COVID
I’ve spent most of the past few days pulling together different data sources to create new state data visualizations for every US state, no other updates at the moment. If you would like to see all of the data that was posted in the past and also provided details on activity in metropolitan areas, please don’t forget to sign and share this petition.
H5N1
The biggest news this week was of a third farm worker with H5N1. The most concerning part is that “The patient reported upper respiratory tract symptoms, including cough without fever, and eye discomfort with watery discharge.” The question then becomes one of if the virus has adapted more to the human respiratory tract. That poses obvious challenges, particularly around gaining easier respiratory spread, thus leading to higher chances of mutations that make spread easier or make the virus more damaging. It seems like we have crossed a threshold though and the only thing ahead is for this to get worse, especially in a culture of pushback against any mitigation efforts. The costs and suffering will be far worse the less that is done. It will be particularly interesting to see how COVID-damaged immune systems respond. I think we are heading into a very bleak period.
