I was going to post the exact same thing. (Iām so confused by this bit of pop culture.)
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You left out the scare quotes. Unless you were referring to the bacteriological kind, in which case, carry on.
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āculture.ā
Years and years of reckless behavior around animals, guns, and whatnotā¦and itās finally COVID that looks like his doom.
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@anon29537550 , this will be of professional interests for you:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(22)00004-9/fulltext
LongCOVIDKidsDK was a national, cross-sectional study carried out in Denmark, which included SARS-CoV-2-positive adolescents and matched controls. All Danish adolescents aged 15ā18 years with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test during the period Jan 1, 2020, to July 12, 2021, and a control group matched (1:4) by age and sex were sent a survey from July 20, 2021. Participants had until Sept 15, 2021, to respond. Symptoms associated with COVID-19, school attendance, and health-related quality of life were investigated using ancillary questions and validated questionnaires (Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory [PedsQL] and Childrenās Somatic Symptoms Inventory-24 [CSSI-24]). [ā¦] 24 315 adolescents with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test (case group) and 97 257 matched controls were invited to participate.
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Iām struggling to interpret this one. One interpretation could be that asymptomatic COVID infection is more common in the control group of the study than thought, leading to nearly as many Long COVID symptoms as in the Long COVID group itself. Itās also self-reporting, and barely relies on objective diagnosis; most teenagers I know would tick the āfatigueā box pretty readily on a bad day.
Compared to the German study which identified some key changes in blood cells of COVID patients, along with some markers for Long COVID visible in retinal blood vessels, this study feels very loose.
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Mail-in questionnaire studies have some built in limitations. Interesting data, but some weird things as well.
Differences were found between the groups, with participants with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test having more long-lasting symptoms and sick leave and participants in the control group having more short-lasting symptoms and worse quality of life. Further research should study post-COVID-19 diagnoses, prescribed drugs, and health-care use.
This stood out to me. Somehow, subjects who had a (+) covid test reported better quality of life than the control group, as well as fewer short term symptoms. The control group had more symptoms than the study group, even after excluding over 3,000 in the control group due to āsuspected covid infection.ā
Additionally, with an average age of 17.6 years, this is only barely a pediatric study.
I donāt know that I can parse this as very useful data. Maybe in context of other studies, but I struggle with making heads or tails out of it in isolation.
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So that trucker thingy is plugging up my neck of the woods. The Ambassador Bridge in Detroit was completely shut down by trucks causing traffic to head north to the Blue Water Bridge. Thatās my area.
Itās backed up for miles, Iām fortunate that I donāt need to be on the road but a lot of people arenāt able to get home because of this.
The same people that wanted to run down BLM protestors for blocking traffic on our local Facebook group are cheering on these blockages.
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Another one which is interesting:
Researchers have developed a biochip for detecting SARS-CoV-2. They want to bypass the waiting time for the PCR result.
Four minutes.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-021-00833-7
FTR, a person from my semester went to the RKI to conduct their PhD research on a biochip for the detection of Yersinia pestis. This was about 15 years ago. So, the general technology could be ready for application in the field by now, I would guess.
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aptamer probe bound to a flexible single-stranded DNA cantilever
Aptamers again! I knew a guy at IBM Research in Zurich doing R&D on micro-mechanical, cantilever sensors back in the 90ās (I was a fluid dynamics guy back then). Using that with aptamers to sense RNA is a neat idea. No doubt there are a few engineering problems to work out but I agree, this looks like nice work.
Time to get myself Maker Shedās home genetic engineering kits and start playing aroundā¦ 
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Fucking Kansas
One of the lawmakers who has promoted SB 381 is Sen. Mark Steffen, a Republican from Hutchinson, Kansas, who is also a doctorāone that is currently under investigation by the medical board for prescribing ivermectin. Steffen has been a vocal proponent of ivermectin as well as a vaccine skeptic.
Rep. Susan Humphries, a Republican from Wichita and the chair of the budget committee, defended the committeeās move to strip the medical board of funding, calling the boardās medical investigations āpolitical,ā the Capital-Journal reported. āIf it has become a political issue in this board, do we need a political answer to that,ā Humphries said.
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I still havenāt had the time to have a look at more than the abstract, and with my current workload, itās unlikely I will. Maybe Iāll dig up some comments from someone else at some point.
The thing is: I donāt think anyone has access to that many well-documented cases. Denmark is pretty good at keeping track.
Anyway, next one for you:
Oh, and one more thing:
I think this is a question of perspective. The statistically schooled part of me emphasizes the power in numbers here. The classical natural scientist part of me (read: naturalist, biologist, chemist, physicist) emphasises the direct observation and itās explanation there.
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they arenāt racist. they just care more about being asked to wear a mask or being asked to take a life saving vaccine than they do about murders of black people by police 
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Ć land returns kidsā Covid tests
Iltalehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun)quotes a report by Ć lands Radio saying that the provincial government of Finlandās autonomous Ć land Islands was surprised to receive a shipment of home Covid testing kits this week from the National Emergency Supply Agency, and has sent them back to the mainland.
Ć landās provincial government is responsible for social and health care in the island region and had decided not to test asymptomatic schoolchildren. According to Ć lands Radio, no one in the government had been informed that a shipment of rapid tests was on its way.
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Helsinki has apologised for the mix-up. Tuija Kumpulainen, a division head at the ministry, said that the distribution of the kits is being done on a tight timetable and no one stopped to consider that Ć land might refuse a shipment of free Covid tests.
Iltalehti reports that the test kits have been sent to some municipalities in Uusimaa, Satakunta, Kainuu, South and Central Ostrobothnia and distribution will continue up until mid-March.
The order in which the tests are being distributed takes into account the local incidence rate, the timing of studentsā winter holidays, and logistics.
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@anon29537550, relevant for you. And from US data, thus doubly relevant for you.
Taken together, these results suggest that early identification of children likely to progress to severe disease could be achieved using readily available data elements from the day of admission. Further work is needed to translate this knowledge into improved outcomes.
Damn, that last sentence. 
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Yeah, insufficient data, and this:
if their index encounter (eMethods in the Supplement) ended before September 24, 2021
Pre-Omicron era. Given the fairly dramatic change in presentation, progression and population between Delta and Omicron, this may be useful as historical data, but the applicability to our current situation is marginal. Still, it is a start.
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āSpainās King Felipe VI, 54, and Denmarkās Queen Margrethe II, 81, also tested positive for the coronavirus this week.ā
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Again?
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