A: Yes- BUT those odds are not as good as they sound. Ask yourself- would you let your family board a plane if 1 out of 100 passengers were going to be thrown out of the plane mid-flight? Would you literally throw caution to the wind if a tornado was headed for your town that …
In this live Q&A, Dear Pandemic contributing scientists Drs. Ashley Ritter and Malia Jones will be taking questions about pantyhose, vaccine safety, herd immunity, & keeping kids safer. If you have a question, put it in our question box at www.dearpandemic.org. ➡️ Welcome, Intros, and Announcements (0:00-2:03) ➡️ Should we be wearing nylon pantyhose over …
A: There has been incredibly low influenza activity this season. Yay! Turns out, masking, washing hands, staying home when sick, and vaccinations really do work! Influenza season typically starts around October, peaks between December and February, and then tapers off. And flu is no joke. In the 2019-2020 flu season, the CDC estimated flu caused …
A. It’s not good – especially if we’re trying to reach herd immunity by the end of 2021. Getting “back to normal,” or some semblance of normal, even for the U.S., will require widespread uptake of COVID-19 vaccines all around the world. The virus doesn’t adhere to national boundaries, and long-term travels bans to limit …
In this live Q&A, Dear Pandemic contributing scientists Drs. Malia Jones & Jennifer Beam Dowd will be tackling more pandemic questions from our readers. If you have a question, put it in our question box at www.dearpandemic.org! We are *very* excited to announce that we have live closed captioning and #ASL interpretation available during the …
A: Yes. Many, many more people are being hospitalized and dying with COVID than even a very bad flu season. To visualize ICU admissions in England compared to recent flu seasons, check out this animation from Jonathan Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times. We’ve previously written on the current best estimates of the COVID-19 infection fatality …
Q: Wouldn’t lots of people dying of COVID19 be dying from other causes anyway? A: Sadly, we are likely UNDER-counting deaths due to COVID-19. Among the COVID-19 myths that just won’t die, we continue to hear chatter that COVID-19 deaths are being over-counted, such as stories of victims of motorcycle accidents getting tested in the …
A: As noted in prior posts, highly trained dogs have the incredible capacity to successfully detect the odor of people with COVID-19 by sniffing human sweat. Pilot programs using COVID-sniffing dogs to detect infection among potential passengers have already launched in airports in Finland, the United Arab Emirates, and most recently Chile. These pilot projects …
A: TL, DR: The weekly pattern of fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths on the weekends is primarily due to differences in testing timing and reporting delays, but some of the pattern may be due to increased weekend socializing. Based on publicly available data, there is a widely observed ‘weekend effect’ with fewer COVID-19 cases and …
A: Like a healthy democracy, a healthy data system relies on a sophisticated set of checks and balances. The FDA’s system is highly protective against data hanky-panky.* Today an FDA advisory panel meets to discuss Moderna’s vaccine data – with an eye towards recommending emergency use authorization. Your Nerdy Girls look forward to watching all …
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