Very interesting to see a scientific paradigm shift — as described by Kuhn — happening before our eyes concerning the role of droplets versus aerosols in the transmission of Covid-19. This opinion piece by Dr. Tufekci at The New York Times gives some more information about why these facts took so long to accept. Another article at Wired gives some more background on the old scientific theories.
In The Netherlands I can also see this reflected in the RIVM guidelines. Until April 2021 they stated the following concerning aerosol transmission:
Het is op dit moment niet duidelijk of de kleine druppels (aerosolen) die in de lucht blijven hangen een rol spelen bij de verspreiding van het virus. Mochten ze een rol spelen in de verspreiding, dan is dit een minder belangrijke verspreidingsroute dan van de grotere druppels. Het beeld van de verspreiding van SARS-CoV-2 is hetzelfde als dat van andere virussen die door grote druppels worden overgedragen.
While current RIVM guidelines state the following.
Onder bepaalde omstandigheden kan besmetting ook plaatsvinden via virusdeeltjes die in de kleine druppeltjes (aerosolen) een grotere afstand kunnen afleggen. Bijvoorbeeld in ruimtes waar geen of te weinig ventilatie is en/of veel mensen, vooral voor een langere tijd,- bij elkaar zijn. Overdracht van het SARS-CoV-2-virus via luchtkanalen van ventilatiesystemen is niet waargenomen.
A quote from Geoffrey Bowker in a recent article at STS Italia journal Technoscienza reflecting on our relationships with viruses:
The general point for me here about stuckness and knowledge is that we look at the world wrongly from the beginning if we break it up into separate entities. The theory of evolution is just wrong if it only accounts for the origin of species. What is much more interesting is the development of relationships – as in Michel Serres’ discussion of the parasite form as central. In a related context, Martin Buber argued that the relationship — to thou or that — was always prior. We murder to dissect… at any level… within or without the organism. There are reasons why many biologists say the species concept is unreal: there is no singular slicing apart of a set of entities. We interpenetrate.
Philosopher Peter Singer writes in a Project Syndicate about a medical doctor Texas that facing criminal persecution because he “refused to let a vial of vaccine expire and sought out eligible recipients before the doses would have to be discarded.” In the article Singer makes some interesting reflections on ethical and rule based systems.
In an article by Yuval Noah Harari at the Financial Times, he talks about how Israel has “vaccines for data” deal with the company Pfizer:
Meanwhile, Israel has the seventh highest average confirmed case rate, and to counter the disaster it resorted to a “vaccines for data” deal with the American corporation Pfizer. Pfizer agreed to provide Israel with enough vaccines for the entire population, in exchange for huge amounts of valuable data, raising concerns about privacy and data monopoly, and demonstrating that citizens’ data is now one of the most valuable state assets.
Read more about it also in an article titled “Vaccines For Data: Israel’s Pfizer Deal Drives Quick Rollout — And Privacy Worries” at NPR.org.
Two interesting articles from Wired dealing with current sociotechnical controversies:
Apparently the U.K. was not undercounting COVID-19 cases in the country due issues with the Excel file format they were using.
According to the BBC, the error was caused by the fact that Public Health England developers stored the test results in the file format known as .XLS. These .XLS files were then sent to the NHS after uploading to a central system. .XLS is an outdated file format, however, and each spreadsheet can have only 65,000 rows. By contrast, the .XLSX file format, which was first released in 2007, allows for more than 1 million rows. Because of the limited number of rows, each spreadsheet could contain about 1,400 cases, leaving excess cases off the file altogether. Although the issue was reportedly fixed by splitting the files into smaller batches, many are slamming Public Health England. “Why are critical databases in a national pandemic posted on Excel spreadsheets?” Jonathan Ashworth, the Labour Party’s shadow health secretary, said. “Why aren’t they using specialist data-based software?”
Read the full article from Slate here. The article also gives some more examples of problems caused by using the spreadsheet software.
Investigative journalists from ProPublica did research on a company called Arise Virtual Solutions and its abhorrent practices. This company allows large American businesses to outsource their customer service:
Arise not only creates separation between its corporate clients and individual agents, it also allows those companies to quickly add or subtract workers. In March, Instacart needed all kinds of agents. By May, those jobs had largely disappeared. “I was there for a week. We’re disposable,” one Florida agent dropped from Instacart assignments told ProPublica.
Read their article here. For these piece ProPublice partnered with NPR’s Planet Money, who produced a podcast on the same topic.
The following two articles give some valuable insights on the history of epidemiology and public health:
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a vast increase in conspiracy theories being spread. Tanya Basu at MIT Technology Review wrote an article titled How to talk to conspiracy theorists—and still be kind. The tips are based on insights from experts and r/ChangeMyView subreddit moderators.
Three new videos from Vox give a good synopisis of some of the events playing in the world right now:
Each video is about a very different, yet at the same time these three phenomena are linked by common themes. Which lives matter? Who decides? And who decides who decides?