Saturday Stories: The Election, The World Series, And The Expectations

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, predicts what the future of COVID in America will look like following a Biden or a Trump election win.

Jeff Passan, in ESPN, discusses how this year's World Series was a metaphor for 2020 America.

Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how now might be the time for us to reset our expectations of when vaccines will pull us out of this mess.

Photo By TonyTheTiger - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62897879

Saturday Stories: Respecting Uncertainty, Rapid Home Testing, And Herd Immunity

George Davey Smith, Michael Blastland, and Marcus Munafò, in the BMJ, on how when it comes to COVID, certainty is a red flag.

Amy McDermott, in PNAS, on how it'll likely be rapid home COVID testing that brings back some sense of normalcy - it can't come soon enough

Christie Aschwanden, in Nature, on the false promise of herd immunity.

Photo by By Tkarcher - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56760604

RDs! We're Hiring! Looking To Fill A Full-Time Permanent Position With My New Venture Constant Health (Telecommuters Welcome!)

Since 2004, Constant Health’s expert team has been at the forefront behavioural weight management, and now, by leveraging the best that technology has to offer, the goal is to share that expertise while eliminating geographic boundaries. Our headquarters are in Ottawa, but our team stretches across Canada from Halifax to Vancouver.

We believe that there is no one best way to lose weight, but rather that every individual has a healthiest life that they can enjoy and Constant Health is there to try to help people cultivate theirs and in so doing, help them to find their best weights.

Using the latest research into weight management, behavioural psychology, and nutrition, Constant Health’s data driven approach provides the regular feedback required both for clients to improve their weights, but also for our team to continually improve our technology.

In addition to our strong clinical team, we have a team of experienced professionals with deep expertise in mobile design, development, integration, and project delivery for iPhone, iPad and Android platforms.

If you have a passion for health, fitness, and technology we'd love to hear from you.

Job description

Constant Health, a dietitian delivered chronic disease management company that utilizes its own proprietary behavioural intervention technology tools is looking for a permanent full time dietitian to join our professional and unique team.

We are looking for an individual who loves working with people and technology, is great at multi-tasking, is a team player, thrives off of challenges and responsibility, and wants to utilize his or her skills in making a dramatic positive difference in people’s lives.

Responsibilities will include:

• Collaboration with interprofessional team members.
• One-on-one virtual counselling sessions via Constant Health’s proprietary platform to motivate and help patients live the healthiest lives they can with an emphasis on diabetes and/or weight management
• Design individualized nutrition plans based on each individuals’ unique lifestyles, and dietary likes and dislikes.
• Write for Constant Health’s different social media outlets: Website, blog, vlog, and monthly newsletter.

The skills you’ll need:

• Exceptionally strong motivational counselling skills.
• Must have excellent listening skills, empathetic and sensitive to patient’s needs. We do not ever utilize negative reinforcement in our counselling.
• Able to adapt nutrition advice to recent scientific research with thoughtful critical appraisal and for a wide variety of diets – from keto and intermittent fasting, to balanced deficits, to plant-based whole foods, to everything in between, because at Constant Health we recognize that the key to long term success is actually enjoying your chosen diet.
• Must be innovative and give patients realistic and helpful nutrition advice.
• Positive and non-restrictive approach to weight management.
• Comfortable giving presentations.
• Possess sound professional judgment, initiative and enthusiasm.
• Good time management skills and ability to organize.
• Excellent computer skills, and comfort with social media
• Strong cooking skills.

The requirements we’re looking for:

• Minimum one year of clinical experience
• Registered Dietitian
• Member of the College of Dietitians of Ontario and in good standing (or willingness and ability to join).
• Master level clinicians and/or Certified Diabetes Educators are preferred, although not required.
• Previous experience working in weight management and diabetes care is an asset.

Because we are looking for the best candidate our wages are highly competitive with those in the community ($59K - 70K/year depending on qualifications) and after the 3 month probation period, medical and dental benefits are part of our package.

Interested candidates can send along their CV to careers @ constanthealth.ca

We look forward to hearing from and meeting with you.

Saturday Stories: The Scamedemic, The "Great" Barrington Declaration, Sweden, And The John Snow Memorandum

 

Tony Scott, in SFGate, on how he used to call it the 'scamedemic'. He doesn't anymore. 

Marc Lipsitch, Gregg Gonsalves, Carlos del Rio, and Rochelle P. Walensky, in The Washington Post, on the why the so-called Great Barrington Declaration is far from well named.

Kelly Bjorklund and Andrew Ewing, in Time, cover the disastrous truths of COVID in Sweden.

And as a response to renewed interest in herd immunity and that Great Barrington Declaration comes a competing declaration, the John Snow Memorandum, which explains why herd immunity strategies are dangerous and why, and unlike the Barrington document, does not include the signatures of Dr. Person Fakename, Professor Notaf Uckingclu, Dr. Johnny Fartpants, Dr. Very Dodgy Doctor, Dr. Brian Blessed Doctor in Winged Flight (truly, they are actual Barrington signatories)

Saturday Stories: Vitamin D, The New England Journal of Medicine, Toxic Masculinity, And Super-Spreading

Gid M-K, in Medium, tells us what we do and don't know about Vitamin D and COVID

The Editors of and in The New England Journal of Medicine, on with paragraphs of fire regarding the coming American election.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how toxic masculinity is insufficient as a COVID treatment

Zeynep Tufekci, in The Atlantic, on super-spreading.

Saturday Stories: Vaccine Chaos And What Did You Expect?

Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, on why vaccine chaos may be looming

David Frum, also in The Atlantic, asks, what did you expect?

Saturday Stories: Vaccine Collaboration, Racism and COVID Coverage, and Nonsensical Athletes

Julia Belluz, in Vox, on the 156 countries teaming up on a COVID vaccine (without the US and China).

Indi Samarajiva, in Medium, on the overwhelming racism of COVID media coverage.

Karim Abdul-Jabbar, in the Los Angeles Times, on athletes, COVID, and nonsense

Saturday Stories: Considering Risk and Great Fences

Aaron E. Carroll, in The New York Times, with a useful read on how most of us have been considering and responding to risk backwards.

Tomás Pueyo, also in The New York Times, on the need for great fences.

Photo: Ongayo / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Saturday Stories: COVID Winter, Circular Errors, Mutations, And Obesity

Irfan Dhalla, in The Globe and Mail, on COVID and the rapidly approaching Canadian winter.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the recurrent errors being made that hamper progress on COVID.

Edward Holmes, in The New York Times, covers the mutating SARS-CoV2 virus and why we needn't be worried (yet).

And in case you missed it, I had the chance to chat with some friends from McGill's Science in Society division about COVID, obesity, moral panics, and more:

Mark Earnest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, on becoming a plague doctor.

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on why herd immunity isn't a strategy.

Jesmyn Ward, in Vanity Fair, on losing her husband to COVID. 

Jon Cohen, in Science, interviews Moncef Slaoui, the head of operation Warp Speed who says he'll quit if politics trump science on vaccine safety and distribution.

Saturday Stories: Racist Pulse Oximeters, Convalescent Plasma Politics, Rapid Testing, And Immunity

Amy Moran-Thomas, in Boston Review, on how pulse oximeters, integral to the care of a COVID19 patient, encode systemic racism.

Craig Spencer, in The Atlantic, discusses convalescent plasma politics from his very unique vantage point as both a New York ER physician, and as someone who received convalescent plasma (to treat Ebola) as an experimental treatment.

Katherine Harmon Courage, in Vox, with the lowdown on how inexpensive rapid testing might bring back a semblance of normal sooner than vaccines.

Helen Branswell, in Stat, with 4 different types of immunity and their ramifications.

Saturday Stories: 7 Months In, Magical Thinking, Long Haulers, And Weighing Kids In School

Andrew Joseph, Helen Branswell, and Elizabeth Cooney, in STAT, review all that we currently know about COVID-19 and the pressing questions that remain

Gregg Gonsalves, in The Nation, on the mortal need to resist magical thinking.

Ed Yong (god he's fantastic), in The Atlantic (who can't be paying him enough), on the need to understand the COVID long haulers to truly understand the pandemic.

Me, in Medscape, on why I think it's an incredibly awful idea to weigh kids in schools (as is the plan in the UK) to track their COVID gains.

Saturday Stories: Kids And School, The Immune System, Russian Vaccines, And Sharpies

Zoë Hyde, in a pre-print in The Medical Journal of Australia, with a review article covering what we do and don't know about the risks of kids, COVID, and school.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with what we do and don't know about our immune systems and COVID.

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, in The Guardian, with what we do and don't know about the new Russian COVID vaccine.

Jen Coleman, in McSweeney's, writes about Sharpies (don't miss this one)

Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven't Yet

Ed Yong, in the Atlantic, with the sadly all too believable (yet still unbelievable) story of how SARS-CoV2 defeated America

Canada's Obesity In Adults: A Clinical Practice Guideline, Released Today, A Huge Step Forward

I'm proud to have played a small part in the release of today's Obesity In Adults: A Clinical Practice Guideline as it is the first (I think, though I'm biased) to truly take a patient-centred approach while simultaneously treating obesity like a chronic disease

Not a small endeavour, this years long effort includes chapters never before seen in any other obesity treatment guideline including those on weight bias and stigma, virtual medicine, commercial weight loss programs, living with obesity, as well as issues specific to indigenous peoples.

It explicitly steers away from diet culture (but does speak to the need for individualized medical nutrition therapy), teaches readers that neither BMI nor weight measures the presence or absence of health and introduces them to the concept that obesity should be considered a chronic disease only when excess adiposity impairs health, and it recognizes that obesity is anything but a choice.

While going through the entirety of the guideline isn't doable in a short blog post, here are the guideline's overarching summary points:

• Obesity is a prevalent, complex, progressive and relapsing chronic disease, characterized by abnormal or excessive body fat (adiposity), that impairs health.
• People living with obesity face substantial bias and stigma, which contribute to increased morbidity and mortality independent of weight or body mass index.
• This guideline update reflects substantial advances in the epidemiology, determinants, pathophysiology, assessment, prevention and treatment of obesity, and shifts the focus of obesity management toward improving patient-centred health outcomes, rather than weight loss alone.
• Obesity care should be based on evidence-based principles of chronic disease management, must validate patients’ lived experiences, move beyond simplistic approaches of “eat less, move more,” and address the root drivers of obesity.
• People living with obesity should have access to evidence-informed interventions, including medical nutrition therapy, physical activity, psychological interventions, pharmacotherapy and surgery.

Kudos to all of my fellow authors and especially to Dr. Sean Wharton the project's chief cat wrangler.

To have a peek at the CMAJ's published guideline summary, click here.

To access the guideline in its 19 chapter entirety, click here.

Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation

Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, with a vaccine reality check.

Grant Robertson, in The Globe and Mail, on how Canada's pandemic early warning system failed with COVID19.

Zeynep Tufecki, in The Atlantic, wonders why we're not talking more about ventilation

Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects

Dr. Anna DeForest

John Woodrow Cox, in the Washington Post, with a heartbreaking story about 3 coronavirus orphans.

Anna DeForest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, with what I would describe as an absolutely must read piece highlighting the crushing devastation COVID is wreaking on front-line physicians.

Maggie Koerth, in Five Thirty Eight, explains how every decision is a risk, and how every risk is a decision.

Hilda Bastian, in Wired, explains why there needs to be frank transparency around any possible COVID19 side effects even if they're minor.

Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, with an explainer on how herd immunity might only require 20% of us to be immune (whether by vaccine or infection) if we are diligent with our behaviours.

Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, on how the rush to open bars before schools threatens our kids' education.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, considers what might happen were we to be facing another pandemic before we've figured out how to deal with COVID

Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how to fix the American dumpster fire that is their response to COVID to date.

U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Levi Riendeau / Public domain

Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools

Apoorva Mandavilli, in The New York Times, with a discussion on whether or not SARS-CoV2 is airborne and what that actually means.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, covers the toll COVID19 has had on the "not ok" experts covering, studying, and managing it.

Peter S. Goodman, in The New York Times, with the cautionary lesson from Sweden that it's the virus, not quarantines, that devastate the economy.


Bill Gardner, in the Incidental Economist, with his (first on this topic) blog post highlighting the realities he's facing after being diagnosed with cancer, in Canada, during the time of COVID.

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Gretchen Vogel, and Meagan Weiland, in Science, summarize the a bit all over the place data on reopening schools around the globe

Photo by Alex Valavanis / CC BY-SA

Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments

Stuart Richie, in Unherd, reminds us why there should be no such thing as science heroes.

Wency Leung, in The Globe and Mail, discusses her decision to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger and reflects on selflessness in the time of COVID

Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, on the phenomenon of COVID19 super spreaders.

Hilda Bastian, in her blog Absolutely Maybe, brings us up to date on all the developments in the race to the first COVID19 vaccine.

Sarah Cohodes, on Twitter (and you don't need an account to read), with a terrific thread on considerations around school reopening.