Tips to avoid Coronavirus/避免冠状病毒的提示

February 10, 2020 / global health / , , , , ,
Sign to SARS memorial in Hong Kong

This week my Mandarin homework was to write tips to avoid novel coronavirus. I cheated and used Google Translate at points, so don’t think that my Chinese is this good. Here is what I wrote (after editing from my teacher) in Chinese first and then English.  More importantly, please remember, I am not a doctor or scientist. I have written this assuming that the reader lives in a place with active coronavirus cases in their local area:

新型冠状病毒是一个严重的问题. 那些事情可能有助于保护您和您的家人. 

  1. 避免虚假新闻。会有很多谣言。听专家
  2. 如果附近有新的冠状病毒病例，请进行社交隔离。尽量在家工作吗？
  3. 经常洗手。避免触摸眼睛。
  4. 尽可能多的睡眠。照顾好自己的身体
  5. 注射流感疫苗。这将有助于您在流行病期间远离医生办公室。它还将帮助您避免同时感染新型冠状病毒和流感
  6. 如果您六十五多岁或患有哮喘，请与您的医生谈谈肺炎疫苗。

In order to keep you and your family safe from coronavirus, you should:

  1. Be careful to avoid Fake News, especially on social media. There are many rumors. It’s best to trust experts.
  2. Practice social isolation. Work from home if possible. If not, try to keep more distance from people at work.
  3. Wash your hands frequently.  Avoid touching your eyes.
  4. Get as much sleep as you can. Take good care of your overall health.
  5. Get a flu shot. This may keep you out of the doctor’s office where people are sick. It will also help to keep you from catching both the flu and the novel coronavirus at the same time.
  6. If you have asthma (or another respiratory disease) or are sixty-five or older, talk to your doctor about the pneumonia vaccine. This will help you to avoid pneumonia (and meningitis and other infections) even if you are never infected with the new coronavirus.

For the record, I have no tie to (or investments in) any company that makes vaccines for pneumococcal vaccines. You can also see the Center for Disease Control’s advice on this topic here. And you can see my blog post about nCoV and quarantine here. 

Shawn Smallman, 2020

 

Coronavirus data visualization

February 10, 2020 / Asia, data visualization, global health / , , , , ,

The South China Morning Post has an amazing data visualization related on the novel coronavirus outbreak and how it compares to the SARS epidemic. The data visualizations include a map of cases over time, graphs comparing the number of infections to SARS, point visualizations to illustrate the health status of coronavirus patients in China, maps to demonstrate the distribution and fatality rates of different infectious diseases compared to nCoV, an image of a person with a display of symptoms by body area, and a fascinating visual display showing where people from Wuhan traveled between the start of the lunar New Year and the imposition of quarantine, a map of the area around the seafood market where the outbreak began, a chart of the top ten international travel destinations from Wuhan, images of the kind of animals sold in the live market (who knew that it sold the Chinese giant salamander; and why are they selling the scolependra?), a labeled photograph of a live market vendor at work butchering a frog, a map of railway lines from Wuhan, a map of Chinese cities and lockdown and more. The page shows how data visualizations can be combined with art to convey information. Impressive work.

Caixin (this link is to global edition) and the South China Morning Post are doing outstanding work covering this epidemic. The New York Times has an excellent article talking about the Chinese media coverage of the epidemic in a broader context.

For anyone interested in more recent updates about this epidemic, you can also follow my Twitter feed. Lastly, I have a blog post about nCoV and quarantine here. 

Shawn Smallman, 2020

Coronavirus and Quarantine

February 10, 2020 / Asia, disaster, global health, Pandemics / , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Health education poster, Hong Kong. Photo by Shawn Smallman

As I write these words nurses in Hong Kong are on strike to protest the fact that the Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, will not close the border to China. To be clear, the executive has sharply restricted entry to Hong Kong, closed most crossings, and forbidden entry from the most affected Chinese state, Hubei.  But there are still strong calls for a complete border closure coming from within Hong Kong’s medical community.  Similarly, the United States has restricted flights from China to U.S. citizens only; some U.S. airlines had already canceled service to China. All such quarantine measures are controversial.

On social media, such as Twitter, and in the press, a number of experts have denounced all quarantines as being not only ineffective but also in violation of WHO guidelines. These authors worried about panic overcoming good judgement, the economic costs of restricting travel, the stigma imposed on those from affected areas (Chinese in particular, but also all Asia), and the importance of upholding International Health Regulations. These are valid and important points. Some authors have also pointed to studies based on computer models showing that quarantines are ineffective with highly contagious respiratory diseases.

Recently the tone has shifted in the discussion, as it has become clear that some cases of the virus are being spread asymptomatically. The number of cases has grown quickly. Some apparent facts (such as no human to human transmission) that seemed true in mid-January are no longer true. So the stridency of the debate about quarantine has declined, but the debate continues.

So is there any role for quarantines to manage such a pandemic? And is there some other way to make a judgement that relies less on computer models? I would suggest that looking at the past history of respiratory pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, might be useful. Can history suggest particular circumstances in which quarantines may work? …

Coronavirus and QuarantineRead More »

Maps and the coronavirus outbreak

February 10, 2020 / global health / , , ,
Hong Kong Harbor. Photo by Shawn Smallman, 2017

As we track the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, it’s helpful to have maps and other data visualizations to understand the data.

One useful site is Ncov2019Tracking, which says that it: “taps into the Twitter Streaming API and monitors tweets mentioning keywords related to the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) outbreak. A machine learning system trained with the supervision of experts filters informative tweets. Geographical entities mentioned in tweets – such as country and city names – are identified using the GeoNames database and used to place tweets on a global map.” This tool provides a useful means to track where people are discussing the epidemic on Twitter. It’s very clear (based on the map on January 31, 2020) that there is a lot of discussion related to the coronavirus taking place that concerns Indonesia and the Philippines.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering have also created an excellent map and dashboard which shows the geographical location of 2019-nCoV cases (we need a better name). A dashboard also shows total deaths (213 at today’s right), the total number of recovered (222 today) and the total number of confirmed cases (5,806). On the left hand side of the screen there is the total count of cases (9,925) and their geographical locations. At this time, there are 9,783 cases in mainland China, 19 in Thailand, 15 in Japan, and 13 in Singapore. There are also an eclectic group of countries that have a single case: Cambodia, Finland, India, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Sweden.

While technology has made it easier to track the outbreak, authorities in China are reportedly also using drones to chastise people who go out in public without masks, as this video purportedly shows. Lastly, you can read a blog post about quarantine and nCoV here, with some historical context on this question based on the 1918 influenza pandemic. 

Shawn Smallman, 2020

 

Coronavirus podcast

February 10, 2020 / Asia, global health / , , , ,
Window of Chinese medicine store in Hong Kong, China. Photo by Shawn Smallman

There is so much discussion of the coronavirus epidemic in the media that it can be hard to find reliable information. One good source of measured, thoughtful information is this podcast, “Coronavirus Infections—More Than Just the Common Cold,” which is an interview with Anthony, S Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease. You can also find this podcast on Stitcher and other podcast platforms. To listen to it on Apple podcasts, please search for “JAMA Author interviews,” and go to January 27, 2020.

If you are interested in learning more about live markets, you can read my work here. And this blog posts discusses quarantine and nCoV based on some historical context from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Shawn Smallman, 2020

Market Sign, Hong Kong. Photo by Shawn Smallman

 

 

The possible coronavirus pandemic

February 10, 2020 / global health / , ,
Hong Kong. Photo by Shawn Smallman

Even though it’s only been a few days, my last blog post is becoming out of date with amazing speed. This article in Eurosurveillance describes much of what we know to date. In Wuhan, China there is evidence that the corona virus outbreak is beginning to overwhelm the health care system. The New York Times has had disturbing videos taken from inside the hospitals, where dead people lay in the halls, and a patient begs a doctor to save her. He turns and strides away without a word. The South China Morning Post has incredible coverage of the outbreak. In one article, Mimi Lau described how desperately ill people were turned away from treatment at one overwhelmed hospital after another. Of course, it’s also important to note than in these hospitals, where health care workers are short on equipment, gloves, masks and medicines, people are still working to care for patients at great personal risk.

…

The possible coronavirus pandemicRead More »

Novel Coronavirus outbreak in China

February 10, 2020 / global health / , , , ,
Fighting SARS Memorial, Hong Kong, These busts and plaques commemorate health care workers who volunteered to fight SARS, and then sadly were infected and died. Photo by Shawn Smallman

As I write this blog post all travel has been banned in Wuhan, and two neighboring cities (Huanggang and Ezhou) in China. The cause for this travel ban is a novel coronovirus, which is currently called nCoV2019, although it will likely receive a new name soon. Coronaviruses are a virus that causes respiratory diseases, such as SARS in 2003, and MERS in the Middle East. SARS was a bat virus that passed through a civet cat at a Wet Market, and then jumped to humans. Although the outbreak was ultimately brought under control, it was contained at a very high cost. The Fighting SARS Memorial pictured above commemorates Hong Kong health care workers who died while serving their patients. …

Novel Coronavirus outbreak in ChinaRead More »

The South China Sea

January 22, 2020 / Asia, oceans, security / , ,

Are you looking for an online resource that students might use to quickly understand the South China Sea dispute between China and its neighbors? You could do much worse than this brief video that was shared on Twitter. I know that we sometimes think of Twitter as the host for emotional oversharing, Russian bots and disinformation campaigns, but @9DashLine and @SCS_news are good feeds to follow if you want to keep abreast of the latest information on the South China Sea issue.

Shawn Smallman, 2020

Rick Steve’s The Story of Fascism in Europe

May 12, 2020 / Europe, Populism / , , ,

Adolf Hitler.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H1216-0500-002 / CC-BY-SA [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons
Xenophobia and populism have been on the rise globally, from Brazil to the United States. Even European nations have not been immune to these trends, despite the continent’s painful history with the far right and fascism. Rick Steve’s has a new documentary, The Story of Fascism in Europe, which provides a concise study of this movement, which might be useful for an introductory class. The documentary begins with an examination of Mussolini’s rise to power, then moves to the tactics adopted by Hitler. Simplistic solutions, the promise of rapid change, economic growth funded through public debt, attacks on unions, rhetoric that emphasized peoples’ fears, the use of intimidation, and the othering of minorities  proved to be a successful political strategy. While the majority of the documentary deals with Europe’s history, the final five minutes makes a link to the present.

If you are interested in hearing more about global topics, please listen to my podcast, Dispatch 7. You can find it on Spotify here, or by searching whichever podcast platform you prefer.

Shawn Smallman, 2020

Facebook, Twitter and Security

January 1, 2020 / cyber, security / , , ,
Image of globe on light, Arts Building, McGill University. Photo by Smallman

Last quarter I was  teaching a fully online course Digital Globalization, while this quarter I am teaching an online class on Cyber-warfare and espionage. In these courses we cover topics such as  Snowden, Wikileaks, Anonymous, white and black hat hackers, NSA, zero day exploits, the Panama Papers and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. What’s interesting is the division within my students regarding privacy. There are a minority of students who are unconcerned about the issue because they feel that if they haven’t done anything wrong, why should they worry? But there is a much larger group of students who feel that this is a significant anxiety in their lives. Although they worry about the government tracking their activities, they are even more concerned about how their lives are tracked by businesses. Every time they go on social media, have a sensitive conversation near Google Home or Alexa, or text message a friend, they wonder a little about how their digital lives make them vulnerable.

Whats amazing is how little security is built into many online platforms. But few platforms have faced as much criticism as Facebook. To help understand why, you might read this post by Krebs on Security: Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years. As the article explains, this meant that Facebook’s employees could have accessed peoples’ accounts over a very long period, although Facebook says there is no evidence that they did. Since people often reuse passwords, this was a terrible security breach. Facebook is key to many peoples’ social lives. But given its flaws, it’s worth remembering never to reuse passwords, especially with Facebook. It also wouldn’t hurt, to enable two-factor authentication on key accounts (such as your bank), and always use a VPN on public wifi.

Of course Facebook isn’t the only social media tool that has security vulnerability. One of the best ways to keep in touch with digital issues is through Wired magazine, which had a recent article
Twitter Insiders Allegedly Spied for Saudi Arabia. In this case, what happened was that two employees were able to access accounts, and to pass on this information to Saudi Arabia. Social media is a wonderful tool. But one of the key concepts in my digitally focused classes is that there is no absolute privacy online, only relative privacy. This fact cannot be escaped by using the Dark Web, as the Egotistical Giraffe exploit with TOR showed. Remember what happened on the Silk Road with the Dread Pirate Roberts (yes, named after a character in the movie, the Princess Bride). Even the most savvy digital user leaves breadcrumbs. No software tool, VPN, or hardware can elide this fact. And in the age of the Internet Archive, nothing online truly disappears. This doesn’t mean that social media can’t be a wonderful tool. But its worth remembering when you use social media to convey sensitive information, or politically loaded content. And we collectively need to hold the giant social media companies (as well as as other corporations with data, including health records)  to account for lax security. And if you can bear it, just delete Facebook.

Shawn Smallman, 2020

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