Tag: covid

COVID-19 viral loads

the more virus you had at the start, the more likely you were to die: viral loads in nasopharyngeal swabs from a group of patients with severe COVID-19 were 60x higher, on average, than the loads among patients with a mild form of the disease.

BCG & COVID-19

We found that countries without universal policies of BCG vaccination (Italy, Nederland, USA) have been more severely affected compared to countries with universal and long-standing BCG policies.

COVID-19 Designs

we’ll see lots of innovation like this. See also the design differences between quickly-evolving face shields:

Face shield donations are coming fast and furious these days. Ford, Apple, Prusa Research and Foster + Partners are just a few of the organizations pitching in with different designs, which have by necessity evolved rather quickly. Let’s look at the design changes.

First off, what’s needed with a face shield is a curved, transparent sheet that stands off of the face. All designs accomplish this by incorporating a forehead band that serves as both a spacer and, in concert with an elastic band, the thing that holds it onto the user’s head.

Speaking of face masks, too many people are still confused about masks, but these look awesome. And then there’s this personal protective suit. It includes in-suit booze and vaping supply systems, speakers and more. very dystopian cool

Or how about design changes for elevators:

Automatic UV Disinfecting When Cars are Empty

Respirator Design Reuse

To go as fast as possible, the Ford and 3M teams have been resourcefully locating off-the-shelf parts like fans from the Ford F-150’s cooled seats for airflow, 3M HEPA air filters to filter airborne contaminants such as droplets that carry virus particles and portable tool battery packs to power these respirators for up to 8 hours.

Another idea is to reprogram smart CPAP machines to become emergency ventilators. Millions of snorers might save us.

USPS Disaster logistics

the Postal Service is the only government agency with the built-in staff and logistical capacity to knock on every residential door in a given community in 1 day, a task that by definition its 600K employees perform in most cities and towns in the country 6 days a week.

For COVID-19 surveillance

I am a privacy activist who has been riding a variety of high horses about the dangers of permanent, ubiquitous data collection since 2012. I believe the major players in the online tracking space should team up with the CDC, FEMA, or some other Federal agency that has a narrow remit around public health, and build a national tracking database that will operate for some fixed amount of time, with the sole purpose of containing the coronavirus epidemic. It will be necessary to pass legislation to loosen medical privacy laws and indemnify participating companies from privacy lawsuits, as well as override California’s privacy law, to collect this data. I don’t believe the legal obstacles are insuperable, but I welcome correction on this point by people who know the relevant law.

this guy is super super tedious, but he raises valid questions this time.

USACE & Covid-19

Creating that kind of capacity in a matter of weeks in unlike anything the Army Corps of Engineers has ever done before. It’s also exactly what the Corps was built to do.

Against DPA

Many people are calling for the President to use the Defense Productions Act (DPA) but the reality is that the DPA is neither especially useful nor necessary. The markets are already redirecting resources in a rapid and sophisticated manner.

Borrowing from the Fed

If the Fed wants money to go to businesses quickly, it might have to bypass the banks and just give the businesses money directly.

COVID-19 Testing

Pooling is good:

If we look at this from the view of whole-population biosurveillance after the outbreak period is over and we have a 0.1% base infection rate, pools of 32 samples have an expected number of tests per person at 0.0628 or a 15.9x multiple on throughput/cost reduction.

Not even people dying left and right causes organizations to abandon the rules. Third world processes: Because of privacy concerns, the company’s call center does not leave voice messages. Its operators call back only 2x before moving to the next patient.
There’s also a lot of wishful thinking about serology tests:

There is no “serology test” – there are millions of possible serology tests, which need to be carefully compared and characterized to select ones that do more than just show you if some antibody against the virus is present. Reliable titres are going to be essential in the next phase of understanding this new viral infection – identifying who has protective immunity.

FDA delenda est

An innovative testing program in the Seattle area — promoted by the billionaire Bill Gates and local public health officials as a way of conducting wider surveillance on the invisible spread of the virus — has been ordered by the federal government to stop its work pending additional reviews.

Frequent, fast, and cheap is better than sensitive:

when you compare testing regimes it’s hard to come up with a scenario in which infrequent, slow, and expensive but very sensitive is better than frequent, fast, and cheap but less sensitive

Bill Gates is not impressed:

The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing And they will fix it overnight.