I’m thinking quantitatively about the risk to kids and grown-ups as schools reopen. Based on some envelope calculations, it seems to me that the only place this can happen safely is the Northeast. Also, wherever we attempt re-opening, nasal-swab testing will reduce the risk by a factor of ~4. And with pooled testing, it could […]
Entries Tagged as 'Health'
College Reopening, Coronavirus, and the Adolescent Brain
July 3rd, 2020, 12:58pm by Sam Wang
Can colleges reopen safely? Should they try? On Politics and Polls (the podcast for the Princeton Policy School, co-hosted by Julian Zelizer and me), I interview Laurence Steinberg, major expert on adolescence. Our conversation is a mash-up of neuroscience, public health, coronavirus, and the adolescent mind. Spoiler: it’s going to be really, really, rilly difficult. […]
Coronavirus New York state update: switching from Johns Hopkins to NYT data
April 19th, 2020, 9:35pm by Sam Wang
Over the last few days, our doubling-time tracker has showed steady progress toward longer times in nearly every state – except New York. We think we’ve identified a source of inaccuracy: uneven updating at the Johns Hopkins site. They’re excellent, but their data isn’t intended for visual display. So we’re switching to the New York […]
Tags: Health
Curve Bent
April 13th, 2020, 1:50pm by Sam Wang
There it is. Time to double the number of deaths, as of today: US 7.2 days, NJ 6.5 days, NY 7.3 days. The number of deaths approximately reflects new infections as of about 2-3 weeks ago. Therefore the number of new infections was doubling every 7 days. Since infection itself lasts about 2 weeks, i.e. an average of 1 week, this […]
Tags: Health
Bernie Sanders’s parting gift to Wisconsin voters
April 11th, 2020, 12:07pm by Sam Wang
When it comes to partisan warfare, Wisconsin is at the top of any list. In 2011, Republicans, with the help of their Governor Scott Walker, committed one of the most egregious gerrymanders of all time. The General Assembly locked itself into power for a decade. Now, thanks to Bernie Sanders’s persistence, Democrats may take a […]
Tags: 2020 Election · Health · Politics · President · Redistricting
Why You Should Vote: Red States, Blue Priorities
November 4th, 2018, 9:42am by Sam Wang
(Written in collaboration with Owen Engel ’21.) Progressive policies are more popular than progressive candidates. Red-state candidates who advocate for increases in the minimum wage and Medicaid expansion lose to opponents, who tar them as liberals. Yet surveys show large bipartisan majorities in favor of these same policies. This is a testament to how well […]
Tags: 2018 Election · Health · House · Senate
Technical Article Of The Day
July 11th, 2016, 9:55pm by Sam Wang
New in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a review of the national and state-level impacts of the Affordable Care Act…by Barack Obama, J.D.! I guess everyone can use a boost to the ol’ C.V. Seriously, though, I believe that makes him the first President to publish in a peer-reviewed journal (with two formal […]
Overreacting to Ebola
October 28th, 2014, 9:24am by Sam Wang
Tweet (click the above image for a high-resolution version) The amount of Ebola coverage is amazing: 1,869 stories from October 20 to 24 alone. That coverage came on the heels of the death of one patient in Dallas, Texas. The level of coverage is amazing considering the far greater impact of other infectious diseases in […]
Tags: Health
Race and mental traits: Nicholas Wade’s third error
July 8th, 2014, 11:41pm by Sam Wang
An octogenarian once invited me to his old, exclusive East Coast club to give a talk about neuroscience, my area of specialty. Afterwards, as we walked past oil portraits of old white men across the centuries, the octogenarian pulled me aside, lowered his voice and asked, “I was wondering if you could explain something. What […]
Autism NYT piece: Postscript
April 6th, 2014, 7:00am by Sam Wang
I’ve received some useful feedback on the NYT piece on autism. I have extra notes to offer on three topics: (1) elective induction, (2) environmental toxins, including endocrine disruptors, and (3) the lack of a true link with SSRI use.
Tags: Health
