We've Been Here Before: Learning from Historical Responses to Epidemics

June 28, 2020 by Amanda Morse in Vaccines, Communicable Disease, History

As we close the month of June, the United States also closes out the 5th month of COVID response in this country—and we’re not even close to done with this pandemic. In these 5 months, we’ve learned a lot about the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 and about ourselves. During these months, epidemiologists (like me) have watched in horror as our efforts to control the spread of the disease have been thwarted—sometimes, it seems, intentionally—by people in power. It’s been shocking and heartbreaking to watch case counts here in the United States plateau only to spike again. It’s been particularly agonising watching Nations like the Yakama and Navajo be so consistently denied the resources they need to protect their communities.

As of 28 June 2020, there have been 4,933,972 cases of COVID reported in the Americas region. Of those, 2,452,048 have been reported in the United States. This means that 49.70% of cases occurring in the Western Hemisphere occurred in the United States. For comparison, the population of the United States makes up 33.18% of the population of the Americas Region. This means we have 49.70% of the cases and despite making up just 33.18% of the population. Even without taking into account that the United States as a large, wealthy country should have some of the lowest communicable disease numbers, this discrepancy is shocking.

Something is clearly wrong here and the course needs to be corrected. It’s not impossible to break the chain of transmission, but it takes hard work and plenty of bravery on the part of elected officials. Thankfully, history is littered with success stories when humans have controlled the spread of diseases. For some of these lessons, we don’t even have to look back farther than a half century.

Testing, Tracing, Containing: COVID Response Strategies are Anything but New

June 28, 2020 by Amanda Morse in Communicable Disease

For many people, COVID may be the first time you’ve thought about public health beyond things like the existence of vaccines. You may never have known that some diseases have to be reported straightaway to health authorities and that someone calls you if you’ve tested positive. You may never have heard of an epidemiologist or thought that we do something with skin.

Since COVID, though, you’re likely hearing terms like “contact tracing,” “quarantine,” and “isolation” all over the place. You may have heard about PCR testing and serological surveys using antibody testing. It’s possible you’ve even become a bit of an armchair epidemiologist. It might be the first time you’ve heard these words, but they’re far from new to public health. Below I talk a little about some terms you may have heard related to public health and some of their history.

We Live in Each Other’s Shadow: Social Distancing is Our Social Responsibility

March 14, 2020 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Communicable Disease, Emergency Preparedness, Health & Healthcare

As you may know, a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 has been spreading, causing a disease that epidemiologists have named COVID-19. The disease is new (so the majority of people aren’t immune), spreads easily from person-to-person, and can cause severe illness in the elderly and medically fragile. The spread of the disease to so many people in so many places has led the World Health Organisation to declare the spread COVID-19 a pandemic.

The situation is very, very serious, but there are lots of steps you can be taking to keep yourself healthy. At this stage, Public Health is also needing us to keep our communities healthy through actions we call “social distancing.”

Preparing not Panicking: Finding Good Information in a (Potential) Pandemic

February 29, 2020 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Communicable Disease, Emergency Preparedness

COVID-19 is a respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses (like influenza viruses are a family of viruses) and circulate in our communities every year. They usually cause mild, flu-like illness. Notable exceptions to this were SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome). This coronavirus is new to humans and so public health scientists are still learning a lot about it. Like other coronaviruses, this one seems to be a zoonotic infection and crossed into humans from an animal—likely bats.

COVID-19, like its coronavirus brethren, causes fever, cough, and breathing difficulty. Public health scientists estimate 80% of people who come down with COVID-19 would experience mild symptoms and not need hospitalisation. Several cases in Washington State alone have managed their own illness without hospitalisation. While most people will have very mild illness, some people may get quite ill. Public health scientists expect that most of the severe illnesses will be in patients who are older. They also expect that most deaths will occur among older individuals.

Season’s Greetings: Welcome to Influenza Season

September 15, 2018 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Vaccines, Communicable Disease

The air is crisp, the days are shortening, Starbucks is hocking their pumpkin spice creations, and I see people sneezing into their hands everywhere I go. Although we often think of there being only four seasons, many cultures recognise more than just those four. In Bangladesh, there are 6 in total and autumn is broken into shorotkal (early autumn) and hemontokal (late autumn). For public health practitioners, we also acknowledge a special season: Influenza Season.

Public Health measures the calendar year broken into what we call CDC or Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) weeks. They run Sunday-Saturday and Week 1 begins the first Sunday of each year. Influenza Season (in the Northern Hemisphere) is generally considered to be between Week 40 (around the first week of October) through Week 20 (the end of May).

Unfortunately, just as cold, dry air makes our noses more hospitable to the virus entering our bodies and and poorer weather keeps us indoors, school also begins and large numbers of children spend whole days sneezing on each other and refusing to wash their hands. It’s an annual recipe for disaster.

It's Just Food Poisoning

January 27, 2018 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Environmental Health, Communicable Disease

When I think of food poisoning, I often think back to President Josiah Bartlet calling the Butterball Hotline after Toby Ziegler warned him that cooking the stuffing in his Thanksgiving turkey would make his guests ill (and possibly kill them). President Bartlet is surprised by this and has a series of ridiculous interactions with his staffers trying to track down the truth of the matter before finally receiving some excellent advice from the Butterball Hotline.

Bats Are Not For Snuggles: You and Nature’s Cutest Insectivores

October 21, 2017 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Communicable Disease, One Health

For the last two months, my Twitter feed has been a very long series of requests for people to not touch bats, so, in celebration of Halloween and #BatWeek, I’m going to talk about how you should (and should not) interact with one of nature’s cutest creations. I love how adorable bats are and am constantly amazed at how important they are to our natural environment. Their noses are incredible feats of evolution and wiggle like they don’t even care that my heart can hardly bear it. That said, they're not safe for humans to touch without special training and personal protective equipment.