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.

Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests

Simine Vazire, in Wired, on the failings of scientific peer review

Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, and Robert T. Schooley, in Science, on how to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV2 (tl;dr - wear a mask)

Kate Julian, in The Atlantic, on how to talk to kids about the sad, scary, and unjust issues permeating society today.

Tara Haelle, in Forbes, on why public health experts support Black lives matter protests.

Photo By Mike Shaheen - https://www.flickr.com/photos/63015897@N02/49979513917/, CC BY 2.0, Link

Saturday Stories: COVID And Kids With Disabilities, Racist Statues, COVID Death Mysteries, And Virus Hunters

Hallie Levine, in The New York Times, on how children with disabilities are being left behind while the rest of country slowly reopens.

James Stout, in Popular Mechanics, explains how to use science to topple a racist statue.

Joel Achenbach,  Karin Brulliard and Ariana Eunjung Cha, in The Washington Post, on what we do and don't understand about who lives and dies with COVID. 

Maryn McKenna, in Smithsonian Magazine, on some of the world's foremost virus hunters.

Photo By Quidster4040 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0, Link

Saturday Stories: COVID files

Dr. Stephan Kamholz - Chair of Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center, died of COVID19 on June 11th, 2020. May his memory be a blessing 

Sharon Begley and Helen Branswell, in STAT, spoke with 11 epidemiologists to explore what we need to ensure such that we don't screw up dealing with COVID's inevitable second wave.

Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on whether we should all be striving to respond more like Sweden?

Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, with a coronavirus vaccine tracker.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, in The New York Times, moderates a discussion about whether or not a coronavirus vaccine can be produced in record time

Rachel R. Hardeman, Eduardo M. Medina, and Rhea W. Boyd, in The New England Journal of Medicine, discuss stolen breaths and racial inequities in medicine.

Saturday Stories: Some Anti-Racism Resources #BlackLivesMatter

May his memory be a blessing

Corrine Shutak, in Medium, with 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.

A non-bylined Google Doc of anti-racism resources for white people.

Quakelabs' collection of Canadian specific anti-racist resource.

Farrah Penn, in Buzzfeed, with 23 Phenomenal Young Adult Books By Black Authors From The First Half Of 2020

The University of Toronto's Office of Inclusion and Diversity with their collection of recent stories and resources on anti-racism.

@antisocialbritt, on Twitter, with her thread of children's books that discuss racism.

@bronze_bae, on Twitter, with her thread of young adult books that discuss racism.

Photo By Lorie Shaull - https://www.flickr.com/photos/number7cloud/49959004213/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Saturday Stories: This Week's COVID Selections

Dr. Earline Austin, 63 yo NYC Physician, died on 4/3. Originally from Guyana, she lived in Fresh Meadows and was affiliated with Staten Island University Hospital. Attended Ross University for Medical School. May her memory be a blessing

Emily Chung, in the CBC, with everything you need to know to understand R-naught values.

Andy Larsen, in the Salt Lake City Tribune, with a breakdown of different locations and events and what we know of their risks in terms of spreading COVID.

Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, and Robert T. Schooley, in Science, on how if you want life to return to some remote semblance of before's normal, if you're not already doing so, you need to start wearing a damn mask

Clayton Dalton, in The New Yorker, on what we lose when we become numb to mass death.

Saturday Stories: The COVID files

Dr.Sudheer Singh Chauhan, Internal Medicine Physician and Associate Program Director IM Residency Program at Jamaica Hospital, New York, died of COVID19 on May 19th. May his memory be a blessing

Tavis Apramian, in the CBC, on why you must discuss how you want to die with your family.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how America's patchwork approach to containing COVID19 is likely to challenge any hope of near term success 

Kai Kupferschmidt, in Science, on why only some people are COVID super spreaders 

Natalie Kofler and Françoise Baylis, in Nature, on the perils, pitfalls, and disparities of "immunity passports". 

David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, on what Canada needs to reopen safely and how at least now, it doesn't appear that we have it. 

Ian Sample, in The Guardian, with a rather depressing piece on COVID19 vaccine related challenges and realities.

And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's a segment I did with CTV's The Social on the very real impact these scary times has on our physical and mental well being