plan
Last week I posted about considerations for colleges reopening this fall in the time of coronavirus. The following email recently arrived from my son's school, the University of California-San Diego. I am so impressed by this ambitious, well-conceived plan to reopen...
The Coronavirus Endgame 5: Let the dance begin
Tomas Pueyo, Coronavirus: The hammer and the dance on Medium https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56Part 5 of 5 in a series on how the pandemic ends, and how we get there. Please share. Link to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4....
Should colleges reopen in the fall? A framework for thinking about coronavirus on campus
chensiyuan / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)This is an interruption in my Endgame series on how the pandemic ends, and how we get there. Endgame part 5 coming soon. Yesterday a friend of mine who happens to be a college dean asked for "my...
The Coronavirus Endgame 4: Guiding principles to end the lockdown
Source: CDCPart 4 of a series on how the pandemic ends, and how we get there. Please share. Link to part 1, part 2, and part 3. Ending the lockdown: Guiding principles I am a scientist. At least I identify as one. I haven’t been paid to actually do science since I...
The Coronavirus Endgame 3: Herd immunity is not an evil plot
Total deaths, daily summary, April 26. New York Health https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-archive.pagePart 3 of a series on how the pandemic ends, and how we get there. Please share. Link to part 1 and part 2. It's time to not freak out about herd...
The Coronavirus Endgame 2: Social distancing won’t save us
Image courtesy of JRo; curves not to scalePart 2 of a series on how the pandemic ends, and how we get there. Please share. Link to part 1. Why Social Distancing Won’t Save Us Six weeks ago, I wrote a blog post asking the question, is social distancing an overreaction?...
The Coronavirus Endgame: How the pandemic ends, and how we get there
MichaelMaggs / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5){Thirteen months later in May 2021, I published a final Endgame essay.} This is my longest, most challenging, and most important coronavirus series. Part 1 of 4. Please read, and please share. The...
Coronavirus and wastewater treatment
Coronavirus and Wastewater Treatment Back when I was writing a monthly science column for Inside Sacramento, I did a series of articles on wastewater treatment to answer the question, what happens after you flush? (You can read them in my book Science in the...
Origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus
Source:Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division (Central Intelligence Agency) Origin of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 I am suddenly seeing a lot more chatter and innuendo suggesting, or flat-out accusing, that SARS-CoV-2 came from a Chinese laboratory. Before you...
Fitness during quarantine: What’s your workout?
Source: National Cancer Institute. Photographer: Ernie Branson. Public domain.Fitness in the time of corona The gym is closed, yet you may have more free time than ever before, and keeping body and mind healthy has never been more important. How are you keeping fit...
NIH begins study to quantify undetected cases of coronavirus infection
NIH begins study to quantify undetected cases of coronavirus infection I've posted recently about serologic tests for coronavirus antibodies, and about the big question of how many asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections there have been. So I'm very pleased to see this...
Are silent COVID-19 infections vastly more numerous than we thought?
Bearded irises from my gardenToday is Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020. Easter is a day of hope, so I am going to talk about a hopeful possibility. It’s only a possibility, not a fully fact-based assertion. But if it is true, we might have an easier way out of this...
Coronavirus testing 3: The rapid test
ID NOW device, courtesy of Abbott press releaseRapid, point-of-care coronavirus test using isothermal amplification In this final post on coronavirus testing, I’m going to geek out on the new coronavirus rapid test. This will be more technical than my usual stuff. I...
Coronavirus testing 2: Antibody tests for immunity
Antibody structure. Source: Wikimedia Commons Coronavirus tests part 2: Serologic tests for antibodies As we grapple with the challenge of ending quarantines and resuming group interactions, a powerful tool will be serologic tests for coronavirus antibodies. In my...
Coronavirus testing: how it works, and its limitations
Source: Wikimedia Commons Coronavirus tests (part 1): Detecting viral RNA Coronavirus testing has been top of the news for weeks. As more and faster “coronavirus tests” roll out across America, another type of laboratory test related to coronavirus is entering the...
There won’t be a cure: Why are viral infections so hard to treat?
Why are viral infections so hard to treat? In today’s post I’d like to explain some of the basic biology of viruses. This will help you understand a future post about how this pandemic will end. An article that circulated on Facebook last week made a rather odd...
To face mask, or not to face mask? That is the question.
To face mask, or not to face mask? That is the question. {This post is specifically about surgical face masks, the cheap, loose-fitting, disposable kind. Surgical masks are different from N95 respirators, which should not be worn by the general public.} In the past...
The New Normal
The New Normal How are y’all doing? I’m surprised how quickly the weirdness of our days has started to feel normal. The sharpness of my initial grief and fear has blunted, leaving me with a nagging ache in my gut. I’m impressed by how my fears and concerns are driven...
A new Manhattan Project to stop the next pandemic
We need a new Manhattan Project: Biomarker testing to screen for and stop the next virus Hubby is reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, a brilliant and comprehensive history of the origin and execution of the Manhattan Project. This leads me to...
SARS-CoV-2 was not made in a lab
SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was not made in a lab Since the COVID-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, China, rumors have circulated that the virus was artificially engineered as a bioweapon. Conspiracy theorists took as evidence the existence of a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4, maximum...
Will it happen here?
Will it happen here? My husband is a physician at a university hospital in California. Today (March 24, 2020) he got word from a colleague in New York. At this person's hospital, they fear New York City may soon lead the world in COVID-19 cases. All operating rooms...
Coronavirus suppression, mitigation, and flattening the curve
Source: Imperial College COVID-19 Response TeamCoronavirus suppression, mitigation, and flattening the curve Just eleven days ago, I blogged about whether the nascent social distancing movement was an overreaction. On that day (March 12), the WHO reported a global...
What are you afraid of? Coronavirus and the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
What are you afraid of? Coronavirus and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius If you’re put off by the title of today’s post, go ahead and skip it. I’ll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled secular programming. Over the past two days I drove from Sacramento...
Sorrow in the time of corona
Everything’s cancelled, and my community is on lockdown (“shelter in place”). I know I should be happy about that. If we were all blithely going about our ordinary business, I’d be on my digital soapbox screaming: no! Be careful what you wish for, right? I’m not...
Panic vs preparation #coronavirus
Panic, or preparation? This afternoon I went to my local Trader Joe's grocery store and saw this. These particular shelves are where they stock pastas and jars of sauce. Yesterday in the checkout line at Raleys, I heard a woman mocking the people who were buying stuff...
Coronavirus: What am I supposed to do now? Social distancing for families.
Image: CDC document "Mitigation Strategies for Communities with Local COVID-19 Transmission" So what am I supposed to do now? Social distancing for families We're basically three days into the Great American Pandemic Shutdown. I feel like the initial shock is wearing...
Are the social distancing measures an overreaction?
Is America overreacting? This is the number one question people are talking about today. The context, of course, is virtually every American is now being affected with some kind of loss—loss of a favorite sports season, loss of a planned trip or social event, loss of...
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