onfocus

"'This year, what's happening is off the scale,' he said. 'There's been a new billionaire created almost every day during this pandemic, meanwhile 99% of the world's population are worse off because of lockdowns, lower international trade, less international tourism, and as a result of that, 160 million more people have been pushed into poverty.'"

Awful dynamic alert: the pandemic has been very positive for a select group of individuals who have enormous influence over how our society works.

"Simple, dependable architectures such as the one covidtests.gov seems to employ are proven at scale. This affords agencies the space to focus on improved user experience and service delivery, rather than consuming large resources keeping sites up and running. This takes operational experience and know-how, though; even with the use of managed services, composing a full, end-to-end digital service experience takes skill."

The free covid tests site is powered by standard AWS components. And it seemed to hold up well under pressure, nice work USPS.

“These compounds can be taken orally and have a long history of safe use in humans,” van Breemen said. “They have the potential to prevent as well as treat infection by SARS-CoV-2. CBDA and CBGA are produced by the hemp plant as precursors to CBD and CBG, which are familiar to many consumers. However, they are different from the acids and are not contained in hemp products.”

Hemp products produced in a slightly different way might help fight covid. I learned to fight covid watching you!

"We could have sent hazard pay to teachers and others working on the front lines. We could be offering paid leave to parents who need time off with kids home. We could have made upgrading ventilation in schools a requirement for reopening. We could be sending pallets of tests and piles of KN95s to schools across the country. But we've done none of that, instead we've followed the indelible pattern of the American pandemic response: indifference and inaction."

Vaccines were the only plan. Grateful for those but there was so much more we could have done.

"Schools are open because jobs are open because the economy must be fed. And people defend it. Like they’re people who know they’re in the Matrix and they defend it."

Yes, this is what it feels like right now to watch the daily covid numbers spike and see no requests to change behavior from the institutions in charge of public health.

"Already, this surge is pushing their hospitals to the edge. And this is just the beginning. Hospitalizations always lag behind cases by about two weeks, so we’re only starting to see the effects of daily case counts that have tripled in the past 14 days (and are almost certainly underestimates)."

Another important update from Ed Yong. It's worth changing our behavior again to limit covid spread so we can keep our health care system working.

"Last week, Pfizer released updated results that showed the treatment cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% if given to high-risk adults within a few days of their first symptoms. If given within the first five days of symptoms, the efficacy was similar: 88%."

A pill is a lot easier for people to swallow (so to speak) so I hope this ramps up quickly as an option.

“If your job does not require you to be in the office in order to do it, please work from elsewhere,” Mr. Zucker said in the memo.

Getting March 2020 vibes from the news.

"I’ve tried to consider how my actions cascade to affect those with less privilege, immune or otherwise. Instead of asking “What’s my risk?,” I’ve tried to ask “What’s my contribution to everyone’s risk?” I’ve done things that personally inconvenience me to avoid contributing to the much greater societal inconvenience of, say, a collapsed health-care system."

Ed Yong on being thoughtful about risk in a pandemic.

"In my “free time”, I write this blog. It started in March 2020 when my Dean asked me to update students, faculty, and staff on the developments of the pandemic. In 19 months, it’s grown to an audience of 350,000 people and reached over 106,000,000 people in 166 countries."

I don’t think I’ve mentioned YLE here before but you should subscribe! She translates the latest covid science for a general audience. It’s always extremely helpful.

"The various measures that controlled the spread of other variants—masks, better ventilation, contact tracing, quarantine, and restrictions on gatherings—should all theoretically work for Omicron too. But the U.S. has either failed to invest in these tools or has actively made it harder to use them."

Bracing for Omicron. Friendly reminder to schedule a booster shot if you haven’t already.

"Within hours of formal approval, expected after the Food and Drug Administration signs off and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel meeting scheduled for Nov. 2-3, doses will begin shipping to providers across the country, along with smaller needles necessary for injecting young kids, and within days will be ready to go into the arms of kids on a wide scale."

Finally. This will be a huge relief.