Day 237: Variolation

In world news, the recent Israeli lockdown is getting tighter after the first week of lockdown produced 7,000 cases a day and stressed hospital capacity. Unemployment there is currently at 11%.

The Guardian reports a "nearly 100% accuracy" rate for COVID sniffer dogs in Helsinki, and it's also cheaper and easier than laboratory testing. The exact mechanism is unknown, but a prior study suggests the sweat of the infected smells different.

Here at PlagueBlog Headquarters, we've been intentionally ignoring the variolation story for a couple of weeks now as too silly to report, but it made ProMED earlier this week so here goes nothing: A "perspective" in the New England Journal of Medicine compares "universal facial masking" to variolation. While it's interesting as an admission that dose matters, as well as an implied admission that SARS-CoV-2 is getting through your face masks, it's less interesting in its examples of masking successes in crowded, germy settings like hospitals and ships. In reality, any of the host of COVID precautions can reduce viral loads, and the degree of reduction is poorly understood for novel approaches like universal mask usage or lockdowns. PlagueBlog is duly impressed that 2020, the year that keeps on giving, has managed to produce a vaccination technique that's even less reliable than the 15th-century institution of variolation.

Massachusetts' cases were up three sevenths of a percentage point today. Yesterday's cities and towns data shows the usual pattern of small town outliers, tourism COVID, and above-average case rates in some of the larger cities, though not in all of the Stop The Spread cities (the ones with dotted outlines):

(Pop out.)