The Berlin Files #82: autumnal aspirations
Vaccine progress, Cat Samantha, and much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hey all. Eric here. I tried to find a funny video or image to summon up my current mood and couldn't find anything that quite connected, but then I found this.
You'll likely find something else to like or hate about it, but it weirdly speaks to me in what I'd aspirationally like to be focused on: autumnal outings, funny sweaters, and people with pumpkins for heads zooming through neighborhoods looking to spread Halloween cheer... or something.
But that's just me.
Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
Vaccine & Prevention Progress
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci AKA Dr. Fauci has a positive outlook on the possibility of massive distribution of a COVID vaccine by next spring.
“My projection and that of my colleagues is that it is likely that we will know whether we have a safe and effective vaccine somewhere around November and December,” he says. And since vaccine candidates are already being produced in large quantities, doses will soon be ready if they do prove effective. “There will be available, at the end of the year in December, about 100 million doses,” Fauci said. “It will be up to 700 million doses by the end of April.”
And more promising news in the short term.
Preliminary results of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate suggest it is effective in older adults. The study results showed that it was capable of producing necessary antibodies at levels akin to those found in younger adults
The Atlantic has been producing highly informative and unique stories about the pandemic since the beginning. This week, there's coverage well worth checking out, called "This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic."
It starts out by getting into why some geographical areas have higher death tolls from COVID versus others.
Why, for instance, was there such an enormous death toll in northern Italy, but not the rest of the country? Just three contiguous regions in northern Italy have 25,000 of the country’s nearly 36,000 total deaths; just one region, Lombardy, has about 17,000 deaths. Almost all of these were concentrated in the first few months of the outbreak
The reason is... well, it's complicated. Which makes sense, given the complexity of this pandemic and the challenges in combatting its spread.
While some are now familiar with the concept of "R0," or the "average measure of a pathogen’s contagiousness, or the mean number of susceptible people expected to become infected after being exposed to a person with the disease," there's also the notion of "k," which "...is a mouthful, but it’s simply a way of asking whether a virus spreads in a steady manner or in big bursts, whereby one person infects many, all at once." So this gets into the study of infection dispersion, spread, and clusters (and you may have heard the term super spreader in the news once or twice this past week, as an aside).
In terms of the "so how does this help?" part, well, that's also complicated, but at a high level involves a "massive testing, tracing, and isolating regime" combined with "sustained vigilance." Both are not easy to do but totally possible (see: South Korea and Japan as examples). Obviously, we're nowhere close to either in any kind of comprehensive way in the United States.
In the meantime, I always try to be hopeful when I see anecdotal things like this.
Interesting piece on how Cornell University in New York is keeping rates of COVID-19 low on campus. How? Seems like having a comprehensive plan that gets active buy in from the community is the reason.
We modified our classrooms, dining halls and study areas to ensure proper social distancing. We upgraded our ventilation systems, mandated mask-wearing on campus and created a public health campaign. Students were required to sign a behavior compact, and we stood up mechanisms to enforce it. Contrary to the assumptions of many, college students can adhere to these guidelines and, as our experience shows, take enormous pride in doing so.
And here's the pretty pointed kicker.
Our experience so far has demonstrated the value of science as the basis for decisions that impact public health and safety. Students have proved themselves more than capable of acting responsibly. Those who find it easy to caricaturize our nation’s universities might indeed find much to learn from them.
Quarantining
As you might know, I'm here for the wacky things that people get up to while wiling the time away. This one particularly grabbed my attention, and I must admit that I really want to see some additional content that follows up on the doings of Cat Samantha.
I mean, it's that or guessing what color the paint is going to be, right?
Or, if all else fails, you can always count on the puppy cart.
The Music Club
This week: Wu-Tang. Live. With strings accompanying.
The saga continues.
The Comedy Club
Leave it to the Canadian Kids in the Hall to let us know, "That's America."
"Where spelling doesn't count. People's pets do."
Election 2020
Honestly, I didn't even know where to start here with so much happening (and happening and happening) all week.
So I decided to do something a little bit different.
Here’s the official government website that let’s you know if you’re confirmed to vote. And if that’s too complicated (spoiler: it’s not a well designed site), Rock the Vote will do it for you.
Please consider forwarding this newsletter or sending the link to a person or two in your life that maybe there’s a chance they don’t have their voting plan on lock quite yet.
Climate Watch
Tweets of the Week
It's a Wrap!
You made it. Now get back to enlightening yourself on The Tao of Wu.
Also:
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And one last time…