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Daily Archives: November 15, 2020

COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool

This map shows the risk level of attending an event, given the event size and location. You can reduce the risk that one case becomes many by wearing a mask, distancing, and gathering outdoors in smaller groups The risk level is the estimated chance (0-100%) that at least 1 COVID-19 positive individual will be present at an event in a county, given the size of the event. Based on seroprevalence data and increases in testing, by default we assume there are five times more cases than are being reported (5:1 ascertainment bias). In places with less testing availability, that bias may be higher. We are evaluating the inclusion of lower ascertainment biases based on increased testing. Choose an event size and ascertainment bias below…”

“The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool is a collaborative project led by Prof. Joshua Weitz and Prof. Clio Andris at the Georgia Institute of Technology, along with researchers at the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory and Stanford University, and powered by RStudio. Description of the method and analyses available at Nature Human Behaviour.”

See also Limiting Indoor Capacity Can Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Study Shows

Presidential Transition Act: Provisions and Funding

CRS report via LC – Presidential Transition Act: Provisions and Funding, November 13, 2020: “The Presidential Transition Act of 1963 (PTA) authorizes funding for the General Services Administration (GSA) to provide suitable office space, staff compensation, and other services associated with the presidential transition process (3 U.S.C. §102 note). The act has since been amended… Continue Reading

Limiting Indoor Capacity Can Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Study Shows

The New York Times: “Restaurants, gyms, cafes and other crowded indoor venues accounted for some 8 in 10 new infections in the early months of the U.S. coronavirus epidemic, according to a new analysis that could help officials around the world now considering curfews, partial lockdowns and other measures in response to renewed outbreaks. The… Continue Reading

How Controlled Digital Lending Makes an Entire College Library Available to Everyone Everywhere

Medium: “…When readers need access to a book that is essentially “locked up” in print, help is starting to be on the way through the concept of Controlled Digital Lending. This is an approach to library curation that allows print books to be digitally loaned in an environment that restricted people’s abilities to redistribute or… Continue Reading

Text-only website are quite useful, especially today

Greycoder – “Text-only website are quite useful, especially today. Web pages are increasingly filled with ads, videos and other bandwidth-heavy content. Here is a list of text-only, clutter-free news sites: CNN Text Only NPR News Text Only Christian Science Monitor Text Only LegibleNews F6O’Clock (or the original F5O’Clock) Skimfeed Readspike Mobile Wikipedia Wikipedia Current Events… Continue Reading

How the Swiss Cheese Model Can Help Us Beat Covid-19

APK Metro: “In hopeful information this week, Pfizer and its companion, BioNTech, launched interim outcomes from an ongoing trial of their candidate coronavirus vaccine. The examine concerned 43,538 volunteers who have been randomly assigned both the vaccine or a placebo. The charges of an infection have been small for each teams, however those that acquired… Continue Reading

The machinery of American democracy is working

The New York Times – “This article is part of Democracy by Mail, a series following the absentee-ballot process from printing to mailing to counting: “…But for the most part, mail-in balloting — and balloting at the polls, too — went smoothly and revealed two competing truths: The machinery of American democracy is working, its… Continue Reading

Social media promised to connect us, but made us isolated and tribal instead

Fast Company – “A psychologist who studies anxiety and stress explains how to cope during an increasingly divisive time…Human thinking itself has been transformed. It’s now more difficult for us to grasp the “big picture.” A book is a long read these days, too much for some people. Scrolling and swiping culture has reduced our… Continue Reading

COVID-19: Poynter Resources

“Poynter’s mission is to champion the duty of a free press to inform, educate and hold the powerful accountable. As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, journalists, fact-checkers, educators and students around the world look to Poynter for best practices in covering the most significant story of this generation. Thanks to donations and grants, Poynter is able… Continue Reading