Really interesting article today from Australia, detailing the viewpoints of three different researchers/scientists as it relates to
COVID-19:
Some commentators have described this situation — the crashing of wave after wave of COVID-19, a steady drip, drip, drip of death and mounting chronic illness — as the "new normal". But other experts insist it doesn't have to be, and that continuing on the current trajectory is unsustainable — especially in light of data showing that COVID has decreased life expectancy, will cost the global economy an estimated $US13.8 trillion by 2024, and is decimating the lives of millions of people who have developed long COVID.
Meanwhile, studies continue to pile up showing COVID-19 can cause serious illness affecting every organ system in the body, even in vaccinated people with seemingly mild infections. It can cause cognitive decline and dysfunction consistent with brain injury; trigger immune damage and dysfunction; impair liver, kidney and lung function; and significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Then there's long COVID, a debilitating disease that robs fit and high-functioning people of their ability to think, work and exercise.
...
With HIV, experts and health ministers collectively built a strong public health strategy that they strove to protect from politics. "When we look at COVID, it was political from the start and continues to be," he says. We also now lack a "mid to long-term plan to navigate us through" this next phase of COVID-19: "Some argue that we are no longer in the emergency phase and need to gear down or simply stop," he says. "But should we stop, and if not, what do we gear down to as a longer-term plan?"
From an aerosol scientist:
What she still finds thrilling is that indoor air quality can be assessed with a battery-powered CO2 monitor; popular devices like the Aranet cost about $300 but some companies are developing tech to allow smartphones to do the same. And the investment is worth it, many argue, because it can help you avoid catching COVID-19. It's also good for productivity, with studies showing higher CO2 levels decrease cognitive performance. If CO2 is 800 parts per million, Dr Schofield says, 1 per cent of the air being inhaled has been breathed out by someone else — and is therefore a good proxy for infection risk.
One of the findings from the past few years she finds "most exciting", however, is the role of relative humidity in indoor spaces. When relative humidity is below 40 per cent, Dr Schofield says, the risk of catching COVID-19 increases. (A good sign of that, for those who wear contact lenses, is dry eyes, which she says is "a really good indication that you should get out!") "Because you are becoming the moisture source. Your mucous membranes — which are protecting you from getting COVID or the doses you acquire — are giving up that moisture, and so it's easier to be infected."
I also thought this was interesting (where she'll eat indoors, and why):
When eating out, she chooses restaurants that have outdoor dining areas: a newly revamped boathouse in the Melbourne suburb of Kew is a favourite of hers, and Korean barbecue is "always excellent", she says, because there are generally extractor fans at each table. It's all about good ventilation — clean air. "I always take my Aranet [CO2 monitor] along, and if you sit close enough to the kitchen, the kitchen fans are very effective."
However, note the stumbling block:
All of these issues point to an urgent need for governments to develop indoor air standards, Dr Schofield says — for air quality to be regulated and monitored, just like food and water are. Before the pandemic, in 1998, the economic cost to the Australian economy of poor indoor air was $12 billion per year — $21.7 billion in 2021 money. "So why aren't we learning from that, and moving forward?" she says. "This is not about going back to 2019, it's about having the future we deserve in 2030."
The last scientist is my favorite:
The lack of action against COVID-19, Professor Crabb says, is fundamentally a problem of a lack of leadership. "The most common thing said to me is, 'Brendan, I really do trust what you and others are saying. But if there was a real problem the prime minister, the government, would be telling us that,'" he says. "I don't think people are all of a sudden profoundly individualistic and don't care about COVID anymore — that they're suddenly willing to take massive risks and hate the idea of vaccines and masks. I just don't think they're being well led on this issue."
Not too often I get to see the United States being used as an example:
He also points a finger at two unhelpful ideas. "There is a strong belief, I think, by the chief medical officer and many others that once we got vaccinated, infection was our friend," he says. Australia's vaccine program was highly successful, Professor Crabb says. Most people were inoculated against COVID-19 before large numbers were infected. "If we were the US, we'd have had 80,000 deaths … [instead] we had 1,744 deaths in the first two years," he says. But while vaccination broadly protects against severe illness and death, it does not protect against (re)infection or the risk of acute and chronic health problems.
There's some more; it's a great article.
