As places start reopening after COVID-19’s (first) shutdowns, Erin Bromage’s The Risks — Know Them — Avoid Them is a detailed look at how the virus spreads and where most of the risk comes from, so that we can avoid behavior that is risky.
COVID-19 deaths are actual counts. Jeremy Samuel Faust, an ER doctor and instructor at Harvard, asked other doctors if they could remember anyone dying from influenza. Most couldn’t, some remembered a few, which goes to show just how different COVID-19 is from flu, despite the fact that CDC estimated a bad flu year at 69,000 deaths. Actual counted flu deaths are 3,400 to 15,700 over the past few years.
Vi Hart and others have put together a Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience (see also Vi Hart’s How We Reopen video). This plan outlines how we can safely reopen in light of COVID-19. It’s not easy, but it’s important that we do it right, and not in the slapdash manner that some states are pursuing.
There are definitely a lot of privacy concerns around contact tracing, and I know a lot of people are concerned that once you let government people start having access to this information, they will never let it go. I understand that concern, but COVID-19 is a huge issue, and I do believe that Apple genuinely cares about privacy. Here is Apple’s documentation about the privacy-preserving contact tracing.
I don’t think the CDC and WHO guidance around masks for COVID-19 has changed yet, but increasingly individuals are taking steps. Ragmask is another simple, do-it-yourself mask design.
With Folding@Home, you can donate your spare CPU and GPU cycles their way to help cure COVID-19, cancer, and more. Works when you’re not using your computer.