Saturday Stories: Must Read Open Letter

Too many medical organizations to list pen an open letter to President Biden illustrating what care is like in hospitals that are beyond capacity. Same issues here in Canada, and if you're not in healthcare, you should absolutely take the time to read to understand what your care might be like if you need it.

Also, it's still Movember! If you'd like to donate to my fundraising efforts, you can do so here! 

Finally, I may start a slow transition over to Substack. Blogger (this plaftorm) is very clunky and I'd be surprised if there was much if any work being done to maintain or improve upon it. You can find me on substack at Going great! Let's do nothing!  For the next little bit, I'll mirror on both, and if I find it's easier to maintain over there, I'll let you know. 

Saturday Stories: Milder COVID?, and COVID consensus

Mun-Keat Looi,  Elisabeth Mahase, in the BMJ, ask is COVID is getting milder (spoiler, no) 

A collection of scientists from around the world, in Nature, publish a multinational Delphi consensus to end the COVID-19 public health threat (spoiler, we know what we need to do, we're just not doing it)

Also, it's that time of year again. If you find my posts (here or on social media) in any way helpful, please consider donating to my Movember efforts (this year I'm trying to channel my inner Simon from The Walking Dead as that seems apropos)

Saturday Stories: The Subvariants and Racial Inequity

Steven Novella, in Science Based Medicine, on the coming subvariants

Marina Del Rios, Nathan T. Chomilo and Neil A. Lewis, Jr., in STAT, on the racial inequities of our COVID response.

Saturday Stories: Death Eaters And Unfollowed Advice

Gregg Gonsalves, in The Nation, with his call to rescue public health from the death eaters of neutrality. 

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, David Michaels, Rick Bright and Michael T. Osterholm, in the New York Times, on the unheeded advice they provided President Biden as members of his COVID advisory board regarding the pandemic. 

Saturday Stories: I Want My Far-UV, Japan, And Long COVID Doc Testimony

Chris Baraniuk, in the Atlantic, on the promise that are far-UV lamps for this and all future pandemics and airborne pathogens. They can't come fast enough. 

Philip Schellekens, in pandemic, on the difference in approaches between the G7 countries with the highest (US) and lowest (Japan) COVID death rates.

Tara De Boer, in Macleans, interviews Dr. Angela Cheung on her experiences working in one of Canada's new long COVID clinics

Saturday Stories: Nihilism, Warning Signs, and Mass Infections

Nate Holdren, in Bill of Health, on Pandemic Nihilism, Social Murder, and the Banality of Evil

Katherine Wu, in The Atlantic, on our upcoming "post-pandemic" winter.

Jonathan Howard, in Science Based Medicine, on the ethics of the mass infection of unvaccinated young people.

Saturday Stories: Clean Air, History Repeating, and Joe Lunn

Nina Notman, in Chemistry World, on whether we can clean our indoor air.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with a must read piece on how our failure on COVID means this is all certain to happen again. Ed reported on Twitter that he'll be taking a 6 month hiatus. His voice will be dearly missed.

Heather Kitching, for CBC News, tells us the tragic tale of Joe Lunn, the heart transplant recipient who spoke out with his fear that he would die consequent to the province abandoning even the most basic of protections, who died of COVID.

Saturday Stories: Hubris, Value, and The New Boosters

Andrew Nikiforuk, in The Tyee, on what led one fit COVID minimizing immunologist to drop his hubris (spoiler, it was post COVID congestive heart failure)

Alicia Puglionesi, in The Yale Review, on whose deaths we value.

Edward Nirenberg, in Deplatform Disease, with what we do and don't know about the new COVID booster shots.

Saturday Stories: Brain Fog, Dingbats, and Failures

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with a tremendous piece on COVID brain fog.

Jonathan Jarry, in McGill's Office for Science and Society, explores Eric Feigl-Ding's monetized alarmism.

Jefferey D. Sachs and more professors than I can list, in The Lancet, present The Lancet's commission findings detailing the ways the world has failed its pandemic response and suggestions moving forward.

Saturday Stories: Unmasked Doctors, and COVID orphans

Megan Molteni, in STAT, on unmasked doctors infecting their vulnerable patients.

Susan Hillis, Joel-Pascal, Ntwali N’konzi, and William Msemburi, in JAMA, on the 10.5 million children who have experienced orphanhood and.caregiver loss consequent to just a cold

Saturday Story: Post-COVID Illness

Sarah Neville, in The Financial Times, on the post-COVID tsunami of illness we may well face as a consequence of letting it rip.

Saturday Story: The Doctors Who Have Declared The Pandemic Over, Over And Over Again, And Meeting People Where They Are

March 11th, 2021

Jonathan Howard, in Science Based Medicine, on doctors who have declared the pandemic over, over and over again (and there are many more of these of course including here in my home town)

Daniel Goldberg, in Bill of Health, on the dangerous fallacy of public health meeting people where they are. 

Saturday Story: Stop Talking About COVID Fatigue

Martha Lincoln, in The Nation, on how we're never getting out of this so long as we keep leaning on "COVID fatigue" as our rationale for giving up. 

Saturday Stories: Long COVID Numbers, MonkeyPox, And How One School Managed To Avoid COVID Entirely

Gideon M-K, in Medium, explores the numbers surrounding Long COVID.

Kai Kupferschmidt, in The New York Times, on fighting Monkeypox without homophobia.

Abrome, a small school in Texas whose viral Twitter thread was reprinted in the Tasmanian Times, on how their school has avoided COVID from the get-go.

Saturday Stories: Superbugs, Heart Disease, and Mythology

Maryn McKenna, in Wired, on the superbug surge the pandemic has fueled. 

Saima May Sidik, in Nature, on everything we now know about heart disease post COVID.

Chris Goodnow, in ABC news, busts three of COVID's most pervasive myths

Saturday Stories: Those Clowns Said Whatnow, and Public Health

Orac, in Respectful Insolence, discusses John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad and their latest edition of did  they really actually write that?

Eleanor Cummins, in Wired, on what has become of public health.

Saturday Stories: Dispatch From The ER, and What Comes After Omicron

Liza Agrba, in Macleans, interviews ER doc Kashif Pirzada on Canada's ER crisis. 

Kai Kupferschmidt, in Science, on what comes next after Omicron

Saturday Stories: Variant Proof Vaccines, Whose Breath Are You Breathing, and BA.5

Hilda Bastien, in Absolutely Maybe, gives us a hopeful update on the state of variant proof Coronavirus vaccines

Farah Hancock, in RNZ, with a terrific read on how to determine how much of whose breath are you breathing?

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with essential reading on BA.5 and what it means.

By Image by Rama - Own work, CeCILL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43759

Saturday Stories: Pretending and Multiwave Pandemics

Stephen Reicher, in The Guardian, explains how pretending we're doing with COVID will only make this pandemic last longer, it'll weaken the chances of our successfully dealing with the next one. 

Giacomo Cacciapaglia, Corentin Cot and Francesco Sannino, in Nature, on how to tame multiwave pandemics (like COVID)

Saturday Stories: What Now?

Ed Yong, in the Atlantic, ponders what we should be doing now?