🦠 COVID-19 | The second peak is the deepest | 🤕 1,090,941 | Deaths 58,509
A few of you have asked whether the author was meant to be anonymous and others who know me have said that I should give my background. I am a scientist by education, banker at JPMorgan for a few years, then mature PhD student in Chemical Biology at Oxford under the supervision of Christofer Schofield (FRS) and Peter Ratcliffe (Nobel laureate in medicine in 2019). Founder and tech investor focusing on media and education. I care about science, learning and Democracy which are good bedfellows.
📊 Daily Data Brief:
1,090,941 cumulative cases (+60,656)
Active cases: 804,427 (+48,237) (this is the number of currently infected patients)
Total Deaths: 58,509 (+4,310)
Serious/Critical Cases: 39,402 (+1,224)
Source: Worldometers
Death curves (updated daily as ECDC releases). Major update with per country graphs now available (Link)
It is difficult not to be angry today at the preparedness and adequacy of our respective governments in dealing with the crisis. Obviously, that anger is not uniform across countries and it is clear that countries which have had experienced with SARS-CoV-1 or Ebola for example have on average shown better response than countries which were richer and seem to have the better science and innovation culture.
I was struck when some of my UK friends were expressing disbelief at the fact that the UK had less testing capacity than South Korea. I had found it at the time (and still now) somewhat inappropriately condescending. As if it was unthinkable that a nation which never had an empire could be better in public health than the UK… COVID19 has been exceptionally good at exposing our unsubstantiated belief in the superiority of our models and society, and opening our eyes to the value and experience in fighting this pandemic. As Oscar Wilde already wrote in 1892 when our economy and belief in ourselves was not so exuberant that a cynic was “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. So maybe we have become more cynical than arrogant. If we have, we should not be surprised at the elected leaders in power.
One has to hope that COVID19 will make us reassess our values and priorities, as we see that other countries have shown greater preparedness, more adapted societal values and experience in dealing with a complex exponential problem that is the COVID19 pandemic than the allegedly leading nations of the free world. Our resilience as a species will only increase if we look at this moment as a chance for questioning and renewal. The latter should include enhanced cooperation and trust amongst nations rather than becoming increasingly distrustful, entrenched in our socio-economic ideology and nationalistic.
It is well known amongst epidemiologists that the second-peak of an epidemic is often higher than the first one. The Spanish influenza was a prime example. Let us use the learning from our initial failings to better prepare for the second peak and the complex challenges in front of us. We could already see SARS-CoV-2 as being the successor of SARS-CoV-1 (also sometimes referred to as SARS the disease it causes) and not having well prepared globally. Most of the nations which were not affected by SARS have shown an abysmal initial response. We could also see SARS-CoV-2 as being the first cut of the a future hypothetical SARS-CoV-3. Or we could see COVID19 being a warning of other and even more serious potential existential threats such as climate risk or nuclear war.
As Seneca, the Roman philosopher said: “'to err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical.”
What happens to the virus and other existential threats is up to us. The second peak does not have to be the deepest.
❗️ Article of the day: Sarah L Dalglish (JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) writes “COVID-19 gives the lie to global health expertise” in the Lancet
In the recently published 2019 Global Health Security Index compiled by the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health’s Center for Health Security:
“The USA was ranked first, and the UK second; South Korea was ranked ninth, and China 51st; most African countries were at the bottom of the ranking”
When it comes to COVID19 response and preparedness few would come up with a similar ranking… As the title suggests, and Dalglish writes in the article: “COVID-19 is giving the lie to prevailing notions of expertise and solidarity” when poorer but more experienced nations - with Ebola and SARS, have shown more preparedness.
Dalglish ends by writing:
“We must move quickly, for our own security, beyond the rhetoric of equality to the reality of a more democratic, more multipolar, more networked, and more distributed understanding and operation of global health.”
Some great references on lack of solidarity around sanctions, and good references to some of the creative responses in poorer countries such as Uganda, Senegal and Nigeria to name a few. (Link)
🦠 Video of the day: Micro droplets suspending in air
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued yesterday its “Recommendation Regarding the Use of Cloth Face Coverings, Especially in Areas of Significant Community-Based Transmission” as an additional public health measure (including a video on how to do make your own face covering mask).
The informative video below is from NHK (the national broadcasting organisation):
“An NHK experiment found that microdroplets emitted while sneezing and coughing and during conversations stay in the air for longer than normal droplets, potentially posing a uniquely dangerous risk for coronavirus infection”
🦠 Lee Shiu Hung wrote “The SARS epidemic in Hong Kong: what lessons have we learned?” for the Journal Royal Society of Medicine in August 2003.
This is to be read with the article of the day from Sarah Dalglish above. Hung writes a section entitle “Shortcomings” which starts by:
“The SARS outbreak reached epidemic proportions so quickly and explosively that the health and hospital authorities were unprepared. Initially there was an acute shortage of masks and protective clothing for the medical and health personnel, who were hard hit by the disease. Lack of epidemiological information about the disease hampered the prompt application of effective control measures.” (my emphasis)
Hung also writes in the “Prevention and Control” section:
“The prevention and control measures undertaken in Hong Kong include: (1) preventive education and publicity; (2) tracing the source of infection; (3) introducing five major control measures (compulsory isolation and surveillance of contacts, stopping school and university education sessions, exchange of epidemiological information between Hong Kong and Mainland China, temperature checking of travellers at points of entry and exit, district-wide cleansing campaigns); (4) strengthening collaboration and communication with Mainland China and the WHO; and (5) developing a quick diagnostic test for SARS.”
SARS was the first large coronavirus infection mainly centred in Asia. Outside Asia, SARS also affected Canada. Hung writes: “WHO issued a warning notice to travellers intending to visit the city—a notice later withdrawn after representations from the Canadian Health Ministry.” This WHO warning had a significant economic impact on Canada (C$1.5bn according to the conference board of Canada think tank). This might have also explained some of the cautious warning released by the WHO in the early days of the COVID19 epidemic.
Reading Hung article, one has to ask oneself at the very least how we better transfer knowledge from other nations’ experience on health issues. Otherwise as Dalglish writes there is no such thing as a “global health expertise”. (Link)
🇨🇳 Caixin published “In Depth: How Shanghai showed China how to deal with coronavirus”. This is a great article looking how China benefited from Shanghai experience with SARS in dealing with COVID19.
According to Hu Bijie, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of Respiratory Disease Research:
“According to epidemiological theory, the second peak in an epidemic is often higher that the first. We are hoping for a lower peak but are prepared for a higher one”
Enlightening and hard again not to ask question about the meaning and depth of our global health expertise and preparedness, particularly when you know that SARS is caused by SARS-CoV-1 and COVID19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Let us make sure that our government policy also heed Hu Bijie warning about the “second peak” for COVID19. (Link)
💊 Nick white published “Global coalition to accelerate COVID-19 clinical research in resource-limited settings” in the Lancet.
“A review of clinical trial registries, as of March 24, 2020, identified 536 relevant registered clinical trials. Of the 332 COVID-19 related clinical trials, 188 are open for recruitment and 146 trials are preparing to recruit.”
A great overview of where we are in drug discovery research and what is being done to accelerate finding a therapeutic for COVID19. (Link)
💉 Samanth Subramanian writes 'It’s a razor’s edge we’re walking': inside the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine” in the Guardian. A masterpiece of science journalism on the COVID19 vaccine race. (Link)
😀 Emily Esfahani Smith wrote “The Benefits of Optimism Are Real” back in 2014 for the Atlantic. Thank you to John Hagel for tweeting this article. Esfahani draws on psychological research and the meaning two acclaimed movies “The Life of Pi” and “Silver Linings Playbook”, to discuss the benefit of optimism and how it ties in positively with resilience. You might be angry about what you read in my newsletter today, but as Esfahani draws from multiple studies staying positive and searching for meaning has more benefits for your resilience and dealing with traumatic situation than venting anger. A great COVID19 read. (Link)
🚔 Violet Blue writes “The surveillance profiteers of COVID-19 are here” for Engadget. The article focuses on Zoom and COVID19 tracing app. The former is actually ones which needs quick fixing if only for Zoom to justify its lofty valuation (maybe an unattainable exercise anyway).
COVID19 tracing app presents indeed some key questions around surveillance. See below a tweet from Pat Walshe (who wrote the GSMA guideline/safeguarded call data during Ebola):
But maybe already applying some of Esfahani lessons on optimism we could see the careful implementation of these tracing apps as a way to change the dominant and current data surveillance paradigm of the internet. Europe also has an opportunity to strengthen and guide us in privacy as it has done in the past. Vigilance is warranted, but optimism might better guide us forward as well. (Link)
📊 A picture is worth a thousand words: Global (🌎) and local (with relevant flag) visualisation and forecasting tool
🌍 NEW❗️ Google has published a new website to “See how your community is moving around differently due to COVID-19”. They have a lot of data to do so… (Link)
🌎The Financial Times has a data tracking page which is in front of the paywall, looking at cases and fatality curves for selective countries and metropolitan areas/region. It is not as extensive as the Madlag link below, where you can see static as well as animated images for a greater number of individual countries. (Link)🇺🇸The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington (UW). It has put out a simulation for the US (overall and by state) of what is the expected shortfall in health capacity (bed, ICU, ventilators) and when is the expected peak of the epidemic for each state. A valuable resource. (Link)🇺🇸Another valuable resource by Unacast ( a data company providing human mobility insights). Their “Social distancing scoreboard looks and compares (State by State and County by County), the change in mobility to prior to COVID19 (Link)
🌎 Country by Country Curves (
❗️) This is a GitHub made by my friend Francois Lagunas. He has written a script to scrape deaths and number of cases in order to visualise the rate of growth on a logarithmic scale. Great resource (Link)CityMapper has started to produce City Mobility Index to show how much a City is moving. This is a very good indicator of how well lockdowns are respected around the world: Barcelona (4% of city moving) at one end and St Petersburg at the other end (68% of city moving) for yesterday (Link)
🌎A great resource put together by Ben Kuhn and Yuri Vishnevsky. At a time when we need solidarity and cooperation, I prefer their subtitle “We need stronger measures, much faster” than their title. It’s a simulator on what case growth looks like depending on your community’s measures. Fantastic resource to stir communities and governments to action (Link)
🇩🇪 The COVID19 dashboard for Germany is one of the best around. (Link)
🌎A helpful guide by VOX of the “9 coronavirus pandemic charts everyone should see” (Link)
🌎Data and chart regularly updated by the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. It maps the effective reproduction number (also known as R0) of COVID19. You want to get it below 1 as fast as possible to contain an epidemic. (Link to see charts and more data about your country)
🌎This is a great COVID19 Dashboard prepared by Andrzej Leszkiewicz. Andrzej has also written an introductory and explanatory blog for it (“Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) fatality rate: WHO and media vs logic and mathematics”). I particularly like the country comparison tab, which allows you to track and benchmark the curve of the epidemic (number of cases and deaths) in your country with that of another. Very well done and informative. (Link)
“Going Critical” by Kevin Simler is a detailed interacting essay talking about complex systems, the importance of understanding networks, modelling and how this applies to: memes, infectious diseases, herd immunity, wildfire, neutrons and culture. Must read (Link)
🇸🇬/🌎 Singapore remains the gold standard of dashboard. Here is an article with the Best and Worst of all dashboard in the world, with Pros and Cons prepared by Neel V. Patel for MIT Technology (Article)
🎬 Videos: Matt Pattinson (CEO of Ten) runs a podcast debating #masks4uk #masks4all. Should we wear masks to curb the spread? It looks at the issue from all angles: cultural, human, social as well as scientific. A comprehensive and useful overview. (Link)
🏛 Notable collaborative projects
Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) was launched yesterday. Data is collected from public sources by a team of dozens of Oxford University students and staff from every part of the world. It also looks at stringency of the measures and plots stringency with case curves. A great initiative and resource (Link)
Mike Butcher (Editor at Large Techcrunch and founder of TechforUK), had refocused TechforUK on the fight against COVID19. It is a very effective hands-on team of volunteer. Do reach out to them. He has also teamed up with We are now working closely with the volunteers behind the “Coronavirus Tech Handbook”. (They are ‘cousins’ of ours who originally created the Electiontechhandbook). Volunteer collaboration at its best! (Link)
Tariq Krim has started a COVID19 website tracking data about each government policy response to the pandemic (Link)
📰 Cronycle resource:
Cronycle has made available a number of open-access feeds on its website which I extensively use for the Corona Daily. The four first feeds are:
1. COVID-19 General (Link)
2. COVID-19 x Resilience (Link)
3. COVID-19 x HCQ/CQ (Link) (HydroxyChloroquine and Chloroquine)
4. Gig Economy x COVID-19 (Link)
And I have added a new feed below
5. Supply Chain x COVID-19 (Link)
I will write more in the future on how you can leverage Cronycle for keeping up to date in between two editions of this newsletter. (Link)
Here is a blog post from Valerie Pegon at Cronycle: “Grow knowledge about Covid-19, not anxiety!” (Link)
🎬 The Grant Sanderson permanent video corner:
Exponential growth and epidemics
This is an excellent video explaining “exponential growth” and epidemics. Although we are all familiar with the phrase, its authors rightly says that “yet human intuition has a hard time recognising what it means”. This is a ❗️MUST WATCH❗️to understand fully what is upon us but also how early behavioural changes at scale can have a massive impact on the level of exponential growth of COVID19 (Link)
“Simulating an Epidemic”
This is the second video by Grant Sanderson looking at simulating an epidemic under different physical distancing measures. (Link)
Thank you for listening to your friends and for providing (at least) a semi-anonymous bio. It should be part of your "about this newsletter" page ...and if you truly care about those three things, you will understand the need for absolute transparency. You are performing acts of journalism with this newsletter; trust follows owning your words. Peace.
Great work, as usual