.

Mr. Franklin suggests that more first- and third-person narrators i.e., characters in the story, be included to tell the tale about the Diamond and its disappearance. But how reliable is the evidence that each one has to offer? This is probably at the heart of this detective story.

"Specifically, when one of my classmates stated how he was struggling with the concept and another one of my classmates took the initiative to clarify it, I realized that that individual possibilities vary greatly among students."

https://gobookmart.com/how-to-read-books-more-deeply-and-intricately/

Successful problem solving requires having the ability to adaptively and flexibly focus one's attention with respect to the demands of the work. Having a toolbelt of potential methods and combinatorially working through them can be incredibly helpful and we too often forget to explicitly think about doing or how to do that.

This is particularly important in mathematics where students forget to look over at their toolbox of methods. What are the different means of proof? Some mathematicians will use direct proof during the day and indirect forms of proof at night. Look for examples and counter-examples. Why not look at a problem from disparate areas of mathematical thought? If topology isn't revealing any results, why not look at an algebraic or combinatoric approach?

How can you put a problem into a different context and leverage that to your benefit?

More rational

Hamblin, J. (2021, December 9). Perspective | Omicron won’t keep us from ending the pandemic. We’re doing that ourselves. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/09/omicron-coronavirus-individual-threat/

I would also like to talk about bathroom we have bathrooms for women bathrooms for men. But we don’t have bathrooms for People of the Transgender community and we also don’t have private feeding places for people who have baby. There is a free hands free sanitary napkins mishen in one of the bathrooms. It should be in all of the women’s and non gender bathrooms. This is also a right and for people who are having a hard time in school more homework help in all departments tutors. Also preparing us for the future and giving us more of an option for a gap year instead of pushing us out of the nest. Sometimes we are not ready for jobs.

APA 7 3 or more authors

more trouble than it's worth

• creating more complexity than it cured

Giving peers permission to engage in dialogue about race and holding a lofty expectation that they will stay engaged in these conversations throughout the semester or year is the first of the four agreements for courageous conversation. While initially, some participants may be eager to enter into these conversations, our experience indicates that the more personal and thus risky these topics get, the more difficult it is for participants to stay committed and engaged." Singleton and Hays

"Courageous conversation is a strategy for breaking down racial tensions and raising racism as a topic of discussion that allows those who possess knowledge on particular topics to have the opportunity to share it, and those who do not have the knowledge to learn and grow from the experience." Singleton and Hays

Scientists urge caution after Tony Blair backs UK ‘Covid pass’. (2021, June 7). The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/07/scientists-urge-caution-after-tony-blair-backs-uk-covid-pass

ReconfigBehSci. ‘RT @benwakana46: NEW POLL: The J&J Pause Makes People more Confident in Vaccines, Not Less. M-O-R-E C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T Https://T.Co/Bq…’. Tweet. @SciBeh (blog), 14 April 2021. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1382618891222925314.

first sighting: "inscrutable" Nice word!

why has only 1 other person uploaded a map?

See also https://store.steampowered.com/app/663080/RectRacer/#app_reviews_hash where there are 0 English reviews

In other words, you can build on this software in your proprietary software but can't change the Trailblazer source unless you're willing to contribute it back.

loophole: I wonder if this will actually just push people to move their code -- which at the core is/would be a direction modification to the source code - out to a separate module. That's so easy to do with Ruby, so this restriction hardly seems like it would have any effect on encouraging contributions.

I guess they called it that because it would be come across better than calling it a "slow" button!

This seems a bit neurotic, but perhaps I'm missing something.

These are interesting numbers to contemplate in terms of how few people have actually heard these ideas and arguments before in a serious way.

closing does not necessarily imply end of discussion

Introduced by Pierre Bourdieu in the 1970s, the concept has been utilized across a wide spectrum of contemporary sociological research. Cultural capital refers to ‘knowledge’ or ‘skills’ in the broadest sense. Thus, on the production side, cultural capital consists of knowledge about comportment (e.g., what are considered to be the right kinds of professional dress and attitude) and knowledge associated with educational achievement (e.g., rhetorical ability). On the consumption side, cultural capital consists of capacities for discernment or ‘taste’, e.g., the ability to appreciate fine art or fine wine—here, in other words, cultural capital refers to ‘social status acquired through the ability to make cultural distinctions,’ to the ability to recognize and discriminate between the often-subtle categories and signifiers of a highly articulated cultural code. I'm quoting here from (and also heavily paraphrasing) Scott Lash, ‘Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural Economy and Social Change’, in this reader.

Many thought Volkswagen would crush Tesla as soon as they put their weight behind an electric car initiative. What they didn't consider was that an electric car is more about software than it is about hardware.

The takeaway: >99% of people age 0-69 infected with SARS-CoV-2 survive COVID based on the CDC's current best estimate of infection fatality ratio. A subset of those infected will suffer from continued symptoms even though they did not die from COVID.

The claim: Greater than 99% of people age 0-69 fully recover from COVID-19.

The evidence: This numbers align with the CDC's current best estimate of the infection fatality ratio (1). Infection fatality ratio is the number of people that die from a disease divided by the number of people who get the disease. These numbers do not account for people with symptoms such as lung damage, chronic fatigue, and mental illness which may follow a COVID infection (2, 3).

In a study of 143 hospitalized patients from Italy after an average of 60.3 days, only 12.6% were symptom free (4). Per Mayo Clinic guidelines, long term effects can occur in those with mild symptoms but most often occur in severe cases (5). Mental health problems were diagnosed 14-90 days after COVID in 18.1% of COVID patients studied (3).

A more accurate estimate of the number of people that fully recover may be obtained if the number of people who recovered without hospitalization is used. The numbers presented are the CDC's current best estimate of the number of people that survive COVID not the number of people that fully recover.

Sources:

1) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

2) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02598-6

3) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30462-4/fulltext

4) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768351/

5) https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351

The takeaway: While minimal protection occurs when a mask is worn in a place where many others are not wearing a mask, community masking is associated with a reduction in COVID cases.

The claim: In a community with modest infection rates, some social distancing, and most people not wearing masks, wearing a surgical mask did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate by more than 50%.

The evidence: This study showed that wearing a mask in a community where most people did not wear a mask, did not reduce the risk of getting infected by 50%. Fewer COVID infections were reported in the mask group than in the unmasked group. This study agrees with a meta analysis which showed that masks resulted in a decrease in infections but did not prevent all infections (1) According to the CDC, seven studies have shown community level benefit when masking recommendations were made (2).

When most in the community are not wearing masks, social distancing, and washing hands, wearing a mask alone provides minimal protection to the mask wearer. Community wide masking is associated with a reduction in COVID cases (2).

Sources:

1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29140516/

2) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

Take away: Lower COVID-19 spread occurred after stay-at home orders were issued. Room for debate exists on how restrictive lockdowns should be.

The claim: Mandatory stay-at home orders are "useless" in helping lower the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

The evidence: Two publications showed that lower COVID-19 spread occurred after stay-at home orders were issued (1, 2). Hospitalizations were lower than predicted exponential growth rates after implementation of stay-at home orders (3). Some caveats to consider include that it is impossible to tease apart the effects of the stay-at home orders from other measure implemented simultaneously with stay-at home orders such as increased hygiene measures, social distancing guidelines, and school closures. It is also impossible to conclusively state that the effect is from the stay-at home order and not the natural progression of the disease.

The comparison between Illinois with stay-at home orders and Iowa without stay-at home orders resulted in an estimated 217 additional COVID-19 cases in Iowa over the course of a month (2). This small number raises the question, "are stay-at home orders worth it?" It is important to remember that comparison of Iowa and Illinois is the comparison of two social distancing strategies. Stay-at home orders close everything and then write the exceptions that can remain open. Iowa took the approach of leaving everything open except what the government choose to close (4). Some businesses in Iowa were still closed and many federal guidelines were still followed. A negative control showing disease progression without any mitigation measures does not exist in published literature.

Sources:

1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246016/

2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32413112/

3 https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2020/04/07/iowa-equivalent-stay-at-home-order-coronavirus-kim-reynolds/2961810001/

4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7254451/

The takeaway: Even though mutations happen in all virus, vaccines still work. Current evidence about SARS-CoV-2 indicates that an effective COVID-19 vaccine can be obtained, and that it should be able to provide immunity against the virus.

The claim: A better analogy for COVID-19 is the mumps. For more than 45 years, we’ve had a very effective vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (which are also RNA viruses).

The evidence: We are all imperfect and we all make mistakes. For a virus, a mistake means the introduction of a mutation in its sequence, and RNA viruses (like the flu, mumps, measles virus, and SARS-CoV-2) have the highest error rates in nature. Mutations are indispensable for viral survival and evolution; this property is believed to benefit the viral population, allowing it to adapt and respond to different complex environments encountered during spread between hosts, within organs and tissues, and in response to the pressure of the host immune response [1]. How fast a virus is changing can be estimated by measuring its mutation rate, and then they can be classified as changing fast – high mutation rate – like HIV or Influenza, or as stable, like measles or mumps virus. SARS-CoV-2 has a mutation rate three times slower than the flu virus [2], but it's still changing faster than the mumps virus (the mutation rate of influenza is more than 10 times higher than mumps) [3]. Of course, how fast a virus can change has implications in the efficacy of treatments and vaccines, but it's not the only determinant. Even though mutations happen in all viruses, vaccines still work. A great example is the measles virus, as the antigenic composition of the vaccine (the molecules that “wake up” the immune system) used to prevent it has remained efficient since it was developed, in the 1960s, and confers protection against the 24 circulating genotypes [4]. The same is true for the mumps virus, with a vaccine that has been efficient for many decades [5]. Sequencing data suggest that coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses, probably because of a viral ‘proofreading’ activity that corrects all the copying mistakes [6]. Taken together, all this evidence indicates that an effective COVID-19 vaccine can be obtained, and that it should be able to provide lasting immunity against the virus.

Sources:<br> 1

2 SARS-CoV-2 mutation rate: 1.26 x 10-3 substitutions/site/year

3 Influenza (flu-virus) mutation rate: 3.68 x 10-3 substitutions/site/year. Mumps mutation rate: 2.98 × 10−4 substitutions/site/year

4

5

6

Take away: Though the number of COVID deaths prevented and the exact number of years lost due directly to decreases in mental health from lockdowns is at best a rough estimate, several facts are known. Lockdowns decrease mental health, and a decrease in mental health shortens lives too.

The claim: Anxiety from reactions to COVID-19 will destroy at least seven times more years of life than can be saved by lockdowns.

The evidence: This article references many studies detailing the anxiety surrounding COVID-19 (1-4). These studies indicate that many people have increased stress due to COVID. Nature Public Health Emergency Collection reports that the mental health cost of widespread lockdowns may negate the lives saved by this policy (5). This article lists many articles which describe the effect of stay-at-home orders on mental health. Additionally, the effect of poor mental health on physical outcomes is well-defined. Poor mental health shortens lives. Other factors with COVID such as negative media coverage and dealing with job loss and death are also described as negatively affecting mental health. It is unclear how much of the negative mental health outcomes is directly related to lockdowns and what is contributed to the disease, job loss, future uncertainty, and continuous media coverage.

Several supporting facts used in this article are now outdated or could use clarification. Many assumptions are detailed in this article to estimate the number of years lost due to mental harm caused by lockdowns. One example is the authors used a survey of 1,266 patients to estimate the number of people in the United States who have suffered mental harm from lockdowns. These estimates are challenging to conclusively verify. The authors did choose the conservative estimate for each of their numbers. One example of an outdated number is the predicted number of deaths was 114,228 by August 4th. The actual number of deaths per Johns Hopkins was 157,500 (6).

Based on the facts, anxiety and mental disorders can be deadly. Lockdowns result in an increase in poor mental health. The exact number of years lost due to poor mental health directly resulting from lockdowns is less clear. Poor mental health may also result from constant media coverage, loss of loved ones and fear of the future.

The sources:

1) https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/news-releases/new-poll-covid-19-impacting-mental-well-being-americans-feeling-anxious-especially-for-loved-ones-older-adults-are-less-anxious

2) https://www.kff.org/health-reform/report/kff-health-tracking-poll-early-april-2020/

3) https://www.bsgco.com/post/coronavirus-and-americans-mental-health-insights-from-bsg-s-pulse-of-america-poll

4) https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-tracking-poll-late-april-2020-economic-and-mental-health-impacts-of-coronavirus/

5) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7431738/#

6) https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

I think the main thing wrong with it is the eval (which I think can be changed to $("$@") and it's pretty verbose.

Also, there are more concise ways to do it that would probably appeal more to most bash experts...

like set -x

and it does unnecessary things: why save output to a variable? Just let output go to where it would normally go...

So yeah, I can see why this solution isn't very popular. And I'm rather surprised by all the praise comments it's gotten.

The takeaway: Though COVID-19 cases are at a record high, the number of deaths from COVID-19 has not followed the steep rise in cases. An increase in the number of deaths may be reported later as deaths lag cases by several weeks.

The claim: On every measure - new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths - the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

The evidence: New COVID infections in the US are the highest they have ever been with a 7-day moving average of 104,417 cases/day (1). The number of deaths in the US is similar to the number of deaths in August, lower than the number of deaths in the spring and higher than the number of deaths in the summer (2). A slight increase was seen in the number of deaths for the first two weeks in October followed by a slight decline which may change as more data is added (3). The number of emergency department visits for coronavirus like symptoms is on an upward trajectory nationwide (4). The CDC states "At least one indicator used to monitor COVID-19 activity is increasing in each of the ten HHS regions, and many regions are reporting increases in multiple indicators" (3).

Though COVID-19 cases are at a record high, the number of deaths from COVID-19 has not followed the steep rise in cases. An increase in the number of deaths may be reported later as deaths lag cases by several weeks.

Sources:

1) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

2) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendsdeaths

3) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

4) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#ed-visits

The takeaway: Dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection in all six ferrets tested. Much more work is needed before this could be used in humans.

The claim: Treatment of ferrets with a dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor completely prevents SARS-CoV-2 infection in ferrets.

The evidence: Per Figure 3, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in all three animals inoculated with the virus, all six animals treated with a placebo, and none of the animals treated with the dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor (1). Animals treated with dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor did not mount an immune response to SARS-CoV-2 while an immune response was seen in inoculated animals and placebo treated animals (Figure 4).

More research is needed before this treatment can be used in humans. This preliminary study showed that in a small sample of animals which do not typically show COVID symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 infection was blocked by the dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor. This paper describes the first step in a long journey. Before a new treatment is approved for use in humans, Phase I, II and III clinical trials must be completed (2) which includes showing that a treatment does no harm to healthy humans and proving that it works in humans. This work also needs peer-review in a published journal which may occur with time.

Sources:

1) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.04.361154v1.full.pdf

2) https://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-process/step-3-clinical-research

If you consider using asynchronous to be an optimization, then this could be surprising.

The takeaway: The debt to GDP ratio after coronavirus relief spending is higher than it has ever been.

The claim: The coronavirus pandemic is expected to take the U.S. national debt to levels not seen since World War II.

The evidence: A number of COVID-19 spending acts and executive orders include: Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020, Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), CARES Act, Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, and President Trump's Executive Actions (1). Prior to these bills and executive actions, the fiscal year 2020 federal deficit was predicted to be $3.1 trillion (1). The total cost of the coronavirus relief measures is $2,607,000,000,000 (1). The debt to GDP ratio in 2020 at the end of quarter 2 is 136% (2). The debt had previously peaked in 1946 after WWII at 118% debt to GDP ratio (2).

Sources:

1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2020/10/18/5-big-numbers-reveal-the-unsettling-scope-of-stimulus-spending/?sh=26ae8057142b

2) https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

Take away: Even though mini-lungs (and mini-organs) are extremely valuable tools for scientist to study disease and prospective therapeutics, results obtained with these models are hardly generalizable and normally need to be validated in animal models and clinical studies.

The claim: Based on our model we can tackle many unanswered key questions, such as understanding genetic susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, assessing relative infectivity of viral mutants, and revealing the damage processes of the virus in human alveolar cells. Most importantly, it provides the opportunity to develop and screen potential therapeutic agents against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The evidence: Regardless of their name, mini-organs are hardly real miniature organs, these clumps of cells resemble organs in many ways, but they lack certain features that allow real organs to function and grow. For now, mini-organs don’t develop beyond tiny and simplistic models of organs, and remain hard to produce in the large, consistent batches needed for drug screening and other efforts. But, in spite of their limitations, they still are a giant step up from 2D cultures of cells that scientists have long grown in the lab. In particular, studies of SARS-CoV-2 in mini-organs have limitations because they do not reflect the crosstalk between organs and systems that happens in the body. Here for example, the mini-organs do not produce the full cellular spectrum present in the adult alveoli. Also, the mini-lungs in this study cannot mimic an interaction with the immune system, which likely influences how the disease develops. Some groups are beginning to test existing drugs against SARS-CoV-2 in mini-organs in a small scale, but we will only know at the end of this process what the predictive value of these systems are for testing drug efficacy.

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(20)30498-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb3312 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.10.144816v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.25.115600v2

The takeaway: During the peak of infections during large outbreaks, COVID-19 deaths in age group 25-44 is higher than drug overdose deaths.

The claim: COVID-19 has likely become the leading cause of death in age group 25-44.

The evidence: This article compares COVID-19 deaths to opioid deaths during 2018. When the hardest hit areas are combined and areas not hit are excluded, the number of COVID-19 deaths is five deaths more than the opioid deaths during the same period in 2018. Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in the age group 25-44 (1-2). In 2018, opioid overdose resulted in 24,253 deaths in the age group of 25-44 in the United States (3). Transportation fatal injuries for the age group 25-44 in 2018 was 12,904 (4). In 2020, deaths from all causes for age group 25-44 is 124,736 with 5,911 directly attributable to COVID-19 (5, accessed 10/28/2020).

COVID-19 was briefly the leading cause of death in the hardest hit areas during the peak of the epidemic for age group 25-44 if unintentional injuries is broken into subcategories.

Sources: 1 https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/animated-leading-causes.html

2 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf

3 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6911a4.ht m

4 https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html

5 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

I suppose this is also an argument that Python tries to make? That other languages have this con:

• cons: closing tags make it more verbose / increase duplication and that Python is simpler / more concise because it uses indentation instead of closing delimiters like end or } ?

The takeaway: An increase in COVID-19 infections occurred nationwide in the time following protests. Due to simultaneous occurrence of non-uniform lifting of stay-at home orders, Memorial Day, and Black Lives Matter protests, it is not possible to conclusively determine the exact cause of the nationwide COVID-19 case spike after June 9, 2020.

The claim: Black Lives Matter protests did not seem to trigger a spike of COVID-19 infections.

The evidence: This statement is based on an article written in IZA Institute of Labor Economics discussion paper series (1). The article, titled “Black Lives Matter Protests, Social Distancing, and COVID-19” states that overall, stay-at home orders were better followed during protests based on cell phone data. Yet it still shows a steady increase in COVID-19 cases (Figure 6, 1). Additionally, The data from this report stops after June 9th while riots continued and COVID-19 cases across the country spiked (2, 3). As other factors such as Memorial Day weekend, and opening of economies occurred in a non-uniform fashion during the same time as protests, it is not possible to determine the exact cause of the nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases.

The abstract of the IZA report was updated August 2020 to read: "We conclude that predictions of population-level spikes in COVID-19 cases from Black Lives Matter protests were too narrowly conceived because of failure to account for non-participants’ behavioral responses to large gatherings." (4). The non-participant response was explained by this statement in the abstract: "Event-study analyses provide strong evidence that net stay-at-home behavior increased following protest onset." To put this in plain language: non-protestors stayed home more during protests which resulted in a steady increase in COVID-19 instead of a spike. The effect of mask wearing by protestors was not mentioned in the report.

Only anecdotal evidence and one small study (20 participants) were found showing protestors wearing masks (5-9). No scientific publications with the direct effect of the masks on the spread of COVID-19 during protests were found.

Valentine et al examined eight cities with tens of thousands of protestors (1, 10). Cities were chosen which had economies open at least 30 days prior to the protests to control for an expected spike when economies open. They found that six out of eight cities examined had significant abnormal positive growth of COVID-19 infection rate following the Black Lives Matter protests (10). All cities studied had abnormal positive infection rate growth.

Protests resulted in abnormal positive infection growth rates in all eight cities with stay at home orders lifted for at least 30 days prior to protests (10). A spike in COVID-19 cases nationwide happened after June 9th (3). Due to simultaneous occurrence of non-uniform lifting of stay-at home orders, Memorial Day, and Black Lives Matter protests, it is not possible to conclusively determine the exact cause of the nationwide COVID-19 case spike after June 9, 2020.

Sources:

1 http://ftp.iza.org/dp13388.pdf

2 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/07/george-floyd-protests-enter-third-week

3 https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

4 https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408

5 https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/24/883017035/what-contact-tracing-may-tell-about-cluster-spread-of-the-coronavirus

6 https://www.vox.com/2020/6/26/21300636/coronavirus-pandemic-black-lives-matter-protests

7 https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/08/11/racial-justice-protests-were-not-a-major-cause-of-covid-19-infection-surges-new-national-study-finds/

8 https://www.geekwire.com/2020/testing-shows-no-big-spike-covid-19-infections-due-protests-wear-mask/

9 https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-68862/v1/79db6827-52c3-4e94-afa0-679d15a89049.pdf

10 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7454741/

Take Away: The new scientific paper confirms earlier modeling work and should not be interpreted as a detailed prediction for future deaths due to the ongoing pandemic.

The Claim: "A scientific review of the science behind lockdown concludes the policy was a MISTAKE & will have caused MORE deaths from Covid-19"

The Evidence: The scientific process involves replication and confirmation of experiments and studies. A new paper replicates and expands on an early modeling study of the COVID-19 pandemic in England (1). Their findings support the earlier results. However, there are limitations to the replication paper, which does not accurately reflect the current state of the pandemic response and does not make detailed predictions for a second wave of infections and deaths.

A recent expert response to the paper further explains (2):

"It needs to be stressed that all the simulations assume that interventions are only in place for 3 months (18th April – 18th July) and then completely relaxed. This gives rise to a strange set of scenarios where a second wave is allowed to progress in an uncontrolled manner."

“It is this that leads to the counter-intuitive headline finding “that school closures would result in more overall covid-19 deaths than no school closures” – actually what the authors find is that a short period of intense lock-down (including the closure of schools) leads to a large second wave if it is allowed to run with no controls. To be fair the authors do highlight this in the paper, but it is not in the reported press release." -Prof Matt Keeling, Professor of Populations and Disease, University of Warwick

Sources:

(1) https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3588