I have a friend who is still suffering from the effects of COVID, months after he’s recovered, and that is seeming like it’s the norm. All the people that have lingering symptoms are people who are younger, who never went to the ICU and have seemingly recovered. But they never really do.
One recent study evaluated patients’ symptoms several weeks after they’d been discharged from the hospital and it found that only 12.6% of them were free of any coronavirus-related symptoms. This is just bonkers and mind-blowing.
Three-quarters of adults with COVID-19 have heart damage after recovery https://t.co/FD9avPlHPr
— Doctor Housecalls of Paradise Valley (@DrHousecallsPV) July 27, 2020
It seems like there’s a good group of folks who have fatigue, difficulty breathing, joint and chest pain, cough and headaches. A WSJ article also digs in and says that many of these patients are “younger and had previously been healthy, with Covid cases initially considered mild to moderate. But months later they are still sick, and some are getting worse.”
One physician thinks most patients with long-term symptoms are developing dysautonomia, a neurological condition that occurs when the autonomic nervous system is out of balance. It’s not clear whether the condition is a result of an overactive immune system or the virus itself.
Pandemic life is starting to get old, and I’d love to go back to normal as fast as possible. There’s good news on that front. Yesterday morning, one volunteer in Georgia got an injection that kicked off the first large-scale vaccine trial in the US. The study will test 30,000 healthy people at about 89 sites around the US to determine whether the vaccine (developed by Moderna) works.
Also, yesterday afternoon, Pfizer also announced that it will also begin a late-stage study of a vaccine, with the first shots to be given today (Tues). The trial will also include 30,000 people, from 39 states.
If all goes well and the vaccine is effective, Moderna said it should be able to deliver 500 million doses this year (2020), and up to a billion per year starting in 2021. I love the optimism. I had all but given up hope of anything happening in 2020.
An update about my Side-Effect statements: I talked with a pharma rep this weekend who stated that Stage 3 side effects in a drug trial is more akin to a bad headache than paralysis. Stage 4 means hospitalization, so it does encompass everything before before hospitalization but it usually means being under the weather. All that said, if there was a vaccine that knocked me out for a day – I’d be fine with that. I bet we all would. Continue reading “135: Vaccine Trials”→
We want our kids to have social lives but also for them safe, and we can’t imagine an in-person school experience really being that. That means we’re probably keeping our kids at our house for the next year. Ideally, we have them at a house with a few other kids so they can socialize. A few kids is a lot different than the hundreds they’d interact with at the elementary school.
How we’re doing it:
We found a former teacher who doesn‘t want to go back to work at an in-person school. We’ll pay her monthly.
We have a family we’re close with who has similar social-distancing values as we do who wants to join. They’ll bring their kids over to our house every day.
We set up a dedicated space as a schoolhouse – our garage – and we will have the kids and teacher use it to teach the Zoom classes or whatever the curriculum is.
This “pod” system seems to be catching on. If you go to NextDoor you can see teachers looking for pods and parents looking for teachers. Others:
Myra Margolin, who created a Facebook page to help connect families in the D.C. region interested in “microschooling,” found more than 1,000 people join the group.
Andrea MacRae is trying to organize “bubbles” for children and families in the East Bay area. She has interested families fill out detailed surveys about their values and risk comfort, and then matches those families with other like-minded families — including those who won’t be able to pay and those that include essential workers.
If we get this working it seems like a great way to get everyone through this pandemic safely. While this is working for us, I could see how it could be tough for kids of essential workers, those who can’t find teachers, or families who afford it. I feel very fortunate we can do it. Continue reading “130: Home Schooling Pods”→
As you know, X5 of COIVD deaths are people over 65. So, it’s super important we keep this demo safe. So, this drone delivery is just what we need. We want to keep those centers safe and free from new contacts, including those who have the necessary prescriptions for seniors.
Each drone can carry up to 5 lbs. each and travel up to 12 miles. They fly autonomously from a CVS location to nearby assisted living and nursing homes, then drop off the packages from a hover height of around 20 feet above these locations.
These are scary times, and it’s fascinating to see how some great minds and companies are being creative and coming up with technical solutions so we can be in contact with our loved ones, without getting too close.
An example I saw yesterday:
@Zipline now making long range autonomous deliveries of COVID products to hospitals in the US every day. Honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever see this pic.twitter.com/zAIqXZX3zn
I’ve been working from home for the past year. One thing I noticed recently is that lots of other companies aren’t doing it very well. Over the past years, I’ve learned some modern work-from-home concepts. Specifically, there are 5 levels of remote work. The levels are:
Thinking this is temporary, and waiting to get back to the office to do your work.
Trying to recreate the office environment. This means trying to do things in-person, keeping all the interactions real-time, and making sure people are present and available during work hours. I saw a lot of companies here when coronavirus started. People were still expected to be online from 9 to 5, and in some cases employers installing screen-logging software on their employee machines so that they can play the role of Big Brother.
Acceptance and adaptation. Here, companies and employees invest in their home office with better videos and possibly noise cancellation machines. Meetings move to shared docs and people start working asynchronously.
Fully asynchronous. Getting to a place where you can actually get more done because you’re at home. This is where you want to be.
Companies that truly practice asynchronous communication have stepped out of the industrial revolution, and no longer conflate presence with productivity, or hours with output, as one might on the factory floor.
Nirvana. This is where your distributed team works better than any in-person team ever could.
But because they mastered the baton handoff, they shaved seconds off their race and came in 2nd. That’s right, the Japanese got the silver medal because they were better and the handoff.
The idea here is that, as a company, you can master how work and ideas are handed off between employees your company can be much faster, more efficient, and a better place to work than others.
True asynchronous working is the place you need to get to. We’re working on it at Onward and so far it’s been great. Using the tool Notion is a big piece of it. I love Notion and the fact that it’s worth $2 Billion with only 40 employees should indicate this is a popular trend. I could talk about this for hours, but here’s a good place to start: a good post that goes into this.
Other Items
At my house it’s Spring Break which means there are no lesson plans coming from school. Instead, our current project is for Hunter and Sasha to make 7 really nice cards to send to their grandparents and cousins.
Speaking of Sports (from yesterday’s email), the Rakuten Monkeys of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (which is Taiwan) will play games in front of 500 robot mannequins dressed up as fans.
Also, the second episode of Some Good News by John Krasinski landed yesterday. Pretty funny and good:
Stats
The virus is starting to get out more and more in the US. I thought it was interesting to see that only 1 or 2 out of 10 know someone who has it. I know a few people.
White is first of all respect.
White is rebirth, the light after darkness, the sum of all colours.
White is the colour of the uniforms worn by those who put their own lives on the line to save ours.
It represents space and time to think, as well as to stay silent.
White is for those who are filling this empty time and space with ideas, thoughts, stories, lines of verse, music and care for others.
White recalls when, after the crisis of 1929, this immaculate colour was adopted for clothes as an expression of purity in the present, and of hope in the future.
What I’m thinking about: Companies Getting Creative
I was talking with my friend Camilla yesterday and she had a great point:
Its pretty phenomenal how companies are adapting and adjusting and getting flat out creative… pie shops and bakeries hosting virtual baking clubs, wine shops and florists doing classes, tastings and deliveries, I saw Redfin is now doing virtual showings where an agent goes and essentially FaceTimes and answers chat questions.
I totally agree. One area I’m really impressed with is Masks. Now that we’re past the whole should I wear? debate, we can focus on what really matters – how they look. I’m starting to see some flair. You can get all different colors and styles now:
Meanwhile I’m like the rest of the world in just rewatching old games, trying to decide if eSports are a thing (not yet), and looking at videos on Twitter to pass the time until sports can start up again.
It’s becoming a tradition now for me and my family to go to the Walker Art Museum to watch the 2018 British Awards. It’s really pretty great to sit for an hour and watch the best commercials of the year.
This year it was noticeable about how many of them were about female empowerment (including the winner of Best Ad of the Year), which makes sense as it’s a topic capturing everyone’s mind share, everywhere.
My favorites of the year were these 5. They are pretty hilarious, cool, strong and, to use the British term, brilliant.
My favorite of the year was strange, ackward and just so funny. I have no idea what the ad is for but it’s still fantastic:
This next one is probably one of the funniest of the bunch, and I never even knew what Marmite was or that it could be so divisive:
This next one is really cute and captured our entire group. Even though it was the first ad we say, we all remembered it at the end
This one is just really cute and in the world we different it’s a great message of how kids don’t see color, race, etc.. Really well done
This one is just so epic. A move (the “tornado”) in a FIFA video game goes viral such that Ronaldo actually does it himself in a game and then goes even more viral to get other athletes to do it also. Really cool idea.
This final one is about the women’s Euro cup. The girl in the video just does a great job and is shows some great skill. Really liked this one
Time disappearing
I thought we were time constrained when Hunter came along. Well, with two little ones this year, aged 1 and 3, time really got sucked away from me. Less sleep, fewer workouts, fewer books read. All the things I like to do just for me basically went out the door this year. But, they were replaced with more time with my family, which was just fantastic.
Hunter
He really became a full fledged person this year. He’s now funny and clever. He has a bit of trickery and deviousness in him, but he’s shaping up to be a very kind person. His teachers at school regularly remark about how genuine and kind he is. Also, his super power this year is his drawing. He’s very creative and can draw ridiculously well. Continue reading “The Lewhouses in 2016”→
Last year, on December 1, I decided to run, every day Mon-Friday for at least 3 months. It was part of a not-be-fat program that I needed to go on. It worked out really well and I hit new heights of running enjoyment. The miles also started increasing. I hit over 80 miles run in Jan, Feb, and March. All was good.
Then, disaster struck. A few weeks ago, I injured my left knee in a soccer match. I couldn’t walk at all and definitely couldn’t run. t went to the doctor about a week after the event and after an MRI, we had this conversation:
Me: What are my options, doc?
Doc: You don’t have to do anything or your can have surgery
Me: What happens if I don’t do anything?
Doc: Well, it’ll just hurt like it does now and you probably won’t be able to run
Me: For how long?
Doc: Forever
Me: When can I schedule surgery?
I had my knee operated on yesterday. On my way to the hospital, I was pretty nervous. I’ve never has surgery before and I know of people who have had some bad problems from routine knee operations. Being active is a huge part of how I live my life. I basically played soccer every day of my life for over a decade until I was 22 and since then have been working out at least 3 times a week. The thought of not being able to run or be active is very scary.
Here I am a day after the surgery and it seems to have gone well. I’m still on painkillers, so I don’t really know for sure, but I’m optimistic. I should be back up and running soon.
The next steps is to do some rehab and get back on the road.
My goal is 80 more miles in the month of August. Looking forward to it
The season starts tonight for the Timberwolves. As part of that, this will be a defining year for Ricky Rubio.
His contract is up at the end of the year and he has already rejected a 4 year $48m offer. For the other positions they have:
Center: Pekovic and Deng – both above average centers in the league
PF: Thad Young – an above average PF in the league
SF: Andrew Wiggins – predicted to be the next Tracy McGrady
SG: Kevin Martin – pretty good
Ricky is supposedly the leader of that group. Looking at that lineup, if they don’t do well, it’s probably his fault and his inability to impact games. If they do well, it’s likely because he has a great season. As Rubio goes, so do the Wolves.
They way I figure this goes is one of two directions:
Direction ONE: the Wolves do well, i.e. approach 35 wins and compete for a playoff spot. In this scenario, I think they pony up and pay Rubio more money
Direction TWO: the Wolves are a lottery team. In this scenario, they don’t resign Ricky and draft a point guard in the lottery.
