Brian Dixon PhD

06/09/2020

In other non-coronavirus health news...mindfulness matters.

Are you a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" thinker?

Turns out it could be very important for the health of your brain.

Bottomline, fill your head with positive thoughts. It simply makes you feel better immediately and now looks like it has long-term health benefits!

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jun/repetitive-negative-thinking-linked-dementia-risk

Persistently engaging in negative thinking patterns may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, finds a new UCL-led study.

06/06/2020

To have locked down or not lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic will be a question that will likely be debated for years.

If memory serves, there were two countries that did not implement lockdowns during our current pandemic. One in Eastern Europe (Macedonia? or Estonia?) and of course, Sweden.

Sweden's chief epidemiologist is now questioning whether not locking down was the right decision. Sweden's death toll and number of confirmed cases is far higher than its neighboring countries.

For me the interesting question is how will Sweden fair over the long-term? Were they able to build up a sufficient herd immunity where they will be less affected by future outbreaks?

Or will it have had no effect and their population needlessly suffered?

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the end.

Sweden's chief epidemiologist, who advocated a no-lockdown strategy to combat the coronavirus epidemic, concedes that more should have been done.

05/28/2020

This is such an interesting article.

Antibody testing for COVID-19 in Utah indicates a far higher rate of (past) infections than predicted - 11 percent of the population!!!

Granted, not a scientifically rigorous study but this is over double the rate for active infection tests (that would also have a self-selection bias).

The results can only mean one of three things:

1) the virus came through the (Western) US far earlier than anyone thought.

2) many more people carry the virus asymptomatically than previously thought.

3) some combination of #1 and #2.

I just know so many people who have talked about getting really sick back in November, December, and January.

As a scientist, I'm curious to learn all the science of this pandemic: how it started, how it spread, risk factors, effective interventions (prevention and treatment), and all of its molecular biology.

Hoping we'll learn tons from this one to minimize the suffering of the next.

One reason the antibody test rate is higher than the statewide infection rate is because all of the people getting antibody tests so far chose to get tested because they thought they might have been sick.

04/17/2020

This video illustrates the importance of social distancing and how a lack thereof can accelerate the spread of any infectious disease, including the coronavirus.

The video dates back retrospectively to spring break and the controversial decision NOT to close beaches in Florida. That single decision likely had a massive impact on the acceleration of COVID-19 cases across the US, especially the midwest and east coast.

We are all in this thing together. The better we collectively are at staying home and maintaining our distance from others, the sooner COVID-19 will burn out, this will all be over, and we can get back to "life as normal."

Stay safe, healthy, and well this weekend! :-)

04/15/2020

This article is a very interesting read regarding the role of nutrition in upper respiratory infections and then makes some assumptions to COVID-19.

I'd encourage everyone to read the ENTIRE article (it's a short, interesting read).

Let me know your key take-aways and we can discuss below in the comments.

Social distancing and regular handwashing are the most effective and proven methods to reduce risk and spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, along with general questions on how to …

04/13/2020

Regarding coronavirus:

This is an interesting, and admittedly controversial, hypothesis currently being tested by Stanford Medicine.

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/stanford-medicine-develops-antibody-test-for-coronavirus.html

The experimental question is: "why is the eastern half of the United States currently so disproportionately affected by COVID-19?" (refer to attached image - heat map of current coronavirus infections)

The working hypothesis is the virus initially started in the US on the west coast, maybe as early as last November/December (and possibly earlier). Estimates are it may have affected somewhere between five to eight percent of that population early in the pandemic.

This is interesting because: 1) the virus may have mostly ran its course on west coast before anyone knew what it was and/or 2) it may have given a low-grade "herd immunity" to the west coast that is helping slow its spread do this peak time for the rest of the US.

https://www.bakersfield.com/ap/national/new-signs-suggest-coronavirus-was-in-california-far-earlier-than-anyone-knew/article_5cdf0633-204a-55fb-8930-dc325a1d2457.html

For me as a scientist, it will be interesting to see how this particular virus came to be and then its entire epidemiology. Unfortunately, because many of the tests are still being developed, this will all have to be done retrospectively (with hindsight) and likely no time soon.

I'd like to emphasize again this is only a hypothesis. This is still a serious situation and we all need to be diligent to do our part to help slow its spread. Stay home, stay safe. Make sure any trips are only for essential purposes. And make sure to maintain your social distance.