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The Frictions That You’ll Encounter
Posted on May 4, 2017 2 Comments
Before I begin, a quick note: I worked on the Zika response in Puerto Rico during November and December of last year. A section of this blog post deals with what is happening in Puerto Rico with regards to investigating Zika cases, and it includes excerpts from news reports indicating that there is a lot […]
We Need to Pay Attention to What Is Going on in Puerto Rico
Posted on October 24, 2016 7 Comments
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Puerto Rico since I agreed to go down there to help in the Zika outbreak. According to most media reports, the situation in Puerto Rico is quite dire from a financial and demographic standpoint. Crime is high, yes, but it’s not any higher than Baltimore, where murder […]
Like a Chicken With My Head Cut Off
Posted on September 27, 2016 7 Comments
One of the things that I admire about the people who I admire is their ability — real or perceived — to multitask. The best of them can do it effortlessly. They come up with stuff that they’ve done and I’m left wondering how they did it. I’ve been trying to match that kind of […]
The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio Must Not Proceed
Posted on May 10, 2016 3 Comments
Here is some very thoughtful commentary from Dr. Amir Attaran published in Harvard Public Health Review. http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/off-the-podium-why-rios-2016-olympic-games-must-not-proceed/ Here’s the clincher from that opinion article: “Which leads to a simple question: But for the Games, would anyone recommend sending an extra half a million visitors into Brazil right now? Of course not: mass migration into the […]
Zika, Zika, Zika! (An update)
Posted on March 12, 2016 3 Comments
Just a quick update on Zika: A case-control study in French Polynesia has found a strong association between Zika infection and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). That is, the proportion of cases of GBS who had previous Zika infection (confirmed by serological analyses) was significantly larger than the proportion of people without GBS who had previous Zika […]
Six things you need to know about Zika right now
Posted on February 17, 2016 12 Comments
The Zika virus situation is this year’s Ebola. Like with Ebola, a lot of doom and gloom is floating around, and a lot of outright lies are being put forth by people who have no clue of what is going on. They are relying on fears and speculation to drive up visits to their websites […]
What is a “handful”?
Posted on February 14, 2016 1 Comment
Everyone is getting all caught-up in the fever over Zika in the Americas. So I was pleasantly surprised to see an article in a blog I frequent titled: Your Non-Alarmist Guide to the Zika Virus. Unfortunately, it only took one sentence for the whole post to be derailed for me: “Zika virus, a previously obscure […]
Where do you begin to understand Zika?
Posted on February 7, 2016 5 Comments
It’s all the rage these days to get worked-up about Zika. Just like last year with Ebola, this year we’re freaking out over a disease from “over there” coming “over here” and hurting Americans. Also, the observed association between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly is scaring the crap out of people. (It’s really scaring […]
EpidemioLogical 