The Berlin Files #77: for months
Vaccine progress, Chappelle, Goodfellas, U2, and much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hi all! Eric here, back from a little summer break and writing these words as Seattle hits its hottest couple of days of the year.
And yet here's a new Files, hot off the electronic press (see what I did there?).
If you enjoy picking up what I’m throwing down each week, why not tell a friend or three and, while you're at it, make liberal use of the share button below (what we call a "call to action" in The Biz)? I hereby give you all the permission and encouragement that you'll need!
Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
Prevention Progress
If you're a loyal Files reader, you know that I've been following what's going on with regard to coronavirus transmission through the air and how indoor spaces and ventilation systems play into it. I've been seeing more coverage on the topic of late, and a piece, appropriately called "We Need to Talk About Ventilation," speaks precisely to my attention to and concern about this issue.
How is it that six months into a respiratory pandemic, we still have so little guidance about this all-important variable, the very air we breathe?
In multiple studies, researchers have found that COVID-19’s secondary attack rate, the proportion of susceptible people that one sick person will infect in a circumscribed setting, such as a household or dormitory, can be as lowas10 to 20 percent. In fact, many experts I spoke with remarked that COVID-19 was less contagious than many other pathogens, except when it seemed to occasionally go wild in super-spreader events, infecting large numbers of people at once, across distances much greater than the droplet range of three to six feet. Those who argue that COVID-19 can spread through aerosol routes point to the prevalence and conditions of these super-spreader events as one of the most important pieces of evidence for airborne transmission.... Saskia Popescu, an infectious-disease epidemiologist, emphasized to me that we should not call these “super-spreaders,” referring only to the people, but “super-spreader events,” because they seem to occur in very particular settings—an important clue.
There are two key mitigation strategies for countering poor ventilation and virus-laden aerosols indoors: We can dilute viral particles’ presence by exchanging air in the room with air from outside (and thus lowering the dose, which matters for the possibility and the severity of infection) or we can remove viral particles from the air with filters.
I was tempted to quote even longer chunks from the article, but I'll recommend you head over to The Atlanticand check it out for yourself.
And here's more Atlantic for you, which is crushing its coverage of the pandemic: "The Plan That Could Give Us Our Lives Back." I'll cut to the chase here:
...test nearly everyone, nearly every day.
It's hard to say if we're on the other side of the "second peak" of coronavirus transmission in the United States, but we are seeing a very slow reduction of new cases and deaths over the last month or two. The northeast and New York in particular are doing much better than other parts of the country after a rough first half of the year. Here's New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both showing off this fact while also disclaiming a particularly silly and dangerous notion.
And perhaps good signs from the west coast as well?
Meanwhile, Singapore is not messing around.
Vaccine Progress
A vaccine from a U.S. company called Novavax, has passed Phase II trials.
Interesting quote in the New York Times piece with relation to how "the vaccine" that everyone is waiting and hoping for might be more like "the vaccines":
Our colleague Carl Zimmer, a science writer and author of “A Planet of Viruses,” thinks there will be a number of coronavirus vaccines that will turn out to be safe and effective. “I think that there will be a patchwork,” he told us. India, China, and Russia, could all end up with their own successful vaccines, he said, and “there may be vaccines that are better for old people and other groups.”
And from a Politico piece called, "A little good news for 2021":
Via Goldman Sachs: “We now expect that at least one vaccine will be approved by the end of 2020 and will be widely distributed by the end of [the second quarter of] 2021 … We have incorporated this timeline as our baseline forecast, and now assume consumer services spending accelerates in the first half of 2021 as consumers resume activities that would previously have exposed them to Covid-19 risk.”
So while next year certainly feels a long way off, that is something to hold onto.
Also, if you've been paying attention, there's an election between now and then as well.
Speaking of, a topic that has fascinated me for some time now is the reuse and reimagining of buildings and public spaces in response to the pandemic. And prior to March, who would have ever reasonably put the concepts of sports stadiums and election season polling sites together?
Testing Progress
Keeping in mind what I quoted about testing above, we may be on the cusp of a major breakthrough in bringing down the cost of testing dramatically. Dig into ex-Obama health care Andy Slavitt's Twitter thread for details.
The Future of Events
Short of a widespread and effective vaccine, this feels like what the future of events and large scale gatherings will look like.
Quarantining
I think we're all at or pretty close to the stage of being cooped up and separated from one another that there's something about wanting to play bowling ball soccer that resonates. Or maybe I'm crazy? Quite possible.
If it's a choice between that and "everesting," I'm not sure which way I'd go, honestly.
Or, as Kumail puts it.
And, really, I think this sums up quarantine life for most of us as well as anything.
The Music Club
I'm a huge fan of a comedy and music podcast collaboration that Scott Auckerman and Adam Scott (or, as they're known in their frequent and avant garde digressions into fake podcast-within-podcast rabbit holes, Scott and Scott) have produced over the years. The first iteration, known as U Talkin' U2 To Me?, was a "comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things U2." Which was part of the joke as the show often deliberately wandered off into the oddball-est of directions.
Somehow, perhaps improbably, the fan boys-meet-show hosts eventually got to interview the band. And, as you might expect, Bonobos, er, Bono and crew were funny, gracious, and engaging interviewees.
I mention all of this because a Rolling Stone piece captured Bono and The Edge putting out a short and sweet tribute to their touring road crew, which seems to involve some lingering "controversy" over who -- U2 or the touring crew -- could better perform Led Zeppelin's iconic "Stairway to Heaven."
“There’s one annoying aspect of an Irish crew that has to be said,” Bono says. “Wherever you go in the world, whatever venue you’re playing — whether it’s the Olympia or 3 Arena or Madison Square Garden — you walk into the venue and it’s a big moment, and you’ll hear a song that we said, ‘We’ll never, ever play this.’ And that’s right, ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ These professionals believe they play this better than the band. And you know, it might be true.”
Anyone attempting to cover “Stairway” immediately reminds me of what Wayne and Garth are warned against at a guitar store in Wayne's World.
Scott and Scott are currently taking on Talking Heads, by the way, in an iteration called U Talkin' Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head.
Bonus U2: a song I've taken a particular liking to in recent years is the deceptively simple and beautiful, "In A Little While," off All That You Can't Leave Behind.
The Comedy Club
I'm ashamed to say that I don't believe I've featured Chappelle's Show in The Comedy Club as of yet. Well, that ends today. TODAY. (If you want to read that in the same voice as Henry Hill's dad in Goodfellas when he finds out his boy hasn't been to school for months [FOR MONTHS], that would be the exact appropriate way to read it.)
I promise I'll get to Chappelle in a second, but if you watch that above clip through to the end, there's some very interesting commentary about the fact that there's ramifications when Very Bad People do things to the United States Postal Service. I point this out for no particular reason right now that I can think of, but thought I should mention it.
Okay, Chappelle. There are so many classic clips that I can feature, but I was drawn to an incredibly spot on parody of Making the Band, the Puff Daddy/P Diddy/whatever he calls himself these days-fronted reality show-meets-competition about forming a super group. It's one of my favorite reality shows of all time, and incredibly you can watch it for free (FOR FREE) on YouTube.
Chappelle's parody of the show works if you haven't seen the source show, though it's much better if you have. Some of Chappelle's best known bits are kind of timeless (Rick James!, Pop Copy, and Clayton Bigsby come to mind) but he was not afraid to get topical. There's some great and specific impressions and character work here too, showing off the comedian's range. Be forewarned: there's some naughty language and ribald stuff going on here that might not be for everyone.
I could be crazy (or crazier), but "spitting hot fire" possibly crossed over into the mainstream based on Dylan's self-aggrandizing moment?
Election 2020
We finally have a Democratic nominee for Vice President: Sen. Kamala Harris of California. Some good related pieces:
There was lots of Maya Rudolph chatter on Twitter.
Note: we are huge fans of Maya at The Berlin Files.
Climate Watch
Tweets of the Week
It's a Wrap!
You made it. Now get back to remembering the two most important things in life.
Also:
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And one last time…