Day 187: No Time to Be Tall

Massachusetts' case count was delayed by four hours today due to "significant IT issues." PlagueBlog hopes no trees fell on the MDPH during yesterday's storm. For the record, we were up a third of a percentage point today. The next state in the running to catch up with us is Tennessee, at only a few days and a few thousand cases behind.

In other Massachusetts news, the governor has turned against Rhode Island, quarantining visitors from there even though their case count is comparable to ours. So much for New England solidarity. PlagueBlog reminds those living on the state line that 14 days of quarantine are now required to enter your living room, unless you have essential work to do in there. And for those of you who need to cross through Rhode Island to get to the rest of Massachusetts, PlagueBlog hopes you stocked up.

People are making too much, as usual, of a single detail of a preprint, Work Related and Personal Predictors of Covid 19 transmission, having to do with men over six feet being more susceptible to COVID-19. The real results of the research (done by survey of Americans and Brits) are interesting in and of themselves:

Firstly, transport roles and travelling practices are significant predictors of infection. Secondly, evidence from the US especially shows union membership, consultation over safety measures and the need to use public transport to get to work are also significant predictors. This is interpreted as evidence of the role of deprivation and of reactive workplace consultations. Thirdly and finally, there is some, often weaker, evidence that income, car-owership, use of a shared kitchen, university degree type, risk- aversion, extraversion and height are predictors of transmission.

The authors are sadly responsible for the fake result irresponsible speculation about infection of the tall being a sign of aerosol spread. PlagueBlog must call miasma on this one. There's no evidence that aerosols go up like hot air to disproportionately infect the tall. The authors controlled for income and sex for their height result (though tall women were equally susceptible), but in general seem to have treated some fairly dependent-looking variables (height vs. risk-taking behavior, extraversion, and travel habits) as independent.