12 July 2021

covid data

 This is part 2 of my lecture on science data, bear with me.

As you can imagine, this virus, its proper name is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become the center of attention for scientists the world over. Not just medical science, but a wide range of other disciplines (physics, microbiology, biology, geology, engineering, sociology, psychology and so on) have become involved.

As a results, there are literally thousands of manuscripts on research findings waiting for peer review and publication and as the number of research papers is so great, it's almost impossible to sift out what should be published first.
Quite early on, around April 2020, the biggest publishing houses of science papers (such as Nature, The Lancet and so on) decided to make so-called "preprint versions" of research findings available. These papers have not yet completed the peer review progress but instead are accessible online and open to peers for discussion and amendments. Basically, peer review live with the added bonus that these preprint papers are scrutinized not just by two or three but hundreds of researchers all over the globe.
Also, many of the experts in the fields of virology and epidemiology decided on transparent distribution of scientific data and made all of their peer-reviewed research data on covid freely available online. 

That's one reason why I am quite fond of scientists.

Listen to an expert with an Irish accent:

and then enjoy this totally unrelated picture of the last of my beetroot, goats cheese and pumpkin seed bread (for the recipe click here) which we just cannot stop eating.




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm worried. I know that there are going to be new cases and a lot of people don't want to be vaccinated. I don't know how we're ever going to get out of this mess.
That bread looks so delicious. Yum!

am said...

Thank you so much for your science posts. Deeply appreciated here.

That bread. What a treat! All I have to do is look at your photo to know how good it tastes. Of course, I love the colors. Couldn't be more beautiful to look at.

Pixie said...

Good info. Thank you.

ellen abbott said...

really, it was only a matter of time before some viralent something swept through. I wonder if we're on the brink of chaos. certainly we are here in this country...a virulent pathogen and a nation in decline.

37paddington said...

Yes, this reality has come home to roost in my own family, with my niece in Texas, who is fully vaccinated, contracting a breakthrough infection over the July 4 weekend. Another friend at the same gathering contracted it too, so clearly someone there was infectious though likely asymptomatic. In New York City, where numbers had fallen as low as .56 percent positivity rate, the numbers of covid cases are rising again. I wonder sometimes if this is how the world ends. Just kidding, but not.

Anonymous said...

Just checking in to make sure you guys are okay. I don't know where you live in Germany and the images coming out of Germany are devastating. Stay safe, Pixie