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The End of a Chapter

This week marks the end of my time as the chief of the outbreak team. The positivity rate in our health district is now at 1.25%. In Maryland, it is at 1.98%. In Washington, DC, it is at 1.5%. The number of cases from congregate settings has dropped precipitously as vaccination uptake reached well over 90% in most facilities among their residents, though it could be better among their staff. Overall in the communities, more than half of eligible adults have been vaccinated, with many parents taking their younger kids to get vaccinated and younger adults also participating (thanks in part to schools and universities requiring vaccination before returning to in-person teaching).

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Quarantine Shmarantine! Pandemic Edition

Six years ago, I told you all about how quarantines don’t really work in practice. They work in theory just fine, but human nature in all of us make us violate quarantine almost inevitably. We just don’t like being told what to do as a society. We also get scared of contagion if we are […]

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They’re Laughing at US

It has almost been 20 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania of September 11, 2001. Since then, numerous conspiracy theories have been floated in an attempt to explain the unimaginable tragedy that that day was for the families of the victims. These theories range from the insane to […]

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