How Science Writers organizers planned the in-person conference’s COVID-19 safety measures

November 13, 2022.Reading time 17 minutes.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that the Science Writers conference—which I attended in-person—had great COVID-19 safety policies, better than other events I’ve gone to this year. To learn more about how this event’s organizers planned the conference and communicated policies to attendees, I talked to Tinsley Davis, executive director of the National Association of Science Writers.

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Unpacking U.S. data gaps and lack of public health action with Jason Salemi

June 12, 2022.Reading time 36 minutes.

Last week, I had a new story published at FiveThirtyEight about the challenges a new CDC forecasting center is facing. Here’s one of the interviews I did for that piece, with epidemiologist Jason Salemi.

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How one wastewater plant became a leading COVID-19 forecasting source

April 24, 2022.Reading time 32 minutes.

This week, I had a new story published with FiveThirtyEight and the Documenting COVID-19 project about the data and implementation challenges of wastewater surveillance. As bonus material in today’s COVID-19 Data Dispatch, I wanted to share one of the interviews I did for the story, which provides a good case study of the benefits and challenges of COVID-19 surveillance in wastewater.

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A new resource for journalists covering Long COVID

January 16, 2022.Reading time 36 minutes.

This week, a new resource that I’ve been working on for the past few months went live: a comprehensive source list including Long COVID patients and experts who are willing to talk to reporters. This source list project was a collaboration with Fiona Lowenstein, who’s a journalist, speaker, consultant, and founder of the Body Politic support group for Long COVID patients.

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New CDC mortality data: “Real-time public health surveillance at a highly granular level”

December 12, 2021.Reading time 28 minutes.

This past Monday, the CDC put out a major data release: mortality data for 2020 and 2021, encompassing the pandemic’s impact on deaths from all causes in the U.S. The new data allow researchers and reporters to investigate excess deaths, a measure of the pandemic’s true toll—comparing the number of deaths that occurred in a particular region, during a particular year, to deaths that would’ve been expected had COVID-19 not occurred. At the same time, the new data allow for investigations into COVID-19 disparities and increased deaths of non-COVID causes during the pandemic.

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Public health data in the US is “incredibly fragmented”: Zoe McLaren on booster shots and more

November 14, 2021.Reading time 26 minutes.

This week, I had a new story published at the data journalism site FiveThirtyEight. The story explores the U.S.’s failure to comprehensively track breakthrough cases, and how that failure has led officials to look towards data from other countries with better tracking systems as they make decisions about booster shots. In the CDD, I’m sharing one of the interviews I did for that story.

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Yes, we still need better data on COVID-19 and race: An interview with Dr. Debra Furr-Holden

August 15, 2021.Reading time 26 minutes.

Dr. Debra Furr-Holden, public health expert at Michigan State University, discusses the ongoing challenges of collecting and reporting COVID-19 race data, how data gaps fuel vaccine hesitancy, the equity challenges inherent in vaccine mandates, and more.

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A dispatch from Provincetown, Mass.

August 8, 2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

This week, I had the opportunity to talk to Mike, a Bear Week attendee from Pittsburgh, who caught COVID-19 in Provincetown. He told me about his experience attending parties, getting sick, and learning about the scale of the outbreak.

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A new tracker highlights the racial disparities—and the missing data—in America’s COVID-19 outbreaks

June 13, 2021.Reading time 34 minutes.

Two weeks ago, a major new COVID-19 data source came on the scene: the Health Equity Tracker, developed by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine. To dig more into this valuable resource, I talked to Josh Zarrabi, senior software engineer at the Satcher Health Leadership.

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The short-term future of COVID-19 testing

April 25, 2021.Reading time 32 minutes.

This week, I had a story on COVID-19 testing published in Slate’s Future Tense vertical. The piece explores how testing will change in the next few months as more Americans become vaccinated and rapid tests become more widely available. In the CDD today, I’m excited to share one of the interviews I conducted for the piece, with Dan Larremore, a statistician at the University of Colorado and long-time advocate for the potential of rapid tests.

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