# March 14/15th: Daily Coronavirus link updates

As part of the LessWrong Coronavirus Link Database, I am publishing a daily update post with all the new links we are adding each day that we ranked a 3 or above in our importance rankings. Here are all the top links we (Elizabeth, Ben and I) added over the weekend, by topic.

Guides/FAQs/Intros
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[**Coronavirus: Why you must act now (medium post)**](https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca)

Summary and call to action, one of the best summaries I've found, focuses more on policy-interventions than on individual actions, but is still good at giving you an overview

[**UpToDate: Coronavirus Overview**](https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19?fbclid=IwAR1RgCZKFEywtU6REGTqJPHBM-nPNXaGbi0E3gX8cuAiNyfVZo5WNrx2nuo)

UpToDate very frequently has the best overviews over many crucial medical topics. Geared towards a more professional medical audience. 

[**Letter to loved ones asking to take CV seriously**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GuJFO1Yz4dtx_LyDmi7acuVaFKBRx-SIvGoqGDVfiMY/edit)

Well written, compassionate explanation of why this is worse than what we've seen before and need to take this seriously. A few pointers on where to get started

[**Early February 80,000 hours episode on Coronavirus (1h 18min)**](https://80000hours.org/2020/02/experimental-episode-about-2019-ncov-coronavirus/)

Long episode on coronavirus. Includes all the basic information, and discussion of big-picture implications

Spread & Prevention
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[**Masks help prevent infection in schoolchildren**: ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335516301553?via%3Dihub)

In a group of 10,524 Japanese schoolchildren, masks and vaccination decreased the chance of catching influenza, gargling and handwashing increased the chance

[**Metareview: facemasks at mass gatherings**](https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(16)31010-4/fulltext)

A collection of 25 studies with 12710 participants was examined. Out of 13 studies on respiratory illness, 4 showed statistically significant effectiveness, 1 showed statistically significant ineffectiveness, the rest produced no statistically significant results

[**“Flattening the Curve” is a deadly delusion**](https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-deadly-delusion-eea324fe9727)

At current medical capacity, we'd need to flatten the curve for 10 years in order to get everyone full treatment

[**Summary of papers arguing that many/most infections spread from people before they show symptoms**](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9GyKccaJdLEbdhyTi/a-significant-portion-of-covid-19-transmission-is)

A readable summary of some papers about how quickly people transmit the disease and how quickly the symptoms show. Argues that perhaps the majority of people transmit it before they show symptoms.

[**Timothy Gowers: Herd immunity is very costly, and we can't get all the things we ant**](https://twitter.com/wtgowers/status/1238521840554868739)

Twitter thread on costs of UK's herd immunity strategy, argues that we have to give up at least one of: (1) herd immunity (2) non-overwhelmed hospitals (3) get life back to normal before next winter

[**Paper: derives CV prevalence estimates from data on unexplained flu-like symptoms**](https://github.com/reichlab/ncov/blob/master/analyses/ili-labtest-report.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3XfEmqDnUcrZBcAJ66tz6YGoBk20N8-fSn37VTjjXG8Wz0tm-OzDXI9oQ)

The relative prevalence of patients influenza like illnesses that test negative for influenza has been high for the past several weeks, but not extraordinarily so (< 3 standard deviations)

[**Rob Wiblin: Model update suggests we are dealing with unmitigated exponential growth**](https://www.facebook.com/robert.wiblin/posts/885559955635)

Rob Wiblin updated his spreadsheet model with new data, which suggests that we are basically dealing with unmitigated exponential growth, without any significant slowdown

Progression/Outcome
-------------------

[**Twitter: CV kills via cardiac failure, not pulmonary**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aXBq5edfzvOz22rot6JvMeKD0tRF9-w4fF500fIrvcs/edit#gid=1015362630)  
 

Apparently the ARDS is not too severe, and they can manage people through that part of it. Instead, after several days, the virus suddenly attacks the heart, causing it to precipitously fail. The myocarditis phase is savage and kills people within a day or two

[**Estimate of C19 death rate**](https://steemit.com/covid19/@pasha-kamyshev/better-estimates-of-covid19-death-rates)

Tries to produce more accurate death-rate estimates for China, South Korea, and Italy, based on interpretation of existing data

[**Seattle ICU Dr describes CV progression**](https://twitter.com/Chenbariatrics1/status/1238322250392039424)

The Chinese data on 80% mildly ill, 14% hospital-ill, 6-8% critically ill are generally on the mark,  elderly patients going to "comfort care", detailed description of clinical presentation, remdesivir is scarce

[**Doctor reports 20-30% reduction in lung capacity in 1/4 of patients**](https://www.yahoo.com/news/people-fully-recover-coronavirus-left-103917303.html)

News report on a doctor saying that 2 or 3 out of 12 patients have seen a 20-30% reduction in lung-capacity and "They gasp if they walk a bit more quickly"

Medical System
--------------

[**Twitter: Seattle approaching Lombardy levels**](https://twitter.com/scott_mintzer/status/1239290389963714562)

Seattle has ventilators but is out of ICU beds. Due to a lack of machines, Seattle is restricting ECMO machines to people <40 yo and < 25 BMI. Most people are dying of heart, not lung, issues

[**Twitter: Seattle ICU Dr describes conditions in Seattle hospital**](https://twitter.com/Chenbariatrics1/status/1238322250392039424)

Entire ICU taken up by CV patients, CDC is weakening quarantine on medics, they are out of masks in part because people are stealing from them

[**Jess Riedel's Fermi Estimate that not containing coronavirus will overwhelm UK medical system**](https://www.facebook.com/jessriedel/posts/10101771995249122)

Jess Riedel's Fermi Estimate that not containing the coronavirus will overwhelm the UK medical system

Dashboards
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[**Coronavirus case dashboard**](https://avatorl.org/covid-19/)

Very comprehensive dashboard with dozens of graphs. Currently the best resource I know for tracking both national and global spread.

Aggregators
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[**Medium.com Coronavirus page**](https://medium.com/topic/coronavirus)

Surprisingly high-quality of articles on the Medium coronavirus page. 

Aggregators

[**Effective Altruism Facebook group on Coronavirus discussion**](https://www.facebook.com/groups/4147495108609573/permalink/4224863100872773/)

Facebook group with lots of members of the EA community discussing various considerations and plans

Other
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[**\[TEMPLATE\] Coronavirus Household Isolation Coordination v1.2**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13VeevdKiAJVmOfVYE2mhuF9tis285WePnRgW_8B9fvM/edit#gid=0)

Spreadsheet for keeping people in your social network up-to-date with each other's health and social distancing status

[**Why now is a time of great opportunity for helping the world**](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PD3gHuPhAotbXm644/crisis-and-opportunity-during-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0fPDxJ_HxbRaQvRUAhqE5oo6AeulQyxiYlAM11h7klYHAt8v9xQiIFm1E)

Detailing what opportunities are available (contact tracing, building entilators, remote work tech, etc) and framing why to take action and how.

[Link to Full Database](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aXBq5edfzvOz22rot6JvMeKD0tRF9-w4fF500fIrvcs/edit#gid=1069546931)
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