Scientific Resources for Communities in Pandemic

This is a web page of resources that I am collecting as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds. Click here to get back to the index.

What’s next?

• Stopping the next pandemic

History / timelines

The longer this pandemic goes on, the more important is to pay attention to its timelines.

• A great collection of linked essays from Data&Society
• An important synthesis from the oral history project, published in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine
• At the two year mark, The Guardian put together a userful set of visualizations
• Here is a very thoughtful piece that appeared in the New Yorker magazine at approximately the one year mark.
• The Guardian as we approach the two year mark.
• The trauma remaining
• An interesting and complex view of this past year
• It may take historians to help us remember
• The Trump administration’s many attempts to prevent photographs and other visual evidence from within healthcare settings to reach the public, is chronicled here.
• This piece from the Atlantic magazine chronicles “The year we lost”.
• Here is a profoundly disturbing reflection on the ways in which COVID-19 has “hollowed out a generation of young Black men”.

Basic scientific information

• Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota; this is my most trusted “go-to” source for information on COVID-19
• A good basic “explainer” from Vox
• Protecting yourself from aerosol transmission
• The NYTimes COVID tracker (data on a county level)
• Why herd immunity might be impossible, from the very reputable scientific journal Nature
• Weighing the risks in terms of public gatherings
• Another really good overall piece
• The complex biology of this virus
• A discussion of the differing epidemiological models that are the basis of some of the physical distancing guidelines
• COVID-19 and race (lots of data)
• Protecting yourself and your family (advice from a pulmonary doctor at the heart of NYC)
• A great visual simulation of how distancing, quarantine and testing might work
• Visualizations that help us to understand why we need to “flatten the curve”
• A visualization that helps you see the differences between the flu and COVID-19
• Understanding some of the data
• Maybe suveillance of sewage will help us forecast outbreaks
• Special issue of a journal focused on studying misinformation, looking at this pandemic
• Free access to a journal issue of Health Security, focused on coronavirus outbreaks and preparedness more generally
• A graphic guide to possible vaccines
• Coronavirus: the hammer and the dance: this is a key essay full of data and visualizations
• The Imperial College of the UK’s report, which finally triggered our federal government to do something]
• “Prepare for the ultimate gaslighting”
• Tips on reporting on COVID19 and preventing misinformation
• How the coronavirus became an American tragedy (this is an article full of data)
• An excellent Vox explainer on economic issues
• Another Vox piece that looks at how we could meet the economic challenges more appropriately
• a Coronavirus tech handbook being crowdsourced by scientists
• We are entering an ice age, not just enduring a blizzard
• The JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) videos on COVID-19
• Emerging information on varying risks to levels of exposure
• The challenge of creatng a vaccine
• How we “will beat COVID-19”
• The Economic Strategy Group statement on the pandemic and the economy
• The near certainty of a Black depression