Section 1.1 Possible Discussion Themes
Exploration 1.1 is very open-ended. The goal of this exploration is to begin discussing outbreaks as they appear in news and popular culture writing. There is no hidden “right answer” to find.
There are many possible themes that may arise during discussion. Below, you can find a sample of such themes. These may help to expand thoughts and discussions you are already having about the articles. Or it is possible that you discovered yet other themes, beyond those listed here, and this is wonderful!
Theme 1. The diseases in the articles are measles and RSV. Both are highly contagious and spread through coughing and sneezing.
Theme 2. The articles give different kinds of information about the ways measles and RSV can spread. Some of the articles give descriptions that let us estimate incubation period or length of sickness, and some give fewer such descriptions.
Theme 3. Some of the articles describe disease presence in the U.S. only, and some articles describe disease presence in other countries.
Theme 4. All of the articles discuss vaccination, but there is not yet a vaccine for RSV. Some alternate control measures, such as hand washing or sanitizing surfaces, appear in one or more articles.
Theme 5. The question about mathematical concepts could mean many things. There are many possible answers, including but not limited to: numbers of recent cases, lengths of time of the stages of disease, historical data about when more or fewer people have been ill in past years, or percentages of people vaccinated.
Section 1.2 Follow Up By Seeking More Precise Data
For these and other diseases or outbreaks we may read about, we can add to our knowledge of underlying disease biology by gathering additional data. We will find, when modeling diseases, that it can help to know the lengths of time for each disease stage, such as incubation period, how long a person is typically sick, and how long any immunity to the disease lasts. Vaccine data is also helpful, including whether a vaccine exists at all, how effective the vaccine is on average, and what percentage of people are vaccinated against a particular disease. Some of the data we collect may depend on time or place: vaccines may be newer, or different percentages of people may be vaccinated in different locations.
One place to look up data is the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As one example, a web search can take us to the
CDC’s information page about measles. Not every disease is presented in an identical manner on the CDC’s web pages, but there are typically page titles including the words “Transmission” or “How It Spreads” that help us, as well as page titles including the word “Symptoms”. These pages contain lots of information about how diseases spread and how long each stage takes. Such information helps us build our models.
Activity 1.2.
Take a look at the CDC’s online information pages for measles. Putting together the information on these pages, construct a timeline of measles contagion in a single person, starting at the time the person is first infected. Include the following, and include whatever other information appears important.
How long does it typically take for a person to begin being contagious?
How long is the total time period from when a person begins being contagious to when they no longer are contagious?
How does contagion overlap, or not overlap, with when a person has the typical measles rash?
It is likely, for most diseases, that these timelines will involve ranges of time such as “3 to 5 days” rather than more specific amounts of time such as “4 days”. Time ranges will be helpful to us as we fine-tune our models.
