(A true story, which might have a happy ending) Once upon a time there was a city which was struck by a terrible plague. Many died – and even more lost friends and relatives that they loved. Almost everyone found it harder to pay the bills but especially people who didn’t earn much to begin with. People working in bars and restaurants, theatres and concert halls. All those places – in fact – that made life worth living for everyone else….
Welcome to issue number 40. For this timely and informative article, I have to thank a seasoned Plague Pit contributor, Gunn (Te) Pungpapong. Te is in the sixth form at Winchester College and right in the middle of his medical school applications. Here he considers the mental health implications of the pandemic for patients, health care staff and even his fellow Wykehamists. COVID-19 and its hidden mental health epidemic It’s perhaps easy to forget about the pandemic’s mental health effects…
Welcome to The Plague Pit. For issue number 39, I’m very grateful to Maria Solovyeva. Maria is a first-year medical undergraduate at Cambridge University. During the first wave of the pandemic, she was a sixth-former at St Swithun’s School, Winchester. There, she found time to write this fascinating article on COVID-19 and nicotine. About two months ago I stumbled upon a whole thread of articles relating nicotine to the pandemic. Some headlines really struck me as vague, bold claims; others…
Welcome back to the Plague Pit – and to issue number 38. I sent out the last Plague Pit subscriber update on 29th June. A COVID second wave looked a long way off then. Things are a bit different now. To cheer us up (or maybe not) I’m delighted to welcome guest writer Kit Redfern to the Plague Pit. Kit is a sixth former at Winchester College who is applying for a place to study Ecology and Conservation at the…
Welcome to the Plague Pit – issue number 37. I’ve written before about COVID-19 research. I tried to use specific papers to outline briefly some general concepts like literature searches, impact factors, the peer-review process, publication bias, research fraud, systematic vs narrative reviews and meta-analysis (https://plaguepit.com/publications/). Last week, I also had a quick go at prospective vs retrospective cohort studies, multivariate regression and observational vs randomised controlled trials (https://plaguepit.com/risk/). I had hoped that would just about cover things. As time…
Welcome to The Plague Pit – issue number 36. I’m delighted to hand over to Xavier Khalid for this issue. He’s a sixth-form student at Winchester College, studying Maths, Further Maths, Biology and Chemistry. He hopes to study Natural Sciences at Cambridge, exploring the disciplines of molecular biology and biochemistry. He plays the piano and chess in his free time. Below, Xavier considers some of the antiviral drugs under investigation for their activity against COVID-19. Shortly after I received this…
Welcome to The Plague Pit. This issue – number 35, ‘The Element of Chance in Epidemiological Modelling’ – comes from another talented student contributor – Ed Lucas. Ed is a sixth-form pupil of Dr John Cullerne. Dr Cullerne is Undermaster at Winchester College, where he teaches Physics and Maths. He’s a longstanding friend of The Plague Pit, whose inspired reading suggestions appear regularly on our Military Intelligence page. Another pupil of his, Adrian Tsui, has written several pieces for us…
or: ‘When Art imitates Life imitates Art’…. Welcome to The Plague Pit This issue – number 34 – has a touch of Hollywood sparkle about it. Guest contributor Ben Hughes is an old friend who works as a Producer and First Assistant Director on feature films, commercials, TV dramas and documentaries. He has filmed all over the world, from the Himalayas to the Rocky Mountains. Once or twice, Ben has been foolish enough to ask my opinion on a proposed…
Welcome to the Plague Pit – issue number 33. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps it’s odd to talk of ‘disasters coming in threes’. But this week has felt a bit like that. First – I went to a safety meeting about a young patient who had an unexpected catastrophic outcome after routine minor surgery. I was involved in the patient’s care. Then, yesterday, a colleague told me about his own unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate a hospital patient…
Welcome to The Plague Pit – issue number 32 Mr Harvey White is our most senior contributor to date and a distinguished retired surgeon and oncologist. Born in 1936, he was educated at Winchester College (1949-54) and Magdalen College, Oxford – training in medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. Aside from his clinical achievements, he has published several works on the history of medicine. Nearly thirty years ago, he founded the Old Wykehamist Medical Society, which now has more than…