What's a variant between friends? It seems that the British variant is about to become the dominant covid strain in the US. The scientists and doctors have been predicting this for over a month, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. There is another new variant that we should hope does not cross the ocean though in all likelihood it already has. A variant recently found in France does not appear to be more contagious or deadlier than any of the other variants, but it could be harder to detect with traditional testing. It may take multiple tests to tell if you really have covid-19 giving you all the more time to spread it to friends, family, and strangers on the street.
In terms of knowing whether one has gotten covid-19 from friends, families, or strangers on the street, data from the Red Cross suggest that one in five blood donations from unvaccinated people have covid-19 antibodies, meaning that those donors were, somewhere along the time line, infected. We knew we were undercounting things; this may give an idea of by just how much.
As for vaccines, Sweden and Latvia have joined the nations suspending use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. I have not seen mentioned whether the nations suspending the use of one vaccine have another one to use in the meantime. I hope so, because otherwise they're looking at a major interruption. One positive about our use of three vaccines is that problems with one of a non-supply-chain nature should not slow the administration of the others.
The New York Times yesterday ran a list of 14 lessons we can take from this pandemic to the next one. The lessons as stated below are straight from the Times; any thoughts following are my own. They are probably not that erudite, but thinking about them exercised a bit of grey matter.
1) Prepare for what we can't imagine. Dr. Fauci said in a pre-pandemic interview that the thing that kept him awake at night, worrying, was a respiratory virus of an aerosol nature. That a lot of what we got with this novel coronavirus. But at one point, it was thought that the virus was transmissible through touch, an idea later ruled out. But what if we had a virus that could spread by touch as well as in the air. What if a disease--viral or bacterial--spread both ways? Maybe we need to take our most fearsome fears and consider how we would react to that sort of disease. We can't start by assuming the coming disease presents itself as the current one has.
2) Put science first. Well, duh, I say, but then I'm the daughter of a biology teacher married to a physics prof and mother to two science-inclined kids. Let's not assume that a disease that presents one way the first day will always present that way. Perhaps something about the host of a virus influences how it spreads or to whom it spreads. We may need to react quickly to stop the spread or treat the symptoms, but that doesn't mean doing so with no basis in fact.
3) Figure out who gets priority treatment. This seems hard to do at the outset. It seemed clear fairly early on that the elderly were at particular risk from the coronavirus. But what if it's not clear who is more vulnerable or why? As evidence is collected, it needs to be considered in real time as much as possible. This may also tie into resource allocation as well. There were people last spring who actually suggested the elderly should let themselves succumb to covid to free up time and care for younger people with more potential for the future. Should the most vulnerable group be the first treated?
4) Don't leave it up to the states. I've touched on this a couple of times here. A lot of what hasn't worked in the current pandemic might have been avoided if all the states were dealing with things in the same manner. The bars should not be closed in one city but open in the city across the state boundary river. The national sports leagues don't let each team handle things in their own way. The central offices mandate the pandemic procedures all the teams must follow.
5) Stop the mixed messaging. This could be difficult because messages may need to be delivered as knowledge about the pandemic agent is being gathered and assessed. The public probably needs to be reminded more than once that the situation is dynamic and the knowledge base of the virus in question is being built as the pandemic picks up speed.
6) Invest in the numbers. Pandemic models have changed along the way, but that's what models do. We need to make sure we have the technological resources needed by those developing the models or determining what should be included or not in those models.
7) Be nimble in providing treatment. The lessons learned from testing and vaccinating during this pandemic should be used in the next one. How should a schedule involving multiple and different recipient groups be structured? Be ready to change to deal with issues that arise along the way.
8) Don't let race and class determine who lives and dies. Well, duh. This should not be an issue but evidence suggests it probably will be.
9) Don't be ageist. See above.
10) Communities need to prepare, too. It may be best to control things at a national rather than state level, but the treatment or prevention will likely be administered at the community level. Make sure that the localities have the necessary resources to do what they need to do.
11) Stop with the fringe treatments. See 2) above. We should be past the "it worked for my brother" stage here. If there's no valid reason to think that something might work, don't waste time and money looking into it.
12) Let teenagers be teenagers. This one is hard to think about in general terms. Is this in relation to teenagers having to work or do child care because of family situations during the pandemic. If parents have lost jobs, should the teenagers in a family not be able to work and help out? I have a hard time thinking of this one in a broad sense.
13) The China problem. Let's not waste time and effort trying to establish blame for the source of a virus. By all means look into the source if that information is needed in terms of treatment or future prevention. While it might be convenient to refer to a virus using the name of a place of origin, it's probably possible to come up with a neutral name that is just as good.
14) Look into the mirror and see who we are. This seems worth doing apart from any pandemic, and here I admit to going back to the Times article to see how they used it:
"This pandemic has shown us who we are, at a level of clarity that is shocking to most people. It’s hard to imagine there are that many people in our country who really don’t care about others. That is the scariest thing, it takes your breath away and you can diagnose everything else that is happening in our society through that lens. That you could tolerate 500,000 deaths in less than a year is incomprehensible to me, that we are a nation that is so callous."
Let's hope we can take this last one to heart before it comes back to bite us in the next pandemic.
2 comments:
Put science first because science will save us all.
Or at least it will try but I despair at the lack of evidence based thinking I see. No, let's lead with a knee jerk reaction every time. I'll take my AZ vaccine now please if there's some spare because the incidence of blood clotting is no greater than in the people who had Pfizer or in fact than in the people that didn't have a vaccine at all. Some vaccinated people will have been hit by a bus today but it didn't mean that the vaccine caused it. Have we all become frightened of numbers or just frightened? Maybe it's accountants and actuaries that will save us all.
I'm at the stage where I wake up angry and just keep on going. Can you tell? I need a holiday and to be living in a country where we have the right to protest.
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