Your Local Epidemiologist

The YLE team is back from summer break, tanned (some of us), rested (debatable with small kids), and ready to jump right back in. I know a lot of you have questions about the Cyclospora outbreak. The YLE team is collecting them all, and tomorrow I’ll pick the top 10 for a deep dive. As of this morning, there is still very, very little communication from HHS, which is pretty insane. In the meantime, here’s what’s going on with health this week, including other bugs like ticks and mosquitoes.

Well, nothing like the U.S.'s biggest explosive diarrhea outbreak ever to take me out of vacation mode. But I’m getting really frustrated with the coverage, which leaves people struggling to navigate which foods are safe and which aren’t. Some of this confusion is unavoidable, as outbreak investigations are messy and uncertain, unfolding quickly in real time.

When I picture a heat death, I used to imagine someone collapsing outside in the blazing sun while working at a construction site. That definitely happens, but what I learned while working at CDC is that it can also look like Shirley. Shirley was 70, recently widowed, and living alone in a home, with diabetes and high blood pressure. All winter, the boy next door would knock before a snowstorm to make sure she was okay.

Somehow it’s already July. And with it comes the heat, along with the health consequences that follow. We’re also seeing a rise in the virus behind many sore throats, plus some possible early Covid-19 signals in the South. A military flu outbreak continues to increase after the removal of a vaccine requirement. A summer flu outbreak?

This week, the hantavirus outbreak officially ended. The Americans who had been quarantining can finally go get a coffee in public again, because we are past the 42-day window that defines the Andes virus incubation period. CDC and HHS are calling the containment a success. And it is.

Cancer finds all of us. A name or an experience has probably already popped into your mind. It’s the second leading cause of death in the U.S., and progress feels like it’s coming in inches. But what if we could eliminate one cancer? After 40 years of slow progress, it’s starting to happen with cervical cancer. It could become the first cancer we drive from a major public health threat down to something rare—what the WHO calls elimination, fewer than four cases per 100,000 women.

It’s full-blown summer chaos at my house. My husband is traveling, so I’m on solo duty: camp drop-offs, Girl Scout carpool, a frog emergency (don’t ask), packing for my own work trip tomorrow, meals (cereal, anyone?), and running a business in between. Last night, I had a choice: write a YLE post or watch the sunset with my young daughters and popsicles. I picked the sunset. So, no post today—I’ll be back Wednesday.

Every week, we ask you, the YLE community, what’s on your mind. Every week, we get questions about cancer and [fill-in-the-blank] prevention, cure, or treatment. It’s a game of whack-a-mole, but there’s an important thread across all of them. So, I asked Dr. Matthew Facciani–a misinformation researcher at Yale–to chime in. Matt, take it away. Most online rumors or falsehoods do their damage slowly: polarization, eroded trust, and fractured public discourse.

I’m not a big basketball fan, but boy, the sound of Manhattan at the final buzzer of the NBA Finals was electric in every video I came across: cheering, weeping, horns honking, singing, hugging, cigars being lit, an utter unselfconsciousness, pure and absolute jubilation. It gave me goosebumps. It’s a reminder that joy is contagious. Congratulations, New Yorkers, and thank you for the reminder of the value of community and shared joy. More of that, please.

The drug that saved your mother. The treatment your doctor recommended. The clinical trial that bought someone you love more time. None of it was inevitable. It required a system built to operate outside politics and sustained over decades, because science doesn’t operate on the timeline of a politician. That system is now under direct threat.