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Even if you have been doing your best to live under a rock you have probably been unable to escape the depressing news that Minnesota is one of the handful of states where new cases have continued to go up weeks after the national numbers have started down the other side of the roller coaster hill. Well, this week's Minnesota numbers finally show a decline in both new cases and (surprisingly) deaths. It's been discouraging to be at the trailing edge of the downward trend, but I'm afraid that's the downside of successfully "flattening the curve." In the long run, flattening the curve is better for everybody but it is not always fun.
If you want to see the longer term picture, this map lets you see the total number of cases per capita for each state since the beginning of the pandemic. Set the filters to Cases / Rate per 100,000 / since Jan 21, 2020. The darker the color the more cases per capita. Suddenly Minnesota looks pretty good compared to its neighbors. We're at 13% of the population confirmed infected, which is just slightly below the national average. For the past year good old North Dakota (18%) has been the national champion at infecting its population. Until this week. Finally, through diligent and persistent effort, Tennessee has inched past ND to take the top spot, with Florida rapidly closing the gap but inexplicably still under 17%. My money's still on Florida to win out in the end, though, because they just never give up.
In other news, I discovered this past week that my longtime hero, Dr. Mike Osterholm, HAS A WEEKLY PODCAST! Also, CIDRAP (the research group he runs at UMN) has a website. The podcast is probably too deeply and sincerely geeky for most people, but if you love pure, unpolluted data as much as Dr. Osterholm does, go out and find it [I'm talkin' to you, Matt]. Although Osterholm has ended up in a professional position that could probably be described as public health policy, in his heart he is first and foremost a scientist. That means that he refuses to reinterpret or misrepresent the facts in an attempt to influence public health behavior. Being a humane and thoughtful man he understands why public health officials consistently do this, but he continues to resist the pressure to do the same. You can hear both the pressures and his gentle exasperation between the lines in his podcast and see it more explicitly in comments like this from the CIDRAP page. "Confusion and then intransigence" is the phrase I have been looking for to sum up the consistently disappointing performance of the CDC throughout the pandemic crisis. Thank you, CIDRAP.
"Despite early overwhelming evidence3 that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily by inhalation of infectious particles in the air (aerosols), it took the WHO and CDC many months to recognize this mode of transmission in their scientific briefs.4,5 Neither agency, however, has adequately directed its guidance away from droplet and contact transmission toward interventions that focus primarily on preventing aerosol inhalation... First, there was confusion and then intransigence about the modes of transmission..."
If you want to see the longer term picture, this map lets you see the total number of cases per capita for each state since the beginning of the pandemic. Set the filters to Cases / Rate per 100,000 / since Jan 21, 2020. The darker the color the more cases per capita. Suddenly Minnesota looks pretty good compared to its neighbors. We're at 13% of the population confirmed infected, which is just slightly below the national average. For the past year good old North Dakota (18%) has been the national champion at infecting its population. Until this week. Finally, through diligent and persistent effort, Tennessee has inched past ND to take the top spot, with Florida rapidly closing the gap but inexplicably still under 17%. My money's still on Florida to win out in the end, though, because they just never give up.
In other news, I discovered this past week that my longtime hero, Dr. Mike Osterholm, HAS A WEEKLY PODCAST! Also, CIDRAP (the research group he runs at UMN) has a website. The podcast is probably too deeply and sincerely geeky for most people, but if you love pure, unpolluted data as much as Dr. Osterholm does, go out and find it [I'm talkin' to you, Matt]. Although Osterholm has ended up in a professional position that could probably be described as public health policy, in his heart he is first and foremost a scientist. That means that he refuses to reinterpret or misrepresent the facts in an attempt to influence public health behavior. Being a humane and thoughtful man he understands why public health officials consistently do this, but he continues to resist the pressure to do the same. You can hear both the pressures and his gentle exasperation between the lines in his podcast and see it more explicitly in comments like this from the CIDRAP page. "Confusion and then intransigence" is the phrase I have been looking for to sum up the consistently disappointing performance of the CDC throughout the pandemic crisis. Thank you, CIDRAP.
"Despite early overwhelming evidence3 that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily by inhalation of infectious particles in the air (aerosols), it took the WHO and CDC many months to recognize this mode of transmission in their scientific briefs.4,5 Neither agency, however, has adequately directed its guidance away from droplet and contact transmission toward interventions that focus primarily on preventing aerosol inhalation... First, there was confusion and then intransigence about the modes of transmission..."
