rallison

In the US, the pre-exposure course is now often just two doses, although three is possible (and used to be more common). The per-dose price at most pharmacies in the US is $400-500.

You'll generally need either a referral or a travel clinic consultation to get one (unless you work in a job where it's deemed essential to get the rabies pre-exposure course). In more reasonable states, you can do something like the Costco Travel Vaccine consultation service (which runs ~$40) and, if you indicate you are traveling to remote areas in certain countries, get a recommendation for the rabies vaccine course.

In some cases, insurance will cover the rabies pre-exposure course. But that is generally rare.

So, in general, best case if you just want to voluntarily receive the vaccine in the US? Around $800 if you live in a state that is reasonable and use an inexpensive travel consultation service (like Costco's offering). And, if you want the full three dose series? That will generally set you back around $1200 minimum.

So, for a lot of people in the US, the cost will be under the $1500-3000 range that was noted. However, it's still expensive, even in the best case in the US!

> Vaccines are for pre exposure.

That is correct for most vaccines. However, it's different for rabies. The vaccine is also effective post exposure (as long as it is given soon enough). Human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) is also part of the post exposure treatment, but the vaccine is critical here too.

Also of note: if one has received a course of rabies vaccinations as part of a pre-exposure treatment (high risk jobs, certain types of travel, etc), then the post exposure treatment consists of only a few extra doses of the vaccine (and not HRIG).

I travel to relatively remote places, and hike in those places, so I decided to pay for a course of the rabies vaccine a few years ago (the three dose course). If I do ever end up with a feral dog bite, for example, that makes treatment much easier - the vaccine is much more available globally than HRIG, and the timeframe is more relaxed if you've had the pre-exposure jabs. Granted, that immunity eventually wanes, so I'll occasionally need a booster to maintain enough protection.

Exactly. CO2 is an imperfect proxy, but it's a pretty decent one. And, even for spaces that have high quality air filtration (e.g. a strong commercial central air system with good HEPA/MERV filters), the CO2 measurement can also tell you if the system is configured with a good recirculated to outdoor air ratio (residential systems usually have no such thing, unfortunately).

But yeah, as you said, the best aspect of a CO2 monitor is that it gives you a useful upper bound for the general respiratory virus risk in a space.

Yep, I also run central air in fan only mode much more often now. Since I'm in coastal California, I don't need to run heating/cooling for much of the year, so previously that meant central air was rarely on.

Now, I'll run it fairly often for the recirculation. And, since my house is old and leaky, aside from evening out levels, it no doubt results in more indoor:outdoor air exchange too. That alone made a massive difference at night, since I will usually have the bedroom door closed.

And, while I haven't switched the range over to induction yet (it's on the list to eventually do), I did get a portable induction burner that I use fairly often instead of the gas range. Induction is pretty amazing, so I look forward to eventually going all the way.

For NDIR sensors, the Aranet4 Home is an often recommended one. I have a couple, and they are great little units. A number of scientists recommended them during the heart of covid as a proxy for covid risk in indoor spaces (obviously, an imperfect proxy, but since there are no cheap, portable devices to measure viral concentrations in the air, you work with what you've got).

Yep. Even if the building as a whole is generally well ventilated, particular spaces in a building can still build up CO2 pretty quickly. It's actually quite dramatic to see the rise in chart form at times.

These sensors are really nice to help validate ventilation anywhere.

Both what you say and what the article says is right.

To the article's point, in urban areas, increased density often happens even when mass transit isn't expanded (which then often leads to ever worsening traffic). So, for urban areas that are organically becoming denser, mass transit becomes ever more important, which was partially the article's point in the section you quoted.

Also, to generously read the article, it seems to be making two related points, but not actually imposing a "one should follow the other" ordering that you read into it. The full paragraph:

> Globally, that is nothing notable—in most urban cores a majority of workers take public transportation for work and daily activities. Increasing the density of jobs, hospitals, restaurants, homes, schools, and more is key to the agglomeration effects that make cities such economic powerhouses, and as density grows mass transit becomes essential since it can far surpass the maximum throughput capacity of even the largest roadways.

It is saying two things: 1) high density is critical to be an economic powerhouse and 2) mass transit becomes even more essential as density increases. That paragraph isn't inherently saying mass transit should follow densification (vs preceding densification). Ideally you build out mass transit in anticipation of densification vs playing catch up.

Anyway, to your point, it's absolutely true that building out mass transit is critical in attracting more high-density development (especially very high-density development), and critical in enabling high density development in places that otherwise might not attract that sort of investment.

Yep, I was going to note this too. Assuming the Mini specs are correct and it actually needs 100W (20V/5A) as a minimum profile, most cheaper power banks won't work with it.

But yeah, options like the Anker 737 24K should work great (which supports 20V/5A and 28V/5A). I happened to pick up a few of the 737s recently, so I'll be curious to try them out with the Mini soon. Just waiting for Starlink to actually add the usb-c to DC barrel adapter to the online shop.

> The way to tolerate the adaptation is hot water - spray water as hot as you can stand (without damage) on the affected area and you will get substantial relief for about 12 hours.

Yes. Similar to poison oak (in irritant effect), we've also got poodle-dog bush out in California. It thrives in post-fire environments, and isn't as well-known as poison oak. The reaction to it is often even worse than for poison oak. And so, before I was better versed in the "fun" plants of our local mountains, I had a run in with some poodle plants, and.. that was a rough few weeks.

I tried everything to make it more tolerable, and hot water was by far the best. The effect didn't last forever, but it was remarkable how it a) was actually pleasurable and b) muted the itchiness for a fairly significant amount of time (although still not as long as I would have liked..).

It's probably still best to avoid hot water until you've done a good job of getting the offending substance off (as best as possible). And near scalding water isn't otherwise great for the skin, so it's probably not something one should do all the time.

But wow, it was amazing for poodle-dog bush.

It's definitely got some noise to it. Not super loud, but definitely not quiet.

I was lucky enough to visit in 2018. It is a truly surreal place. I've been a few places, and Darvaza is still one of the most memorable. Since travel in Turkmenistan is quite restricted, I hired a driver to travel from Ashgabat to Darvaza to Konye-Urgench, with an overnight at the crater (and another overnight in Dashoguz, after visiting Konye-Urgench).

The heat of the crater. The size of it. The light it puts out into an otherwise perfectly dark surrounding. The remoteness. The bareness of it all. To be there as the sun sets, and as the stars come out, and until the crater is the only source of light.. absolutely amazing.

Of course, sometimes the destination is only part of what is memorable. The drive out was an obstacle course of avoiding potholes at high speed. Once there, healthy amounts of vodka were enjoyed with my driver. Hours of talk, despite minimal shared language. And sleeping involved a rather tiny tent (perfectly serviceable for a night of camping).

It's hard to convey how surreal the place is.

Dalessandro's. Granted, it's been a couple of decades since I last visited, but they were (and still seem to be) an institution.

> This was publicly admitted to by Toronto Public Health itself, as early as June 2020:

> "Individuals who have died with COVID-19, but not as a result of COVID-19 are included in the case counts for COVID-19 deaths in Toronto."

I don't know the particulars of Toronto Public Health, but this wasn't uncommon for immediate reporting vs death record reporting. Since, in many places, comprehensive death records can take a few weeks (or longer!) to go through the pipeline before ending up on finalized reports, it's useful to have more immediate death reporting during a pandemic. Such immediate reporting is necessarily going to be a little rougher around the edges, but it generally gets you pretty close to the real numbers.

But, it's absolutely true that this immediate reporting isn't perfect. Still, it's very useful, and usually close enough for near term needs. Taking the Toronto example, the main tradeoffs are that a) you include some deaths where Covid wasn't actually a contributing factor and b) you miss deaths where the person was never tested for Covid (especially applicable to deaths that occurred at home). Often, these two somewhat balanced themselves out, but only in places with fairly high levels of testing.

Then, in the medium to longer term, you can switch over to relying on more comprehensive death records. This helps to filter out non-causal scenarios (e.g. the "hit by bus, tested positive for covid, died" scenarios). It also helps add in cases that were initially missed (had symptoms of covid, never went to hospital, died at home, etc).

Finally, to validate numbers, we can also look at excess deaths. This helps ensure that we're not wildly off base with reported numbers. Excess deaths isn't a perfect metric to compare to, but it's still a great benchmark.

To wrap up this comment, let me respond to this:

> We have to be extremely cautious when considering any of the death-related statistics for this particular situation.

I fully agree, but.. I would suggest that your comment missed a lot of the accuracy refinement that happens in practice over the medium to longer term. Additionally, it's very much worth pointing out that, with additional analysis (from death records, from excess death analysis, etc), we've found that very few places were likely over-reporting Covid deaths, but that a significant number of places were under-reporting Covid deaths. So, yes, take shorter term Covid death stats with a grain of salt, but know that we've generally ended up reporting too low, not too high.