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From the last three years working on my masters in public health and journalism, I know a bit about how scientific research and health news are produced and how to consume them critically. Here’s sources I’ve found useful and ideas on how to weed thru the DELUGE of info 1/13
IMO, the best sources are the ones most willing to say ‘I don’t know,’ or & #39;I was wrong.’ Scientists, health care providers, reporters, etc. are going to be wrong sometimes, esp given how quickly everything& #39;s changing. 2/13
A takeaway from my epi courses: “Epidemiologists count!” In oversimplified terms, they count who does and doesn’t get a disease and the various exposures. But epidemiologists are humans, not machines, and they have to make decisions about who, what, when and how to count. 3/13
Training, education, background, time, resources, money, and motivation all influence those decisions. Consider the flu--the CDC does not know EXACTLY how many flu cases happen in a given year. Some people don’t get sick enough to go to the doctor and get tested 4/13
We have limited testing capacity, so we’re pretty much only testing people with symptoms. We’re going to see cases increase in part due to increased transmission and in part due to increased testing. 5/13
This post by @AndreasShrugged explains how differences in testing can affect death rates, etc. (underlying death rates may not be so different--methods of tracking them are!)
https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so-deadly-in-italy-c4200a15a7bf
6/13">https://medium.com/@andreasb...
https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so-deadly-in-italy-c4200a15a7bf
6/13">https://medium.com/@andreasb...
Moving on from disease numbers and to how you might catch it--bc I live with a biochemist who has worked in a lab with live HIV (my mom). We are hearing a lot of different things about how long the disease lives on surfaces, etc. etc. 7/13
My mom doesn’t have definitive answers but she shared this study that observed how long the virus remains on surfaces https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronavirus-stable-hours-surfaces">https://www.nih.gov/news-even... 8/13
It might be alarming to see how long until it dies--but keep in mind, the amount of virus on each surface declines exponentially, as time passes. Also--the measurements have confidence intervals--meaning they, like all science, are not perfect 9/13
Like with epidemiology, it depends on the methods the scientists are using--the more science we do, the better we’ll understand how this virus works and how to protect ourselves. 10/13
The last thing I’ll say about all of this is: TAKE A BREAK. We’re getting so much info, and so much of it is driven by fear. Be informed enough to stay safe and keep each other safe. But come up for air 11/13
Doctors’ orders--UCSF psychiatrists on how a certain amount of anxiety is good for our crisis responses, but panic is not, and also stress weakens your immune response
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-to-turn-the-coronavirus-anxiety-into-15136037.php#">https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/o... 12/13
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-to-turn-the-coronavirus-anxiety-into-15136037.php#">https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/o... 12/13
So in light of that, here is my dog Stella. When I work from home, my job is to move her bed as the sunlight shifts throughout the day. Dogs are the real winners here
Adding more tweets to this thread bc ever since my mom remodeled her house and added a new upstairs window I’ve also been maintaining Stella’s upstairs office. The pillow and Cal blanket follow her everywhere
Adding @halletecco & #39;s notes to this thread, if you want to get a more thorough understanding of epidemiology https://twitter.com/halletecco/status/1248660188896395273?s=20">https://twitter.com/halletecc...
