onfocus

"If we lift the restrictions and risk rising cases again without being prepared in our hospitals, we have the potential to expose our doctors and nurses to the same thing that they’re going through now—which is basically a crisis. In many places, they’re not well protected or they’re running out of equipment. So we need to make sure that the supply-chain problems have been sorted out before we begin to experiment with lifting social distancing."

This is a Johns Hopkins health security expert on how we get to less physical distancing. And on wearing masks:

"This is an unprecedented epidemic, and we should be leaning toward doing things even if we’re unsure of their full benefit. If the downside is perceived to be low, and there’s demand for an additional preventative benefit, I think we should do it."

We have a ways to go.

Improvised filters with household materials. Short answer: pillowcases and t-shirts work best.

"By the end of the month, wearing a face mask should be like wearing a shirt—a routine social behavior that is expected of everyone and gets you weird looks if you don't do it."

Yes, time for masks! I just made my first mask today and I can barely sew.

Tests to detect antibodies will also be able to identify those who have had infections in the past and may now be immune. In the short term, this will be important because it will permit the authorities to identify who may return to their jobs without risk of infecting others.

This is good news.

"With an immunization specifically targeted against the pandemic-causing Covid-19 disease at least a year away, the World Health Organization says it’s important to know whether the BCG vaccine can reduce disease in those infected with the coronavirus, and is encouraging international groups to collaborate with a study led by Nigel Curtis, head of infectious diseases research, at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne."

Encouraging research.

"The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated."

If you haven’t read this one yet it’s worth your time. The Atlantic has consistently had the best reporting and thinking about this from the beginning.

"Illustrators and designers know the power of good design to communicate a message or a feeling or an idea," Morris explained. Right now everything is changing so fast, and there is so much uncertainty and so much information flying around, I think everyone is really hungry for clarity and understanding.

I've seen these illustrations all over social media but it didn't register they were by the same team: cartoonist Toby Morris and microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles. These are great!

“But bringing the economy back ... that’s more of a reversible thing than bringing people back to life. So we’re going to take the pain in the economic dimension — huge pain — in order to minimize the pain in the diseases-and-death dimension.”

This is the sane way to look at our current situation.

I’ve been wondering if I should get takeout or not so I really appreciate this guide that Serious Eats put together:

Are we sure food isn’t a vector of COVID-19 transmission?

No, we don't know for sure. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that food is not a vector. The epidemiology of food-borne pathogens is well studied, with government data going back to 1938. The spread pattern of COVID-19 does not fit models of foodborne outbreaks, which are defined as two or more people getting sick from the same contaminated food or drink.

They have many disclaimers because there’s a lot we don’t know, but they’re showing their reasoning and sources here.

"By slowing it down or flattening it, we're not going to decrease the total number of cases, we're going to postpone many cases, until we get a vaccine—which we will, because there's nothing in the virology that makes me frightened that we won’t get a vaccine in 12 to 18 months. Eventually, we will get to the epidemiologist gold ring."

I also want to believe that we'll find a vaccine.

"We can create a third path. We can decide to meet this challenge head-on. It is absolutely within our capacity to do so. We could develop tests that are fast, reliable, and ubiquitous. If we screen everyone, and do so regularly, we can let most people return to a more normal life. We can reopen schools and places where people gather. If we can be assured that the people who congregate aren’t infectious, they can socialize."

Can we build up this kind of testing infrastructure in the next few months? I want to believe but we're struggling to find masks right now.

"According to Keogh, the speed at which this project went from idea to being tested by health authorities highlights the power of open-source as a way to solve hardware problems. “It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn’t matter what your skillset is, what time zone you're in, if you can contribute in a group to these large scale projects, you can have very high-impact results in a very short amount of time,” he says."

I feel like we should all be working on things like this right now.