Haven't saved any new COVID links/articles for a while

[erinptah]

...because they stopped having much new information.

We figured out the basics of how the virus works (and for figuring out the more complicated workings, I'd just be linking the archives of This Week in Virology over and over). The bad articles are a cycle of the same bad things happening in new places (or being confirmed in places where you could've guessed they were already happening). The vaccines are in trials, which still have months to go before we see the results.

But, uh. Today seems like a good day to post the backlog. Clear the deck for incoming links that are new, and significant, and bringing me the most genuine joy I've felt since March.

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June 29: "Across New York, workers in patient services at hospitals have had to figure out what to do with the thousands of cellphones, chargers, walkers, canes, hearing aids, dentures, glasses, clothing, shoes, wallets, Bibles, jewelry, among other items, that have been left behind by patients who have died after contracting Covid-19."

June 29: "The type of threat that the Yemeni doctor experienced at his hospital is unfortunately "quite typical" around the world, Wille said. The doctor estimates that at his Aden hospital a family member of a patient threatens a health worker with a gun or some kind of violence about three times a week."

July 11: "We cared for a 30-year-old patient at Methodist Hospital who told their nurse that they had attended a 'COVID party.' ... Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said 'I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it's not.'"

July 22: "Texas-based Starr County Memorial Hospital, implemented an ethics committee and a triage committee to review incoming COVID-19 patients [...] The committees will determine what type of treatment patients will likely require and whether they are likely to survive. Those deemed too fragile, sick or elderly will be advised to go home."

July 23, scathing commentary from The Onion: "Officials in Florida and other states have also criticized the hoax’s participants for the breaking point recently reached by overburdened county morgues."

July 24: "My father-in-law’s mother was admitted a day later. On July 1, she died of COVID-19/pneumonia. [...] On the day of her funeral, which was July 14, five more of our family members tested positive for the virus. That evening, my father-in-law was put on a ventilator. You cannot imagine the guilt I feel, knowing that I hosted the gathering that led to so much suffering. You cannot imagine my guilt at having been a denier, carelessly shuffling through this pandemic, making fun of those wearing masks and social distancing."

July 28: "In Paris, a recent study found that none of the city’s 150 coronavirus clusters from early May to early June originated on the city’s transit systems, Le Parisien newspaper reported. [...] It’s a similar situation in Japan, where researchers failed to connect a single cluster to the country’s commuter trains." Public transport is turning out to be lower-risk than feared.

August 5: "In a mixed general population, a true blood oxygen saturation of 88 percent would, on average, produce a pulse ox reading of 89 to 90 using the most common meter in hospitals. In that case, guidelines would correctly suggest going on oxygen. But Black patients, equally in crisis at 88, would get an average reading of 91—just above the intervention threshold."