Don't drink bleach. Wear a mask for others.

[View this email in your browser]( [Open Ars Technica in your browser]( [Image] [Catalina, an island off the coast of California and the new MacOS release name.]( We're approaching the three-month mark for [the COVID-19 pandemic]( changing life in the US (and nearly five months since [the disease landed on the scientific radar]( during its spread in China). And while the devastation happening on the medical front lines (and increasingly on the industrial/economic front) is easy to come across, it remains hard to cut through the iterative, incessant updates to suss out the imperative information. Part of the problem is [some folks think they can benefit from disinformation]( and therefore feel incentivized to push hogwash (we see you, [Martin Shkreli](). Another issue is some critical information is deeply technical or involved, and it can be hard [to simply look at the raw data]( or information and take away the upshot or actionable info. Luckily, journalism institutions like Ars (or NPR, or the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, or The Verge and Wired, et al) exist for this exact kind of situation. For this week's Orbital Transmission, we're sharing a few of the most need-to-know updates that have come out after the initial wave of COVID-19 information hit the US en masse. There's still plenty of places around Ars to find some escapes (or at l[east some boardgames to better shelter-in-place](), but we're a scientific and technological news source at our core. There's no bigger story period right now than COVID-19, but that's especially true for those of us following science, health, medicine, and/or technology. —[@NathanMattise]( Orbital Transmission 04.29.2020 [(image) ]( [Nose-on: An at-home collection COVID-19 test]( The Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) formed in March, but demand existed for its work long beforehand. As you've read and heard everywhere, testing for COVID-19 is key to understanding the best way forward when it comes to maintaining a healthy society and re-opening aspects of day-to-day life currently on pause. SCAN offered hundreds of free, at-home tests so long as you signed up—receive the kit at 11a, return it by 4p, get the results ASAP that week. Ars' Seattle-ite Sam Machkovech recently went through the process and shared his experience (and all the technical details). The TL;DR? SCAN's effort to quickly gather data from a wide range of Seattle-area residents—aided by an efficient, same-day pickup process—comes at the cost of precision, but that's less of a knock on SCAN's remarkable free-test efforts and more of a reminder of the scale of the COVID-19 crisis. [(image) ]( [Go ahead and stop that person about to bring up the flu's severity]( The (generously termed) ill-informed backers of "but the flu is just as bad if not worse!" argument hopefully saw the news this week. Yes, a pair of studies recently came out looking at the spread of COVID-19 in California, and that tandem gained a lot of publicity for suggesting death rates are actually more akin to the flu. But—and here's the important bit—neither study has been published in a scientific journal, nor have they gone through standard peer-review for scientific vetting. Instead, they have been posted online in draft form. That's a commonplace occurrence amid a rapidly evolving pandemic that inclines researchers to have fast access to data (however uncertain), but it also means folks looking to cherrypick "evidence" can act in a bad faith manner and shout about what they like without highlighting the limitations. Luckily, frustrated statisticians and epidemiologists haven't been afraid to get vocal about all the BS stemming from this situation. [(image) ]( [Don't believe everything you hear about "medicine" like bleach and chloroquine]( We don't need to rehash the details of how these two proposed COVID-19 "cures" or "treatments" came into the popular consciousness, but let's just say a peer-reviewed scientific paper was not the catalyst. The recent rise of people crying for hydroxychloroquine ([or, worse, bleach]() should serve as a reminder to not believe everything you hear coming from politicians, particularly those with a history of dismissing science. The FDA had to recently issue a safety announcement regarding hydroxychloroquine (the drugs' use "should be limited to clinical trial settings or for treating certain hospitalized patients") and literally people [will poison themselves with disinfectant nonsense](. Do not. [(image) ]( [Since we'll be needing 'em, here's what to know about masks]( No matter what stage of COVID-19 life your area is within, the reality going forward has a commonality—masks. Open now, open later, stay sheltered-in-place, government officials and health experts seem to at least agree upon the potential benefit of wearing masks when in public areas around others. "Potential" is the key word there, as masks are definitively not a cure-all for the coronavirus situation and are genuinely less effective than avoiding those kinds of close contact situations to begin with. But if large swaths of society insist on pushing forward at rates scientists may disagree with, understanding the limitations of masks (and the need for more testing around them in the broader scientific community) may help the rest of us make more informed, cautious, and safer decisions about where to go and how to do it. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2020 Condé Nast, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Condé Nast One World Trade Center New York, NY 10007 Want to change how you receive these emails? 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