Trying to bluff your way through a pandemic? It's simply not smart

June 30, 2020—It looks like we made it through another month on planet Earth, CurveFlatteners. It is the last day of June here in the west end of Toronto, where I, Chronicle's John Evans, am a 15-minute walk from where the subway gets homesick and turns back towards the city core.

If you will indulge me in a somewhat rambling train of thought, I was thinking about the recent summer solstice, which led me to a re-listen of Carl Sagan's famous "Pale Blue Dot."

That, in turn, has got me thinking about how small our world really is, how artificial and arbitrary the borders we make are and, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, how we are really all in the same boat. Letting any portion of the population fall behind is self-destructive.

One factor contributing to the ongoing rapid spread of Covid-19 is a widespread misunderstanding of how severe that spread is, leading to a lack of urgency in adopting precautionary measures such as self-isolation, social distancing, and the wearing of masks. Researchers from the University of Bremen and the University of Cologne, both in Germany, have found that a misconception that there is a linear growth in the number of cases, rather than the actual exponential growth, is a contributor to this lack of concern. When they tried instructing people on how to avoid this mental bias against recognizing exponential growth, the investigators found their subjects were more able to perceive the true growth of the virus, and would more frequently adopt social distancing precautions.

That a simple educational intervention could be that successful makes me ask what are we teaching in schools? What would the Covid-19 pandemic timeline have looked like if exponential growth was more widely understood in the general population?

Here in Canada, education funding often seems to be a lower priority in budgets. As buildings age and class sizes grow, there seems to be an attitude of, “Well yes, it isn't ideal. But it isn't going to be a disaster.”

My perception in these last few months has increasingly been that we have forgotten the value of comprehensive social programs. Well-supported education allows us to make better decisions. Well-supported health systems allow us all to be more resilient in the face of widespread emergencies.


COVID CHRONICLE 06/30/2020

• There is a concern among some physicians in the U.K. that childhood vaccination rates could drop during the pandemic, potentially leading to further outbreaks of infectious disease. In an editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), physicians from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, argue that flawed messaging has led many parents to believe that pursuing a normal vaccination schedule for their children might contribute to 'overloading' the public health system, or present unnecessary risk of Covid-19 infection. They advocate for an aggressive push of clear messaging to dispel these concerns and encourage childhood vaccinations.
• Neutrophils responding to Covid-19 appear to produce excessive neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), according to a recent paper in Blood. These NETs, triggering immunothrombosis, may, in part, explain the prothrombotic clinical presentations in Covid-19, report the authors. They suggest that therefore NETs may represent targets for therapeutic intervention.
• Yesterday, CTV News reported on new modelling of Covid-19 in Canada. The new data, provided by Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam and Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Howard Njoo, are a mix of good and bad news. Montreal and Toronto remain 'hot spots' of infection, and the proportion of new infections who are younger people aged 20-39 is increasing. On the other hand, daily numbers of hospitalized and critical care cases have been steadily declining as recoveries increase. The reproduction number (Rt)—the number of new infections each case of Covid-19 is responsible for, on average—has been less than one for eight weeks across Canada. Maintaining an Rt below one is necessary for eliminating the disease. 

STORIES CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON TODAY

My colleague Kylie Rebernik is has interviewed Dr. Arvind Sehgal on the impact skin-to-skin care between parents and infants on the circulatory physiology of preterm infants.

RIGHT NOW I AM LISTENING TO. . .

Mitch's mention yesterday of the twin muses Thalia and Melpomene reminded me of a piece of video game music I really enjoyed but hadn't listened to in a while. Blazed up Melpomene from the fighting game Dead or Alive 4. Fast music to have virtual characters kick each other. 

THE MONTH AHEAD

Drop us a line in the comments section at the Daily CurveFlattener to let us know what your plans are for Canada Day and the start of summer in general, or else check in via LinkedIn, email, homing pigeon, semaphore, or trained badgers. Pass this newsletter along to your colleagues, too, if you would.

That's it. No CurveFlattener tomorrow, in honour of the birthday of our home and native land, but Kronicle Kylie will bring us back for the first instalment of July on Thursday.