Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of September 21

I tested positive for COVID earlier in the week. It's been a real mess personally, but since I don't have any serious health issues, I'm confident I'll be fine. I've been keeping a journal since my symptoms first developed, in the case it might be useful.

I've heard I may be able to donate plasma or something after I recover. If anyone can share any resources to that end, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Feared coronavirus outbreaks in schools yet to arrive, early data show

I needed some good news as I prepare to shift from remote to in-person teaching, so this article is a genuine balm on my pretty frazzled nerves at the moment.

Of course, then again, there's also this:

Middleton, Idaho school employee dies from COVID-19

Adding insult to injury is this school board trustee's comment regarding the death, which is so insensitive it makes my blood boil:

We can’t run and hide,” Moore said. “I know we have cases, but we cannot decide not to move forward. There are going to be hiccups in the road.”

In The Vaccine Protocols Derek Lowe describes the design of the three largest US vaccine trials.

So how quickly will these trials hit these readouts? That depends completely on the attack rate of the virus in the study population, as mentioned above. The more you are testing in viral hotspots, the faster you will collect data. If you decide to test in New Zealand, on the other hand, you will probably never hit the cutoffs at all. Pfizer has said several times that they expect to get a first readout by the end of October, and Moderna has said that they expect to get a look by the end of November. AstraZeneca, with only one interim analysis, will probably have to wait a bit longer from the start of their trial, although they did start on the early side. I would expect the companies involved to announce a positive result if they do make any of these interim analysis hurdles, though (wouldn’t you?)

Sweden is getting its fair share of the second wave too it seems, not as big a bump as our neighbours, but certain areas are getting a raise in cases (Stockholm in particular) - meaning a reiteration of the importance of following the suggestions.
For me its not that big of an issue, I work from home, but my husband work in a library and its tricky to keep people separated properly. Neither of us travel by tram or bus at all - we've always gone by bike everywhere. So far so good.

As always though - being from a country that seems part of the US news cycle means being told a lot of odd things about my home. Now its switched to liberals instead of conservatives explaining how things are like where I live (basically now I am not being raped to death daily by sharia courts, I am being used as a labrat by incompetent prideful murderous autocrats who laugh at the death of old people)

The same effect of knowing people who've moved here from the US is as before, still a thing - the way people react to a crisis, or what they expect people to do, seems very very well defined by past social experiences and cultural expectations.
Friends from the US living here have being silently blocked on social media by shared friends who are Swedes, since the Swedes think they are being dangerously irresponsible and panicky - while those from the US wonder why everyone around them is just pretending nothing is happening and think they in turn are being dangerously irresponsible and ignorant.
At the same time first generation Somali-Swedes at my husbands job are having a hard time mixing the social distancing with the requirements of how to deal with a catastrophe properly as they know it. One tried to explain to her mum that since her mum is sick she can't come visit, which is basically the absolute opposite of whats required (in times of crisis, collect everyone in the family in one room. If someone is sick, visit them or live there).

Repeat question from last week, just in need of an answer or if someone could redirect me to a good place to ask. Apologies.

I'm living with roommates that are physically going to school and are at higher risk for bringing the virus to the house than me right now; they're also smoking outside in the porch every once in a while. We live in an apartment where there's also a balcony right above us with a wooden plank floor in which there's cracks I can visibly see up to at my apartment. Are they putting the people living above at risk by smoking at a place where the smoke can reach? I'd imagine if one of them was to catch the virus, that might be a way it could spread. They're usually smoking at night and I don't know if the people living there are out there much, but I'd just rather make sure.