The role of vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 infection and mortality

The role of vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 infection and mortality: Vitamin D levels are severely low in the aging population especially in Spain, Italy and Switzerland. This is also the most vulnerable group of the population in relation to COVID-19. It should be advisable to perform dedicated studies about vitamin D levels in COVID-19 patients with different degrees of disease severity.

Increased testing does not explain the increase in US COVID cases

Increased testing does not explain the increase in US COVID cases: In short, an actual examination of the data clearly and unequivocally shows that the current increase in coronavirus cases in the US cannot be explained simply as a result of increased testing. The percent of tests that are positive is increasing, which is a clear indication that the actual number of cases is increasing. Further, in states like Arizona and Florida, the numbers are truly shocking, with the increases in new cases massively outpacing the increases in testing. We are clearly still in the middle of a deadly outbreak, and it is getting worse. This isn’t a liberal conspiracy to undermine Donald Trump; it is a fact, and facts don’t change based on your political party.

Countering the Infodemic

Countering the Infodemic: Experts like Sell divide misinformation into four different categories:

False cures. Influencers on social media have been promoting a “miracle mineral supplement” to cure coronavirus that, in actuality, contains dilute bleach, a known toxin.

Conspiracies. Accusations that the virus may have originated in a bioweapons lab from any number of countries have emerged on Twitter, despite conclusive evidence from scientists that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin.

Scapegoating. Some media outlets and politicians continue to refer to SARS-CoV-2 as the “Chinese virus” or “Chinese disease.”

Misinformation about the disease. In the early days of the pandemic, some politicians and intelligence officials dismissed COVID-19 as “just the flu,” despite data from Wuhan, China, showing otherwise.

Will COVID-19 Kill Cash?

Will COVID-19 Kill Cash? Reports that the coronavirus could be transmitted by handling cash has given people another reason to steer clear of banknotes. Although untrue, the damage has been done, and a recent survey found that 75% of respondents expect to use cash less in the future.

Surge in damaged cash as worried South Koreans try to microwave the virus: Worried South Koreans are putting banknotes in their microwaves and washing machines, damaging the bills in their attempts to cleanse them of the coronavirus.

Spike in damaged cash after South Koreans put money in ovens to rid it of coronavirus:

The Bank of Korea said a total of 2.69 trillion won (US$2.25 trillion) worth of damaged notes and coins were destroyed in the first half of 2020

A person surnamed Um wanted to redeem at least 35.5 million won (US$30,000) in notes damaged after he had put them in the washing machine

The Sociologist Who Could Save Us From Coronavirus

What we do have is a book, Risk Society, published by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck with exquisite timing in the spring of 1986.

Beck argued that the omnipresence of large-scale threats of global scope, anonymous and invisible, were the common denominator of our new epoch: “A fate of endangerment has arisen in modernity, a sort of counter-modernity, which transcends all our concepts of space, time, and social differentiation. What yesterday was still far away will be found today and in the future ‘at the front door.’” The question, so vividly exposed by the crises such as Chernobyl and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, is how to navigate this world. The relevance of Beck’s answers are even more apparent in our day than they were in his own. (...)

If we go back to 1986, Beck anticipated three ways in which societies might deal with the risks he identified.

What Beck himself hoped for was what he called a cosmopolitan micropolitics. This was a logical extension of his model of reflexive modernity, in which not just science has been dethroned, but also the previously demarcated sphere of national politics, dominated by parliaments, sovereign governments, and territorial states. What Europe witnessed starting in the 1980s was a double movement which, on the one hand, dramatically reduced the intensity of  political conflict between parties in the parliamentary sphere and, at the same time, politicized previously unpolitical realms such as gender relations, family life, and the environment, spheres which he dubbed “sub-politics” or “micropolitics.” For Beck this was no cause for lament. The challenge was to invigorate subpolitics at whatever scale they operated. This could be intensely local, as in struggles over road projects or airport runways. But it could also be global in scope.

Why Aren't We Talking More About Ventilation?

Why Aren't We Talking More About Ventilation? - The Atlantic: 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?

The coronavirus reproduces in our upper and lower respiratory tracts, and is emitted when we breathe, talk, sing, cough, or sneeze. Figuring out how a pathogen can travel, and how far, under what conditions, and infect others—transmission—is no small deal, because that information enables us to figure out how to effectively combat the virus. For COVID-19, perhaps the most important dispute centers specifically on what proportion of what size droplets are emitted from infected people, and how infectious those droplets are, and how they travel. That the debate over the virus’s modes of transmission is far from over is not a surprise. It’s a novel pathogen. The Columbia University virologist Angela Rasmussen told me that, historically, it took centuries to understand how pathogens such as the plague, smallpox, and yellow fever were transmitted and how they worked. Even with modern science, there are still debates about how influenza, a common annual foe, is transmitted.

What’s on the agenda for post-pandemic meetings?

What’s on the agenda for post-pandemic meetings? Hundreds of conferences have been cancelled, postponed or moved online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Physical meetings can be replicated virtually to some degree, and this has many benefits, including making access easier for people who have limited budgets, family commitments or disabilities. Some people are also quick to point out that moving meetings online can save attendees time and reduce their carbon emissions. But although video-conferencing technologies are becoming more familiar, critics say that they don’t allow the chance encounters and networking that take place at face-to-face events.

COVID-19 is unlikely to mean the end of physical conferences entirely. Yet many hope, or think, that the global health crisis will change meetings forever.