https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/coronavirus-roundup-for-may-9-may-15/

The items below are highlights from the newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign-up here: https://robinlloyd.substack.com.

Surgeon, writer and public health researcher Atul Gawande has written an excellent feature story for The New Yorker (5/13/20) on the changes needed to make reopened communities safe. His guidance is based on lessons learned from success in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections in the hospital system where he works (Mass General Brigham, with 75,000 employees). Beyond the now common-sense advice for a combination of frequent handwashing, mandatory face masks, regular screenings for staffers, daily self-reports on symptoms, and daily disinfecting of high-touch surfaces, he writes that staffers conduct meetings by video even if they work across the hall from one another. If in-person meetings are unavoidable, plexiglass separates the speakers. Transmission evidence shows that “physical distancing is so important,” he writes. The hardest, key part, he writes, is getting people to commit to new norms for keeping others safe, not just themselves.