All the posts from our Those Nerdy Girls Facebook page dating back to May 1st, 2020, are currently archived here and can be searched for by category, key words, etc. Be sure to check back often as additional posts are being added each day.
Pandemic getting you down? Try these strategies to boost your mental health: – Mindfulness – Laughter – Hamilton parodies Link to original FB post
Octopus and Turtle Teach Us About Playing Together Safely Playing together safely is demonstrated by Aparna Kumar, PhD, MPH, CRNP Link to original FB post
A: Not yet. While there are ways to minimize risks when indoors (increasing ventilation with outdoor air by opening windows or circulating air/using a high quality air filter/minimizing length of indoor interaction), experts still agree that the outdoors are where we should be. This point is very much emphasized in a recent preprint. TL; DR: Read more…
New occasional series: Nerdy Girls in the News! As part of our scientific day jobs, your faithful Nerdy Girl team has done 140+ media spots about the pandemic (and counting! :)). To honor the work of the terrific journalists we support – all of whom are dedicated #infodemic fighters – we’ve decided to start sharing Read more…
A: TL;DR Whether the positivity rate is 14% or 30% for kids, Florida still has a COVID problem. And with respect to the data error, we need to have a little understanding. Public health departments are trying to do something very difficult on shoestring budgets. Data collection in a crisis is messy and sometimes we Read more…
Joining us today is Nerdy Guest, Sivanthy Vasanthan, a Case Investigator for New York City’s COVID-19 Test and Trace Corps, the public health initiative that oversees the city’s contact tracing program. She has been in this position since the program’s inception in May 2020. Sivanthy is a recent graduate from Columbia Public Health, where she Read more…
A: YES! Wearing a mask reduces the spread of droplets containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Blocking these droplets with a mask from shooting out into the world around us reduces transmission from person to person. Masks block a significant amount of these droplets while still allowing gases to pass in and out of the mask. Still Read more…
PART 2 on population basics from Dr. Michal Engelman. In case you missed Part 1 in this Nerdy Guest miniseries, here it is! Q: Ok, now I understand what a population (and even a sub-population!) is… but why does that matter for dealing with COVID-19? Population scientists can’t predict which people will get COVID-19, but Read more…
A: Try out an alternative that leads with mutual respect, such as: “Sir, can we please put a little space between us?” This suggestion is offered by etiquette expert Elaine Swann, author of the book “Let Crazy Be Crazy: Then Politely Get What You Want, Get Your Point Across, and Gently Put Rude People in Read more…
A: Every 2 days, according to one recently-published model. Every 2 days!? Whaaaaah???? With hundreds of thousands of students around the country headed back to college campuses this month, COVID testing is something every college needs to plan for: Who, how, and how often? The “how often” question was answered last week in a study Read more…
A: Nope. COVER THOSE SCHNOZES! Why? The nose is often the first place the virus attaches and is a replication hotspot. This may be because ACE2 — the cell surface receptor that the virus uses to get into cells — is more abundant on nasal-lining cells and less abundant on the surface of lower airway Read more…
Dear Pandemic is excited to introduce Nerdy Guest Michal Engelman, PhD. Dr. Engelman teaches and studies population health and aging at UW-Madison’s Center for Demography and Ecology. She joins us today to talk some basics about population. She’ll be back for part 2 on Thursday! Q: I’ve never heard the word population so much in Read more…
Today we are highlighting another *outstanding* source for COVID info aimed for the general public, Your local epidemiologist, who gave us permission to repost their recent report on what happened in a COVID outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia. Attack rate among kids at an overnight camp in Georgia. A case analysis. What happened? Read more…
A: Our nerdy guest, Dr. Meredith Matone (Scientific Director, CHOP Policy Lab) helped us to understand this concept last week in a Facebook Live Interview. Here we offer a brief follow up to continue to shed light on the concept of surveillance. Surveillance is: the early and systematic monitoring of community health data to inform Read more…
A: The concern is not so much the playground equipment, but the activities that happen around the playground that require consideration. When making choices about playground visits, the following topics are worth consideration. Community Spread – The take-home message is that there are more counties in the country with rising cases of Covid-19 than the reverse. Read more…
A: There are more questions than answers. What we know: ✅ Kids are capable of getting COVID-19 and transmitting it to both adults and other kids. ✅ Children who are infected with COVID-19 are more likely to have no symptoms or only mild symptoms, and more likely to recover quickly and without the need for Read more…
A: Sadly, Buddy, a German Shepherd from Staten Island, NY, recently died. Buddy was the first dog in the US that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (side note: The disease is only called COVID-19 in humans). Technically, bloodwork confirmed that Buddy likely died from lymphoma. However, it’s hard to know the role that the novel coronavirus Read more…
A. Frustratingly, yes. More and more COVID-19 survivors have reported excessive hair loss following infection. Although this complication may not rank up there with some of more serious consequences that have been reported among “long-haulers,” excessive hair loss is still pretty disconcerting. It also adds yet another source of distress, with impacts on morale and Read more…
Q: How can I best manage the ventilation in my own office/school/home? A: Scientists are calling for more attention to VENTILATION in prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. You can help manage risk by opening doors and windows where possible, increasing outside airflow and filtration in HVAC systems, using portable HEPA air filters, and wearing masks indoors. Read more…
