Useful Reading, April 1-8
This is a very dense article on how academics can do research that actually leads to good policy. It’s heavy on academic language but it was a useful read for me - it starts digging into why public health experts were sidelined in the massive public health response that was Covid.
Old but valuable article about money, privilege, and COVID: “At the outset of the pandemic, white-collar White families had disproportionate privilege to work from home until the arrival of vaccines...When the vaccines and boosters came, those families had more time to score shots online and more car ownership to get to mass vaccination sites. At some schools, parents' associations were able to privately pay for school surveillance testing before public funding was available.”
Back when I was still doing TV interviews about COVID, I’d get asked about Sweden all the time. And every time, I’d have to say I had no idea what Sweden was doing or why. That I just didn’t get it. Apparently I didn’t get it because I wasn’t thinking evil enough.
Wastewater in Boston https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/03/29/boston-area-coronavirus-wastewater-data-is-on-the-rise-again-i-do-expect-another-wave-to-start-soon/
Op-ed from Vermont. “COVID has not collapsed along with the political will of American or Vermont’s leadership to control it. The same day the state dropped school mask recommendations, Rep. Peter Welch tested positive for COVID-19. Since then, scores of other leaders across the country have tested positive. Wastewater monitoring sites across the country, including those in Vermont, report growing levels of SARS-CoV-2 and other countries are seeing surges driven by the even more transmissible BA.2 subvariant.”
Covid causes brain damage: “Here, we show neuroinflammation, microhemorrhages, brain hypoxia, and neuropathology that is consistent with hypoxic-ischemic injury in SARS-CoV-2 infected non-human primates (NHPs), including evidence of neuron degeneration and apoptosis. Importantly, this is seen among infected animals that do not develop severe respiratory disease, which may provide insight into neurological symptoms associated with “long COVID”.
An actual scientific study pointing out that white Americans don’t care if minorities get Covid