Sul sito della protezione civile si può vedere una mappa della situazione in Italia (qui c’è la versione per dispositivi mobili). Su VirusConV si possono trovare i dati per la situazione mondiale. Il sito del Sole 24 ore fornisce dati e mappe aggiornate e qui potete trovare infografiche aggiornate sulla base dei dati del Ministero della Salute. Qui la situazione della copertura vaccinale.

E’ una buona idea raccontare le storie di pazienti antivax che sono morti di COVID?

di Vega.

Su The Conversation, Nick Chater riflette sull’opportunità di raccontare le storie dei pazienti novax deceduti a causa del COVID. Le loro storie provocano interesse e discussioni, ma è corretto scriverle e pubblicarle? Se la morale fosse una semplice considerazione su costi e benefici, la scelta di pubblicare potrebbe essere:

• Sì alla pubblicazione: queste storie possono convincere alcune persone che ancora non si sono vaccinate a farlo, per cui la loro pubblicazione avrebbe il beneficio di salvare vite.
• No alla pubblicazione: non sempre queste storie hanno l’effetto sperato, e raccontarle, inoltre, può causare traumi alla famiglia del deceduto.

According to a philosophical view called consequentialism – which proposes that what is morally right is whatever makes the world best in the future – we should “do the sums” as best we can and check that the benefits outweigh the costs. But consequences, whether good or bad, are only part of our complex moral psychology, as shown by a long history of experiments, especially the famous trolley problems. A runaway trolley is hurtling down a railway line towards a crowd of people who will face certain death. There is a switch that will flip the trolley into a siding, saving the crowd but hitting and killing a single person. Should you flip the switch and divert the trolley?

Il problema del carrello ferroviario ha una risposta ovvia se si considerano solo i costi e i benefici: si deve tirare la leva. Nella simulazioni, pero’, molte persone si rifiutano di tirare la leva e uccidere una persona anche se in questo scenario tutta la folla morirebbe.

So our moral queasiness about reporting the deaths of vaccine sceptics won’t go away just by showing that the ends justify the means. But what exactly is the missing moral ingredient that makes us so uncomfortable?

According to contract-based approaches to ethics, people care not only about consequences and rules, but agreement. Roughly, something is morally OK if people agree to it – or would agree to it, if we had time to ask them.

This viewpoint helps explains why we are morally conflicted by flipping the switch: the hapless person on the siding would surely not agree to be killed. By contrast, we don’t need to get anyone’s agreement for doing nothing. Doing nothing is just the default option.

Su Science, una Review fa il punto sulle modalità di trasmissione del COVID, ed in generale dei virus respiratori.

In primo luogo, l’articolo definisce il significato di droplet o gocciolina respiratoria, fomite e aerosol:

Over the past century, respiratory viruses were thought to be spread mainly through large respiratory droplets, produced in the coughs and sneezes of infected individuals that deposit on the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, or mouth of potential hosts (droplet transmission) or that deposit on surfaces that are then touched by potential hosts and transferred to mucous membranes (fomite transmission). Such droplets are thought to fall to the ground within 1 to 2 m of the infectious person—a key assumption used by most public health agencies in recommending a safe distance from people infected with respiratory viruses. (…) airborne transmission refers to the inhalation of infectious aerosols or “droplet nuclei” (droplets that evaporate in the air), often defined to be smaller than 5 mm and traveling distances of >1 to 2 m away from the infected individual. Aerosols are microscopic liquid, solid, or semisolid particles that are so small that they remain suspended in air.

La definizione standard di trasmissione per via aerea non tiene conto della possibilità che gli aerosol siano responsabili della trasmissione del virus respiratorio anche a breve distanza. Inoltre, recentemente è stato proposto un nuovo valore limite per differenziare goccioline da aerosol, 100 µm al posto dei precedenti 5 µm. Il valore di 100 µm è stato scelto per motivi di aerodinamica.

Aerosols are small enough to linger in air, accumulate in poorly ventilated spaces, and be inhaled at both short and long ranges, calling for an urgent need to include aerosol precautions in current respiratory disease control protocols.

Commonalities among superspreading events include indoor settings, crowds, exposure durations of 1 hour or more, poor ventilation, vocalization, and lack of properly worn masks. Given that droplet transmission dominates only when individuals are within 0.2 m when talking and that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through contaminated surfaces is less likely, superspreading events can only be explained by including aerosols as a mode of transmission.

For airborne transmission to occur, aerosols must be generated, transported through air, inhaled by a susceptible host, and deposited in the respiratory tract to initiate infection. The virus must retain its infectivity throughout these processes. In this Review, we discuss the processes involved in the generation, transport, and deposition of virus-laden aerosols, as well as the important parameters that influence these processes, which are critical to informing effective infection control measures.

Si consiglia la lettura della Review per maggiori dettagli.