Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Should current job seekers be worried about offers that have not been accepted?

MOVING THIS TO THE FRONT FROM MARCH 24--MORE FEEDBACK WELCOME

Short answer:  no.   Here's what a reader wrote to me:

I'm not sure if you'll find this to be too frivolous for discussion, given that lives are on the line, but I'm wondering if you've heard of universities planning on cancelling faculty searches that are currently underway.  I'm thinking of situations that some might be in around now, namely, those who have a "verbal" offer--by which I mean a call or email which states that the department has voted to offer the applicant a TT/T job--but nothing official on paper from the university.  Given the hit that university endowments are now taking with the drop in the market (e.g., Harvard), I wonder whether some of those institutions might scale back future labor costs where they can, and pull back on commitments before a contract is in place.

A few thoughts about this in no particular order:  (1) universities budget at least one year ahead, so the economic impact will be felt on next year's job market, not (primarily) on this year's; (2) I can imagine administrators deciding not to permit discretionary hiring this year, with an eye to the future, but that would not mean revoking unofficial offers; (3) an e-mailed offer is still a written offer, so do get something in writing, but that advice always applies, not just now; (4) schools with huge endowments are precisely the ones that won't take drastic steps and won't be revoking open offers; and (5) I'll be surprised if any schools revoke informal open offers.   Next year's academic job market, I fear, will be very bad.

UPDATE:  A reader at a state flagship university tells me that their administration just announced an end to all discretionary hiring, which does not affect any existing offers.

Putting ventilators for COVID-19 in perspective

Based on the handful of small samples reported, only about a third of those put on ventilators are able to get off alive.  This is apparently due to the extreme damage COVID-19 inflicts on the lungs of those afflicted seriously enough to require ventilators.  Perhaps further time and research will paint a more hopeful picture.

ADDENDUM:  I should note that the linked story does not shed light on the other characteristics of those who survived and those who didn't (e.g, age, co-morbidties etc.).

In one California county, 30% of COVID-19 cases are traceable to church gatherings...

...and yet one religious crazy is ready to fight for the right to sicken his parishioners!

(Thanks to Jill Landowski for the pointer.)

What is an "aerosol" and does it matter if the coronavirus can survive as an aerosol?

This is very informative; an excerpt:

The studies suggesting that [the new coronavirus] can be aerosolized are only preliminary, and other research contradicts it, finding no aerosolized coronavirus particles in the hospital rooms of Covid-19 patients.

The weight of the evidence suggests that the new coronavirus can exist as an aerosol — a physics term meaning a liquid or solid (the virus) suspended in a gas (like air) — only under very limited conditions, and that this transmission route is not driving the pandemic....

In droplet form, the coronavirus is airborne for a few seconds after someone sneezes or coughs. It’s able to travel only a short distance before gravitational forces pull it down....

An aerosol is a wholly different physical state: Particles are held in the air by physical and chemical forces. Fog is an aerosol; water droplets are suspended in air. The suspended particles remain for hours or more, depending on factors such as heat and humidity. If virus particles, probably on droplets of mucus or saliva, can be suspended in air for more than a few seconds, as the measles virus can, then anyone passing through that pathogenic cloud could become infected.

There are strong reasons to doubt that the new coronavirus has anything close to that capability.

Pop singer Shakira taking online ancient philosophy course with Penn's Susan Sauve Meyer

My friend Michael Weisberg (Penn) called my attention to this amusing fact, although I had to admit to not knowing who or what Shakira was (I have since found out).  Perhaps she will endow the Shakira Professorship of Ancient Philosophy?

How far out are you cancelling work-related trips?

I'm curious, and perhaps other readers are too, to hear how far out folks are cancelling planned travel for workshops, seminars, conferences etc.  My last "live" event was in Madison, Wisconsin on March 11; from then on I've cancelled events (or had the events cancelled) in Hamilton (Ontario), Durham, York, Lincoln, Riverside, Amsterdam, Oxford, and Dublin, and that's through early July.  (I hope to manage some "virtual" seminars related to some of these.)  I've also pulled out of a "South American tour" I was very much looking forward to that would have begun very late August and gone into September, that would have included Bogota, Quito, La Paz, and maybe Rio--I'm hoping it will happen a year hence.  No decision yet on whether I will be teaching for a few weeks at Rome III later in the fall, as originally planned, but I'm not feeling optimistic.

So how far out are you cancelling or are events you were going to attend being cancelled?

Gardner from Bowling Green to Florida

Molly Gardner (ethics, environmental ethics, metaphysics), a fairly senior assistant professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, has accepted a tenure-track offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florida Gainseville, where I expect she will come up for tenure in the next couple of years.

Trump models distancing...

...albeit not social distancing:

“As of today, I will be keeping a great distance between myself and anything I said about COVID-19 in the months of January, February, and March,” [Trump] said. “I will be staying at least six feet away from those statements, and probably more like ten thousand feet.”

(Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer.)

It's not just exposure to the virus that counts: it's how much exposure, and how much virus

The topic is broached in this op-ed by two scientists, and might explain why some young and otherwise healthy doctors have died from the coronavirus.  An excerpt:

The importance of viral dose is being overlooked in discussions of the coronavirus. As with any other poison, viruses are usually more dangerous in larger amounts. Small initial exposures tend to lead to mild or asymptomatic infections, while larger doses can be lethal.

From a policy perspective, we need to consider that not all exposures to the coronavirus may be the same. Stepping into an office building that once had someone with the coronavirus in it is not as dangerous as sitting next to that infected person for an hourlong train commute....

Humans also exhibit sensitivity to viral dose. Volunteers have allowed themselves to be exposed to low or high doses of relatively benign viruses causing colds or diarrhea. Those receiving the low doses have rarely developed visible signs of infection, while high doses have typically led to infections and more severe symptoms....

The morbid reactionary fantasies of Adrian Vermeule

The latest.  Do note that Professor Vermeule is a "moral realist"!

In Memoriam: George Dickie (1926-2020)

A leading figure in philosophy of art and aesthetics, Professor Dickie taught for many years at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was emeritus.  You can read bit about his work here.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.  (Thanks to Noel Carroll for the information.)

Coronavirus and food safety

Lots of useful information here, including about getting take-out from restaurants.

When polio was epidemic

A PBS documentary, that features, among others, the late philosopher Lawrence Becker (who taught for many years at both Hollins College and the College of William & Mary [due to polio, he had no use of his arms, but he typed all his manuscrips with his toes]).

(Thanks to Jim Klagge for the pointer.)

Is age an independent variable in severe cases of COVID-19 or is it just that known co-morbidities increase with age?

News studies regularly report that the risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19 increases with age.  (This study finds a marked increase begins at age 50, although the highest fatality rates are for those over age 80.)  We also know that certain co-morbidities--cardiovascular disease, chronic lung diseases (like emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and "moderate to severe" asthma), and diabetes--increase the risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19.   Yet most of these co-morbidities also increase with age (chronic bronchitis and asthma may be the exceptions).   Has there been any study that has disentangled age and the co-morbidities?  This article explains that as people get older, their immune systems get weaker, but is that the primary explanation for the higher fatality rate among older patients, or is it the combination of weaker immune systems and co-morbidities?   Links to studies or articles related to this question welcome.

UPDATE:  Here's the latest report on co-morbidities:  no real surprises and consistent with the comments above.

From the frontlines of the pandemic in NYC

As noted before, Dr. Craig Smith, head of surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, sends out a daily missive, that, in addition to being nicely written, gives some insight into how things look to the care providers on the front line.   Yesterday's (March 31) is worth a read, some encouraging news, but also appropriately apprehensive about what's coming.  (You may need to scroll down to get to the March 31 missive, although I tried to link to it directly.)

Richard Marshall interviews John Tillson (Liverpool Hope)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Bad signs for the academic job market in 2020-21

Many schools are already announcing hiring freezes.  As the article notes:   "the hiring freezes have implications for an already brutal tenure-track job market. Next year’s hiring cycle could be nonexistent."  That's probably too strong, but advertised jobs will be few and far between next academic year.   (Related coverage.)

UPDATE:  Berkeley just announced a hiring freeze today; I quote the announcement:

Today we are instituting a campus-wide hiring freeze. We therefore ask that you do not initiate any new searches and suspend those that have already begun. The Office of People and Culture (formerly central human resources) is completing work on a hiring-freeze plan which will be shared with managers and supervisors shortly. The campus will be making very limited exceptions to the hiring freeze, making only select hires that protect against a significant business disruption and/or a significant health, safety, or ethical compliance risk.  All academic hiring requests will be carefully reviewed by the Provost’s office.

We also ask that you carefully monitor expenses as we enter the last quarter of our fiscal year and hold off on any major expenditures until our budget picture becomes clearer. Please consult with your manager/supervisor or department/division head for guidance.

The University of California has tended to go through cycles of feast and famine, but they are clearly anticipating famine if they're taking this step now.

 

Fascists never rest: Orban uses pandemic as opportunity to seize power to "rule by decree"

Will the E.U. finally oust this fascist's country from its midst?

New books each month is on hold for awhile

I'm working from home, and don't presently have regular access to my office, where new books are delivered.  I'll hopefully be able to catch up by summer.

"Capitalism, Social Democracy and Socialism: Which is Right for America?": the debate video is now online

Here.  (I noted previously that the texts of the opening statements were available here.)   I haven't watched the video, but I do recall one mistake I made:  I should not have seemed to agree with Professor Caplan that social security should be means-tested.  Social security is a social insurance scheme, everyone contributes, and everyone collects from it.  It is not charity, but insurance. The fact that everyone collects from the insurance scheme they contributed to is another reason it is such a popular political program, a point I did make.

One curious bit during the Q&A was a fellow who was quite incensed that I pointed out, correctly, that the capitalist ruling class in Germany supported Hitler because they were afraid of genuine socialists (not social democrats).  My point--which alas Professor Caplan steadfastly ignored--is that a serious discussion of the merits of capitalism or socialism should not be based on the bad behavior of self-proclaimed capitalists or socialists. 

It was striking that Professor Caplan did not have any real reply to my basic point about the logic of capitalism:

[C]apitalist producers must reduce their costs, for if they don’t, their competitors will do so and then drive them out of business.  Since the logic of capitalism demands reduction of production costs, and since the wages of most people under capitalism are simply “production costs” to be reduced or eliminated, this cannot end well.   The only humane alternative is socialism, that is, ultimately taking collective control of the immense productive power that capitalism generates, so that its purpose is not the endless pursuit of profit, but producing what human beings need to live and flourish.

ADDENDUM:   During the debate, Professor Caplan responded to my observation that Pinochet was also a huge fan of "Chicago School" free-market economics.  (My point, again, was that the professed allies of capitalism and socialism are irrelevant to a serious discussion.)   Professor Caplan offered the rather ghoulish response that Pinochet only killed about 3,000 people during his reign of fascist terror.   Defense-by-body-count is not really my cup of tea, but if you go that route, the population of Chile at that time (about 9 million people) is relevant:  by way of comparison, it would be the equivalent of murdering more than 90,000 Americans for political reasons (and more than 750,000 tortured--see below).   S. Wallerstein, a longtime reader from Chile, also wrote with some useful additional information:

The official figure is 3,227 killed and disappeared and 28,459 tortured.  Those figures underestimate the total because in order to be listed family members had to file a report (for which they received a small pension,   which is an incentive of course) in the case of those killed and disappeared, and the victims of torture also had to file a report (for which they received a small pension too), but in many cases,  especially that of women who were almost always raped or sexually abused during the torture, no report was filed.   

If you want to use the figures, the sources are two "non-partisan" commissions, one on deaths and disappearances and the second on torture (headed by a Catholic bishop), called the Rettig Commission  and the Valech Commission  respectively.  Looking a bit more, I see that since the original commissions, they have found 30 new cases of deaths and disappearances and 9795 new cases of torture.  

More evidence that social distancing is working: Kinsa thermometers recording fewer fevers

The NYT ran a story on this today, and the Kinsa map is here.  From the NYT story:

The company, Kinsa Health, which produces internet-connected thermometers, first created a national map of fever levels on March 22 and was able to spot the trend within a day. Since then, data from the health departments of New York State and Washington State have buttressed the finding, making it clear that social distancing is saving lives....

Kinsa’s thermometers upload the user’s temperature readings to a centralized database; the data enable the company to track fevers across the United States....

Kinsa has more than one million thermometers in circulation and has been getting up to 162,000 daily temperature readings since Covid-19 began spreading in the country....

To identify clusters of coronavirus infections, Kinsa recently adapted its software to detect spikes of “atypical fever” that do not correlate with historical flu patterns and are likely attributable to the coronavirus.

As of noon Wednesday, the company’s live map showed fevers holding steady or dropping almost universally across the country, with two prominent exceptions [in New Mexico and Louisiana].

Signs of the times

Best introductory texts in the history of early modern philosophy (or to particular figures in early modern philosophy)?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 5, RIGHT BEFORE CORONAVIRUS STUFF OVERWHELMED US ALL--THIS DESERVES MORE COMMENTS

Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts to the history fo early modern philosophy (either through Kant or stopping just before Kant), as well as introductory texts to important figures in the history of early modern philosophy (e.g., Descartes, Hume, Leibniz etc.)  As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.  Although you don't have to sign  your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.

Have any universities discussed plans for next fall?

I broached this topic a couple of weeks ago, but I'm wondering whether any readers have heard about any contingency plans or discussions at their institutions related to the question of, "What happens in the fall?"   No need to use your name, but please include a valid e-mail address in case I need to follow up with questions (your e-mail and identity will not be disclosed).

I am guessing John Ioannidas will come to regret his essay from last week

Professor Ioannidas, a Stanford epidemiologist and statistician (most famous for first calling attention to the problem with the standard use of p-values in medical research), obviously has a contrarian instinct, but sometimes those instincts are dangerous.   I had been ignoring this piece, which seemed obviously unsound even to a layperson like me, but since it continues to circulate, I thought I would mention it and one of the decisive replies.  (The comments on the Ioannidas piece also point out some of the obvious omissions from his analysis.)  There is a longer interview with him here, where he sounds somewhat more reasonable.

Support doctors and nurses (and really all of us)

Everyone should share and sign this.  Now!

UPDATE:  My apologies:  as Peter Klein pointed out to me, the petition is only seeking  signatures from medical and legal professionals.   I'm sorry to those who wasted time trying to sign.   I failed to scroll through the list of professions, and so didn't realize the limitation.

"Don’t panic wash your hands a lot never leave your home don’t touch your face"

Helpful tips for surviving the pandemic (from a humorist at The New Yorker).

(Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer.)

As usual, religious zealots are a threat to human well-being

Unbelievable.  And some of these morons think that the First Amendment protects their right to endanger public health:   it doesn't.

UPDATE:  Good news, one of the pastors breaking the law has been arrested.  A few civil suits down the line for reckless indifference to human life would be appropriate too!

National survey of those charged with preventing infections in healthcare facilities

Here, with an article summarizing the findings here.  An excerpt from the latter:

Overall, 1140 (9.6%) infection preventionists responded. Almost 70% of respondents represented a healthcare system rather than a single facility, and facilities ranged from hospitals (42.7%) to ambulatory care (17.4%) and dialysis (2.7%). The centers, from all 50 states and Washington DC, ranged in size from those with 1 to 50 beds to those with more than 300 beds.

Of the respondents, 233 (20.4%) reported their facilities have no protective respirators and 317 (27.8%) said they were almost out of the devices, which are needed to protect healthcare workers managing patients with COVID-19 and different infectious diseases....

Other findings from the survey include:

• Nearly half of respondents (49.2%) said their centers lack sufficient enough face shields, with 36.5% reporting being almost out and 12.6% reporting being completely out.

• Approximately one third (31.7%) of respondents reported being completely or nearly out of face masks.

• Even simple hand sanitizer is in short supply at more than 1 in 4 facilities surveyed; 25.6% of respondents said they are almost out and 2.6% are completely out.

• Nearly 30% of respondents reported accessing supplemental PPE through state or local resources, while 24.6% said they accepted private donations of supplies.

• Fewer than one third (31.5%) said they had sufficient gowns.

• About 28% said they were almost out of protective respirators, while 20.5% said they have none.

• Only 12.3% said they have received supplies from federal resources, including the Strategic National Stockpile, which is controlled by the Department of Health and Human Services.

• 17.2% of respondents reported resorting to DIY measures such as sewing their own masks.

I guess I would not have expected dialysis and ambulatory care facilities (which makes up about 20% of the facilities included in the survey) to have respirators.  I haven't had time to look at the report to see whether it breaks down the data more thoroughly.

(Thanks to Dr. David Ozonoff for the pointer.)

Our future has arrived in Germany...

...which will begin testing people and issuing "immunity certificates" to those who have antibodies for the new coronavirus.

Some advice for teaching philosophy on-line...

...from Dr. Matt Deaton, an experienced on-line philosophy teacher.

The issue isn't the *total* number of cases, it's the per capita rate of confirmed cases

That's one takeaway from the first chart in this NYT story:

Metro area	Population	cases	Per thousand
Wuhan, China	11.1 mil.	50,821	4.59
Lombardy region, Italy	10 mil.	34,889	3.48
New York	20 mil.	43,016	2.15
Albany, Ga.	153,000	206	1.35
New Orleans	1.3 mil.	1,674	1.32
Seattle	3.9 mil.	2,543	0.65
Bridgeport metro, Conn.	944,000	607	0.64
Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Wash.	128,000	78	0.61
Pittsfield, Mass.	126,000	73	0.58
Detroit	4.3 mil.	2,468	0.57
Kingston, N.Y.	179,000	89	0.50
East Stroudsburg, Pa.	170,000	67	0.40
Show Low, Ariz.	110,000	43	0.39
Albany, N.Y.	883,000	340	0.38
Bellingham, Wash.	226,000	86	0.38

Although Chicago in recent news reports has been deemed a new potential "hotspot," its per capita rate of confirmed case was 0.262, about 1/8th the rate of New York City and half the rate of Detroit, for example.  That rate will go up, but hopefully over a long enough period of time to avoid catastrophe:  that's basically all communities can try to do at this time.  (For details on Chicago and NYC, see this post.)  (By the way, regarding Italy, it's worth noting that Italian officials, by their own admission, are not testing everyone, and that they think there are five to ten times as many actual cases as "confirmed" ones.  As with Wuhan and New York City, the issue is how quickly those cases came.)

 

How to move forward

There seems to be a consensus among some experts:  compare Dr. Scott Gottlieb's report for the American Enterprise Institute with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's recent op-ed in the NYT.  Both approaches require widespread testing to permit tracking and isolating of those infected, yet this infectious disease expert tells us that

In three to four weeks, there will be a major shortage of chemical reagents for coronavirus testing, the result of limited production capacity, compounded by the collapse of global supply chains when the epidemic closed down manufacturing in China for weeks.

The second hard truth is that at this stage, any public health response that counts on widespread testing in the United States is doomed to fail. No one planned on the whole world experiencing a health conflagration of this magnitude at once, with the need to test many millions of people at the same time. Political leaders and talking heads should stop proffering the widespread-testing option; it simply won’t be available.

This expert and his colleague propose other ways of tracking the disease, which sound far less reliable, but maybe they will work?

So this is puzzling:  do Drs. Gottlieb and Emanuel not know that widespread testing won't be an option?  Or is it really an option, contrary to the quote above?

UPDATE:  Maybe blood tests for antibodies are the answer?

China excluding asymptomatic cases that are positive for the new coronavirus from its offical counts

Worth noting, if China's numbers seem too good to be true.

Rhode Island police hunting down New Yorkers seeking refuge

Yikes!

UPDATE:  Listening to New York Governor Cuomo's remarks this morning, I learned that the Rhode Island Governor repealed the executive order requiring police to stop cars with NY plates and require the occupants to self-quarantine if they were stopping in the state.

Ivanhoe from Sungkyunkwan to Georgetown

Philip J. Ivanhoe, a leading scholar of Chinese and East Asian Philosophy who is currently professor and director of the Institute for Confucian Studies and East Asian Philosophy at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea, will become professor in and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Georgetown University, effective July 1, 2020.  (He will probably be cross-appointed to philosophy at Georgetown as well, although that has not happened yet.)  This will put Georgetown on the map as a very attractive destination for students of Chinese philosophy.

(Thanks to Justin Tiwald for the information.)

The next worry on the horizon: sick healthcare workers

This is already happening in Europe (and starting to happen here):  because the virus spreads primarily through close contact, healthcare workers are at enormous risk, even more so if they lack adequate protective gear, as is increasingly true in the United States.  And without healtchare workers, having enough ventilators won't matter.

ADDENDUM: Here are the current CDC recommendations for dealing with the  shortage of protective equipment and gear.  (Thanks to David Ozonoff for the pointer.)

Even in the midst of a pandemic...

...Chris Bertram (Bristol) still can't stop his petty sniping. Amazing!  (More on Bertram for the uninitiated; new readers can safely ignore:  academic philosophy has a lot of resentful pests on its margins.)   Meanwhile, in the real world, here's a representative nice message I got from a non-philosopher:

I discovered your blog just about a week ago. In my search for people who were asking big questions about the virus and humanity, I googled "philosophers" and "corona virus."  And there you were!  Your blog is that welcome breath of sanity in a cluttered universe of internet claptrap. I have a round of sites I visit when I'm feeling especially powerless about our lives, and I've moved you right up to the top tier (between the Guardian and the Boston Globe). Bravo!

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Tyrannosaurus Rex, "Hot Rod Mama," 1968

The lead number of their debut album, before they became the famous T.Rex and Marc Bolan became the face of glam rock in the 1970s:

 

Forecasting peak cases and demand for hospital beds, ICU beds, and ventilators by state

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 26--UPDATED

A new study out of the University of Washington, that makes both U.S. forecasts and state-by-state forecasts.  The charts starting around page 20 digest the key information.  This confirms something we've noted previously, namely, that there is some wide variation by state in terms of capacity to deal adequately with a surge in patients.   These estimates, by the way, assume wide use of social distancing, closures, etc.  Comments welcome from those who have time to digest more of the details.

UPDATE:  See these useful comments on this study from a biologist.

Some reading about epidemics of the past

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--COMMENTS NOW OPEN FOR OTHER SUGGESTIONS

Dr. Roger Albin (Michigan) writes:

As you publicized the Snowden podcast and as many of your audience are probably compulsive readers looking for useful and engaging reading material, the following may be of interest:

Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome – which deals extensively with the impacts of epidemic disease on the later Roman Empire.

JR MacNeill’s Mosquito Empire – disease impacts in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

Elizabeth Fenn’s Pox Americana – on the Smallpox epidemic roughly coincident with the American Revolution and its considerable consequences.

Charles Mann’s more popular books on the impacts of the European invasion of the Western Hemisphere contain a lot of relevant material on one of the most consequential processes in modern history. 

As Harper makes abundantly clear in his fine book, epidemic disease often interacted with climate fluctuations.  Two excellent books that deal with the impacts of climate fluctuations and epidemic disease:

Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis – a comprehensive overview of the misnamed Little Ice Age centered on the 17^th century. 

John Brooke’s Climate Change and the Course of Global History – a remarkably ambitious overview. 

Convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19?

From the editorial in the Journal of the America Medical Association accompanying a newly published research article on this possibility:

Shen et al report findings from a preliminary study of 5 severely ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who were treated in the Shenzhen Third People's Hospital, China, using plasma from recovered individuals.¹ All patients had severe respiratory failure and were receiving mechanical ventilation; 1 needed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and 2 had bacterial and/or fungal pneumonia. Four patients without coexisting diseases received convalescent plasma around hospital day 20, and a patient with hypertension and mitral valve insufficiency received the plasma transfusion at day 10. The donor plasma had demonstrable IgG and IgM anti–SARS-CoV-19 antibodies and neutralized the virus in in vitro cultures. Although these patients continued to receive antiviral treatment primarily with lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon, the use of convalescent plasma may have contributed to their recovery because the clinical status of all patients had improvement approximately 1 week after transfusion, as evidenced by normalization of body temperature as well as improvements in Sequential Organ Failure Assessment scores and Pao₂/Fio₂ ratio. In addition, the patients’ neutralizing antibody titers increased and respiratory samples tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 between 1 and 12 days after transfusion.

 

A new study of the seasonal variabiltiy of the new coronavirus

Here (not published, not peer-reviewed, but by legitimate researchers).  Short version:  hot weather and humidity will not extinguish the virus, but it may reduce the spread slightly.

Fox, the fascist propaganda network, is now an official threat to public health

 

COVID-19 case tracker...

...by selected cities around the U.S.  (Via the map at this site, you can also find state totals, as well as what each state has done in terms of business closures, school closings, etc..)

Bioethicist Thomas Cunningham to historian Allen Guezlo: cut it out!

(3/27 UPDATE:  Professor Cunningham, happily, tested negative for the new coronavirus.)

Professor Cunningham invited me to share this letter he sent out to many colleagues:

Does anyone know Allen C. Guelzo, a “senior research scholar in Princeton University’s Council of the Humanities?” If so, please tell him to stop it.

In his article on WSJ this morning, referring to  the plans we have been discussing tirelessly for weeks now, he asserts: “…people have become too accustomed to taking the easy way out of dilemmas, and too comfortable with making excuses for killing with the only offense for those we kill the possibility of inconvenience. Americans are better than that. Ventilators are not simple, but neither were Spitfire fighter plans…Improvise, innovate, imagine.”

Someone, please, who can tell him to stop or publicly rebuke him with argumentation, do so. Those of us working long hours in our hospitals do not have time to. While this shoddy reasoning obscures the point and is sloppy, scaremongering editorial writing, it may improve his profile. But there is no time for self-interested slop. He is correct in the sentiment, one can charitably grant him, that these are profound moral problems. But they aren’t manufacturing problems. And they are urgent.

He ignores that everyone wants more ventilators, more hospital beds, more adequately trained health care providers, more PPE, and so on, in the event the situation becomes so dire that we need far more resources than anything we have had in the past. The work that we are doing to plan for crisis conditions and appropriately operationalize triage protocols for making allocation decisions is predicated upon the assumption that this is the way to save the most lives under conditions Guelzo appears to assume, in his unwarranted optimism, are readily preventable. We all hope they are prevented. The question still remains, what if they are not? Then what do we do?

What the evidence shows so far about drugs that might be used to treat COVID-19

This is a helpful overview of the studies and their results (we've noted some of the studies previously).   We'll hopefully have more information in about a month on several of these.

This ad makes clear why Trump is a threat to public health

 

What goes around comes around

Mexicans demand halt to Americans crossing the border.   They could build a wall, maybe?

People aren't that "irrational"

Philosopher Kevin Dorst (Pittsburgh/Oxford) makes some very good points here; here's the crux of his argument (but the whole essay is worth a read):

In short, there is a widespread tendency to treat human deviations from standard economic models as symptoms of bias and irrationality. That is what I’m contesting. I’ll do that by arguing three things. First, deviations from such models are often perfectly rational; second, this is true of at least some widely-maligned “biases”; and third, it follows that until we scrutinize and refine the applications of such models, we will not know how many of the putative biases are truly indicators of irrationality. (To be clear: these claims don’t cast doubt on the importance of the turn from classical to behavioral economics—what they cast doubt on is the irrationalist interpretation of that turn.)