Enough With the Phoney 'Lockdown' Debate It’s been fuelled, on both sides, by the presumption that government decrees work as a sort of magic wand that will bring our economies (and perhaps the most acute phase of the pandemic) back to life. Jonathan Kay 8 May 2020 · 10 min read
PODCAST 89: Jennifer Abbasi on the Emerging Science of COVID-19 Antibody Testing Jennifer Abbasi, associate managing editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), talks to Jonathan Kay about new COVID-19 antibody tests that may help stop the pandemic and save the lives of the already infected. Quillette / Jonathan Kay 30 Apr 2020 · 1 min read
PODCAST 88: Jonathan Kay on Covid Superspreaders Jonathan Kay, Canadian editor of Quillette, talks to associate editor Toby Young about his recent article on COVID-19 superspreaders. Quillette / Jonathan Kay 29 Apr 2020 · 1 min read
COVID-19 Superspreader Events in 28 Countries: Critical Patterns and Lessons In the absence of any comprehensive database of COVID-19 superspreading events, I built my own. Jonathan Kay 23 Apr 2020 · 21 min read
Board-gaming in the Age of Isolation In normal times, when we’re not all inside waiting out a pandemic, physical self-isolation can be both a symptom and cause of depression and alienation. Jonathan Kay 16 Apr 2020 · 10 min read
Rethinking Human Ecology in the Age of COVID-19: Lessons from a Fish Market Twelve of the viruses that Geoghegan and her co-authors detected are potentially novel strains. Jonathan Kay 15 Apr 2020 · 13 min read
Quillette's Quarantine Book Club: Readers Offer Their Suggestions, Part I The series begins after the violence of the war to end all wars and ends in a time of strangely familiar contagion and spasmodic collapse. Jonathan Kay 7 Apr 2020 · 7 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 31st: Wear a Mask, Georgia's SSE, Kinsa's Fever Map Both the scientific literature and media reports suggest COVID-19 transmission is most likely to take place (1) within families, and (2) through one-off SSEs of the type described above. Jonathan Kay 31 Mar 2020 · 7 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 30th: The Planet's Deadly Viral Baseline According to statistics compiled by Our World in Data (OWD), the number of newly confirmed COVID-19 deaths decreased yesterday. Jonathan Kay 30 Mar 2020 · 6 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 29th: Keep Your Voice Down The latest research on COVID-19 tells us that “the major transmission mechanisms are not fine aerosols but large droplets.” Jonathan Kay 30 Mar 2020 · 9 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 28th: Bergamo's Decimation, More SSEs, and the Case for Masks On an annualized basis, the last three weeks in Lombardy correspond to a regional per-capita death rate of 0.72 percent—or, put another way, the death of one person out of every 140 residents. Jonathan Kay 28 Mar 2020 · 6 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 27th: Super-Spreaders and the Need for New Prediction Models Absent isolation or other precautionary measures, the average socially active COVID-19 infectee will transmit the disease to an average of about 2.4 people. i.e., the R0 value is 2.4. But super-spreaders can spread a disease to dozens or hundreds. Jonathan Kay 27 Mar 2020 · 11 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 26th: Five Trends Shaping Medium-Term Policy Even if a COVID-19 vaccine were invented tomorrow (it won’t be), our experience with the virus shows how underprepared we are for this kind of public-health emergency. Jonathan Kay 26 Mar 2020 · 10 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 25th: Understanding Models This clustering phenomenon explains why the COVID-19 policy debate among politicians, doctors, and pundits now has become somewhat surreal, with world-class experts telling us either that we are facing an “apocalypse,” or that the pandemic will fizzle and we’re all “going to be fine.” Jonathan Kay 25 Mar 2020 · 12 min read
COVID-19 Science Update for March 24th: Counting Cases and Deaths The analysis here is complicated, because a massive testing regime doesn’t seem to be a necessary component of COVID-19 suppression. Jonathan Kay 24 Mar 2020 · 8 min read
