One podcast that I've been starting to listen to lately has been The Daily from the New York Times.
One particular podcast was called "Four New Insights About Coronavirus". Unfortunately, these are new insights from early July (or even earlier), but they are interesting when placed into more recent context. I'd suggest readers listen to the podcast, but what follows is my take on what was said. The link above comes with a transcript which is easier to scan through.
(1) This virus is now being seen as a vascular disease. It gets into the body via the respiratory system but it attaches to blood vessels, fine blood vessels in particular. So effects will be seen in the lungs, the kidneys, the digestive system, the brain - particularly the small blood vessels in those organs. Strokes, dementia....
(2) The virus mutates, apparently about every 2 weeks. Most of these mutations aren't that important, but one mutation has been. There are two strains - the Wuhan strain and the Italian strain. It appears to have made it easier for the Italian strain to transmit between people. This is still being debated, but it's one more item. Possibly 5x to 10x better able to infect human cells. It was noted that this is generally the way viruses go - more transmissible and less virulent. So far, we aren't seeing less lethal but possibly more transmissible. There is a reference to what happened in the 1918 flu pandemic.
(3) More and more evidence is showing that you are much safer outdoors than inside. One study from Japan indicated that you are 20x more likely to pick up the virus indoors compared to outside. This seems to have much to do with air currents and whether you are sitting inside each others droplet cloud as it floats around. Outdoors, the breeze blows it away.
We have not seen any big spike in infections in the cities where most of the protests took place. So it looks like they didn’t lead to a lot of transmission. That doesn’t imply that everything is safe just because it’s outdoors. The important thing is how far apart people are when they’re outdoors. So sitting right next to somebody else in front of a stage at Mount Rushmore, for example, where the chairs are zip tied together, is not safe. Masks or no masks, you still really want to try to keep six feet distance.
(4) Finally, there is growing evidence that it could be more safe to open schools. There is evidence that kids are not big transmitters of this virus. There have been examples - Denmark opened their schools in April, Finland in May, and neither saw a spike in cases. Of course, there are other people in schools besides kids - teachers, other adults. But schools are important, not to mention the value to the economy when parents can go back to work. So it needs to happen, but it needs to happen carefully.
Having said that, schools are more important than restaurants, bars, etc.
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