Leading with a most informative paper – particularly as we decide to go back to work – https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-1274_article

As with many good papers it leaves you with some good questions. In reality the problem really cannot be seen from a country, state, city, or even county – the real point of transmission is happening at a workplace or store or place of gathering. Here the S. Korean once again show their tech savviness and ability to tackle this problem – we should be smart about testing and quarantine learn from S. Korea. This paper focuses on a workplace building and deciphers what happened.

Lets start with the interesting observations from the paper – once again its viral load that matters. They essentially tested everyone in the building which was combination of offices and residential. Even in their microcosm of a building this really did not explain everything as the infections only occurred on a few floors. Total infection rate was 8.5% – but 91.7% on floor 11 – and most on a side off that floor – even more precision. As they pointed out if looking at ONLY 11th floor the infection/attack rate 43.5%.

“This outbreak shows alarmingly that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can be exceptionally contagious in crowded office settings such as a call center. The magnitude of the outbreak illustrates how a high-density work environment can become a high-risk site for the spread of COVID-19 and potentially a source of further transmission. Nearly all the case-patients were on one side of the building on 11th floor. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, the predecessor of SARS-CoV-2, exhibited multiple superspreading events in 2002 and 2003, in which a few persons infected others, resulting in many secondary cases. Despite considerable interaction between workers on different floors of building X in the elevators and lobby, spread of COVID-19 was limited almost exclusively to the 11th floor, which indicates that the duration of interaction (or contact) was likely the main facilitator for further spreading of SARS-CoV-2.”

Viral load is key – the odds of a passerby transmitting an infectious level to you is not likely per this study.

The study also reduces a little bit the fear of the asymptomatic spreader – the note 16.5% – so those who were asymptomatic what was their likelihood of spread among their close contacts. Among their 97 confirmed only 4.1% remained asymptomatic.

First question it started on the 10th floor Feb 22 but it was the 11th floor where everything played out . I wish there was more description on what differentiated the 10th floor and the 11th floor.

Nonetheless the drama starts on the 11th floor. Based on the facts the 10th floor and 11th floor are unrelated. One could perhaps jump to the conclusion that it was transferred in the elevator – but IF that was prevalent than we would see it beyond 3 floors. The more likely scenario at this time these are individual infections brought into the workplace.

11th floor is a call center with seating arrangements as described below along with the infections locations highlighted. As noted all on the one side. I would be very interested to see the airflow for the ventilation system. A deeper understanding on the 11th floor work engagement – does the 11th floor not interact across the floor. They all do share a common bathroom – how often is that used? Of the 5 that got infected on the other side – did they interact with ones on the otherside. Is the non-infected side have different work hours – or different ventilation that prevented the spreading on that side? This knowledge could help layout the work setup for future office design. As of right now a complete contiguous open floor does not seem wise. Breaking up with meeting rooms looks to the right approach. Last question – no mention of any deaths – what treatment was done? All survived and recovered?

Another praise for Sweden – https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/who-declares-swedens-covid-response-a-model-for-the-world/

I do agree with several key points. At some level in order to learn we do need to see various approaches for the next time. It is funny they note the “American model” – individual responsibility – which in general we didn’t follow. It is clear the author and this site is probably a conservative slanted – I never been to their site before. The article on Sweden intrigued me hence ended up at the site.

I won’t conclude the Swedes showed us the better way as the article did – as it is too early – but hopefully they do succeed to show us a better way – as why wouldn’t we want to have a better way for next time? I am still keen on crowning S. Korea over Sweden. S. Korea a lot more population density and their approach is more technology married – their numbers are better so far – but will the approach be good enough for the second wave if it comes?

Those that think something will come in time for the flu season in the winter – better read Gates notes on vaccine – https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/What-you-need-to-know-about-the-COVID-19-vaccine?WT.mc_id=20200430100000_COVID-19-vaccine_BG-EM_&WT.tsrc=BGEM

Interesting pic on how the compress 5 years into 18 months.

Since this is Austin – does that mean Foxnews is more balanced there – https://www.fox7austin.com/news/fox-26-gets-unprecedented-access-to-texas-1st-nursing-home-to-treat-covid-19-with-hydroxychloroquine.amp?

The numbers are the numbers typically – so far their mortality rate is MUCH better than any nursing home who has gotten the virus.

“only one of the nursing homes COVID-19 patients has died.”

“99 percent of the staff stayed we had 34 employees that contracted Coronavirus all lived and 98% are back at work right now,”

Want a thought piece to ponder – https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/27/coronavirus-pandemic-shows-why-no-global-progress-on-climate-change/

The massive amounts of destruction in order to reduce CO2 – and the collectivism needed to do that – can we do it for a problem that is not very immediate?

Lastly go out and get some sun and vitamin D – https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3585561

Once again US almost at 2K deaths with NY (452) and then NJ (310)

Even with NJ and NY leading they are dropping in the key metrics of confirmed/test

Surprised not more discussion on Mexico – perhaps the data feed of testing is not too good but deaths are now at 1972 – confirmed at 20739 and they barely tested 0.06% of per capita.

We are nearing 100 days since first confirmation for many countries.