Commentary by A. Grieve-Smith

Chart from the New York City Department of Mental Hygiene Respiratory Illness Data pages Over the past several years I’ve written about why I try to avoid spreading infectious diseases like COVID-19 and influenza.

Introduction In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic I learned that we can estimate our level of risk by checking the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air, because when infected people breathe out virus aerosols, they also breathe out CO2.

One amazing thing about the COVID-19 pandemic, compared with previous epidemics, has been the availability of high-quality open data, keeping medical professionals, epidemiologists and even the general public aware of trends and risks.

This is part of an ongoing series exploring how to live with compassion in our world of infectious diseases, which tend to recur in waves.

On March 20, Donald Trump issued an executive order promising to “dismantle the Department of Education,” something he promised to do in his campaign.

Two weeks ago as I was relaxing before bed, I got a call I dreaded.

Recently I described how I monitor the disease indicators published by government agencies, and how I’ve set a threshold of 6 people hospitalized per hundred thousand residents for deciding when to relax out of “outbreak mode” and eat and sing indoors.

I shouldn’t be writing this.

When I first heard that President Biden was going to announce the end of the COVID-19 state of emergency, I was not happy.

There are three kinds of attitudes towards the spread of a disease like COVID-19.