CNN: What we can learn from 1918’s deadly second wave. “The 1918 pandemic transpired in three waves, from the spring of 1918 to the winter of 1919 — ultimately killing 50 million to 100 million people globally. The first wave in the spring of 1918 was relatively mild. A majority of 1918 flu deaths occurred in the fall of 1918 — the second, and worst, wave of the 1918 flu.”
New York Times: The Mask Slackers of 1918. “More than a century ago, as the 1918 influenza pandemic raged in the United States, masks of gauze and cheesecloth became the facial front lines in the battle against the virus. But as they have now, the masks also stoked political division. Then, as now, medical authorities urged the wearing of masks to help slow the spread of disease. And then, as now, some people resisted. In 1918 and 1919, as bars, saloons, restaurants, theaters and schools were closed, masks became a scapegoat, a symbol of government overreach, inspiring protests, petitions and defiant bare-face gatherings. All the while, thousands of Americans were dying in a deadly pandemic.”
Untapped New York: The Anti-Mask League of 1919: The Cultural Battle of an Enduring Pandemic. “Before discussing the actions of the anti-mask league, it is critical to remember just how widespread and deadly the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was. The flu infected 500 million people around the world, 27% of the world’s population, and killed anywhere from 17 million to 50 million people. In New York City, 33,000 residents died — with 65% of the deaths occurring in the second wave. In the first year of the pandemic, the average life expectancy in the United States dropped by a staggering 12 years.”
Washington Post: Coronavirus cases rose by nearly 50 percent last month, led by states that reopened first. “Coronavirus infections in the United States surged nearly 50 percent in June as states relaxed quarantine rules and tried to reopen their economies, data compiled Wednesday showed, and several states moved to reimpose restrictions on bars and recreation. More than 800,000 new cases were reported across the country last month, led by Florida, Arizona, Texas and California — bringing the nation’s officially reported total to just over 2.6 million, according to data compiled by The Washington Post.”
Guelph Now: Researchers Develop New Method Of Analyzing Social Media Data To Identify Potential Disease Outbreaks. “A new method to analyze social media data could help predict future outbreaks of diseases and viruses like COVID-19 and the measles. In a new study, researchers from the University of Waterloo examined computer simulations to develop a new method of analyzing interactions on social media that can predict when a disease outbreak is likely.”
Straits Times: Coronavirus lockdowns may be driving another virus wave: Dengue fever. “Getting people to hunker down at home has helped stem the coronavirus pandemic, but in parts of South-east Asia, it’s spurred another potentially deadly disease: dengue. The mosquito-borne viral illness, sometimes known as break-bone fever because of the joint-pain it inflicts, has skyrocketed in the tropical region just as the usual dengue-spreading season begins.”
New York Times: Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases. “This spring, after the World Health Organization and UNICEF warned that the pandemic could spread swiftly when children gathered for shots, many countries suspended their inoculation programs. Even in countries that tried to keep them going, cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted by the pandemic and health workers diverted to fight it. Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.”
Washington Post: Shutdowns prevented 60 million coronavirus infections in the U.S., study finds. “Shutdown orders prevented about 60 million novel coronavirus infections in the United States and 285 million in China, according to a research study published Monday that examined how stay-at-home orders and other restrictions limited the spread of the contagion. A separate study from epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated that the shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives in 11 European countries, including 500,000 in the United Kingdom, and dropped infection rates by an average of 82 percent, sufficient to drive the contagion well below epidemic levels.”
New York Times: Travel From New York City Seeded Wave of U.S. Outbreaks. “New York City’s coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that the city became the primary source of new infections in the United States, new research reveals, as thousands of infected people traveled from the city and seeded outbreaks around the country. The research indicates that a wave of infections swept from New York City through much of the country before the city began setting social distancing limits to stop the growth. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast.”
Washington Post: 34 days of pandemic: Inside Trump’s desperate attempts to reopen America. “The epidemiological models under review in the White House Situation Room in late March were bracing. In a best-case scenario, they showed the novel coronavirus was likely to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans. President Trump was apprehensive about so much carnage on his watch, yet also impatient to reopen the economy — and he wanted data to justify doing so. So the White House considered its own analysis. A small team led by Kevin Hassett — a former chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers with no background in infectious diseases — quietly built an econometric model to guide response operations. Many White House aides interpreted the analysis as predicting that the daily death count would peak in mid-April before dropping off substantially, and that there would be far fewer fatalities than initially foreseen, according to […]
WUWM: 40 Coronavirus Cases In Milwaukee County Linked To Wisconsin Election, Health Official Says. “Forty people in Milwaukee County may have become infected with the coronavirus as a result of participating in Wisconsin elections on April 7. Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik says data is still being analyzed to show the connection between more people that may have contracted COVID-19 due to election activities, like being a poll worker or voting in person, earlier this month. Kowalik hopes the data will be finalized by May 1.”
Washington Post: The pandemic at sea. “A Post review of cruise line statements, government announcements and media reports found that the coronavirus infected passengers and crew on at least 55 ships that sailed in the waters off nearly every continent, about a fifth of the total global fleet. The industry’s decision to keep sailing for weeks after the coronavirus was first detected in early February on a cruise ship off the coast of Japan, despite the efforts by top U.S. health officials to curtail voyages, was among a number of decisions that health experts and passengers say contributed to the mounting toll.”
Wired: An Oral History of the Day Everything Changed. “Every hour seemed to bring major new developments: On Wall Street, after days of huge up-and-down gyrations, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,465 points and officially entered bear territory; Capitol Hill faced its first confirmed Covid-19 case; the NCAA announced it would play its basketball tournament without fans; and then, in rapid-fire succession that evening, President Trump gave an Oval Office address, announcing a travel ban from Europe, the NBA suspended its season after player Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus, and Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita, posted on Instagram that they too had been diagnosed while in Australia and were recuperating. By Thursday, the national landscape had been undeniably altered, and Americans were panic-buying toilet paper.”
Vox: The case for ending the Covid-19 pandemic with mass testing. “Vox’s Ezra Klein has gone through some of the major proposals from several think tanks and researchers mapping the routes out of the pandemic. All of them involve testing huge numbers of people. One of the lower-end benchmarks estimates the US will need 750,000 tests per week. The high-end proposal, from Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer, starts at 22 million tests per day and goes up. And not just one test per person, but repeated testing over time. Test millions. Test early. Test late. Test over and over. Test until the whole damn pandemic is over.”
Reuters: Special Report: HHS chief Azar had aide, former dog breeder, steer pandemic task force. “As is now widely known, two agencies [Alex] Azar oversaw as HHS secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, wouldn’t come up with viable tests for five and half weeks, even as other countries and the World Health Organization had already prepared their own. Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years.”
