The Edge of Epidemiology by Devin Teichrow
The Pathogen Dispatch

Source-first newsroom desks

Working layer

Reporter's Notebook

A working layer for reporters: what to ask next, which numbers matter, and which framing traps to avoid before writing.

8 active assignment(s)6 linked disease sheet(s)

Call Sheet

The current live files, why they matter, and the next move that would make the reporting stronger.

Call sheet

Ebola virus disease

Ebola remains a defining outbreak-desk disease because healthcare transmission, funeral practices, laboratory capacity, community trust, and international alarm can all move faster than the confirmed count.

Next move: Pin down whether the transmission language reflects evidence, concern, or pure precaution.

New publisher/source coverage joined this story cluster: thehawk.in.

Expanding coverageAfrica · Democratic Republic of the Congo
Field guide: Ebola virus disease
Call sheet

Avian influenza and H5N1

H5N1 is one of the few diseases where occupational exposure, food systems, animal surveillance, and pandemic-risk communications all converge in the same file.

Next move: Pin down whether the transmission language reflects evidence, concern, or pure precaution.

Cambodianess now explicitly uses investigation or monitoring language.

Active investigationEast Asia
Field guide: Avian influenza A(H5N1)
Call sheet

Measles transmission and vaccination

Measles is a clean reporter desk disease because it reveals vaccination gaps, school and household spread, travel-linked importation, and public-health capacity all at once.

Next move: Get a direct official confirmation or denial before the next write-through.

1 newly observed linked item(s) were added since the last saved snapshot.

Expanding coverageSoutheast Asia
Field guide: Measles
Call sheet

Hantavirus and cruise-ship outbreak

This is a rare but frightening severe-disease story where a single unusual cluster can force questions about travel safety, rodent exposure, and whether Andes-virus-style person-to-person spread is in play.

Next move: Get a direct official confirmation or denial before the next write-through.

The lead item has changed to Britain gets experimental drug from Japan to bolster hantavirus response from Reuters.

Active investigationEast Asia · United Kingdom
Field guide: Hantavirus syndrome
Call sheet

Dengue and arboviruses

Dengue is now one of the best climate-and-city disease stories on earth because mosquito range, urban crowding, and health-system stress all show up in it.

Next move: Pin down whether the transmission language reflects evidence, concern, or pure precaution.

Outbreak News Today now includes deaths or fatal cases in the story frame.

Expanding coverageNorth America · United States
Field guide: DengueField guide: Malaria
Call sheet

Historical epidemiology and ancient pathogens

This file matters because official outbreak tracking remains active even if publisher coverage is thin.

Next move: Pin down whether the transmission language reflects evidence, concern, or pure precaution.

The lead item has changed to Memories of Memórias: shaping a century of plague research and public health policy in BrazilFIRST REVIEW ROUND from PubMed Historical Pathogen Case Studies.

Africa · Brazil
Call sheet

COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

This file matters because official outbreak tracking remains active even if publisher coverage is thin.

Next move: Compare the newest follow-up against the first official line and isolate what actually changed.

PubMed Infectious Disease Search now explicitly uses investigation or monitoring language.

Africa
Call sheet

Tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance

This file matters because official outbreak tracking remains active even if publisher coverage is thin.

Next move: Pin down whether the transmission language reflects evidence, concern, or pure precaution.

The lead item has changed to Understanding and exploiting superspreading to disrupt Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission. from PubMed Historical Pathogen Case Studies.

Cross-region / unassigned

Questions To Chase

The fastest routes to turning the current story stack into a cleaner reported file.

Questions to chase

Ebola virus disease

  • What does the official source actually confirm, and where are follow-up reports going beyond that line?
  • How many cases are still suspected, under what case definition, and when will testing resolve them?
  • How many cases are laboratory confirmed, by which assay, and how recent is that count?
  • How many hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths are confirmed, and do they cluster in one exposure group?
  • Is there evidence of human-to-human spread, or only precautionary language around the possibility?
  • What operational change actually took effect: evacuation, quarantine, travel notice, screening, or something narrower?
Questions to chase

Avian influenza and H5N1

  • What does the official source actually confirm, and where are follow-up reports going beyond that line?
  • How many cases are laboratory confirmed, by which assay, and how recent is that count?
  • How many hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths are confirmed, and do they cluster in one exposure group?
  • Is there evidence of human-to-human spread, or only precautionary language around the possibility?
Questions to chase

Measles transmission and vaccination

  • Which public-health or government source has still not spoken on the record, and who should be pressed first?
  • How many cases are laboratory confirmed, by which assay, and how recent is that count?
  • How many hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths are confirmed, and do they cluster in one exposure group?
  • Is the new geography a place of transmission, a place of care, or just where exposed travelers were identified?
  • Which of today's links are still thin metadata signals, and what direct or fully reported piece should anchor the file instead?
Questions to chase

Hantavirus and cruise-ship outbreak

  • Which public-health or government source has still not spoken on the record, and who should be pressed first?
  • Which of today's links are still thin metadata signals, and what direct or fully reported piece should anchor the file instead?
Questions to chase

Dengue and arboviruses

  • What does the official source actually confirm, and where are follow-up reports going beyond that line?
  • How many hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths are confirmed, and do they cluster in one exposure group?
  • Is there evidence of human-to-human spread, or only precautionary language around the possibility?
  • What operational change actually took effect: evacuation, quarantine, travel notice, screening, or something narrower?
  • Which of today's links are still thin metadata signals, and what direct or fully reported piece should anchor the file instead?
Questions to chase

Historical epidemiology and ancient pathogens

  • What does the official source actually confirm, and where are follow-up reports going beyond that line?
  • How many hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths are confirmed, and do they cluster in one exposure group?
  • Is there evidence of human-to-human spread, or only precautionary language around the possibility?
Questions to chase

COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

  • What does the official source actually confirm, and where are follow-up reports going beyond that line?
  • How many cases are laboratory confirmed, by which assay, and how recent is that count?
Questions to chase

Tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance

  • What does the official source actually confirm, and where are follow-up reports going beyond that line?
  • Is there evidence of human-to-human spread, or only precautionary language around the possibility?
  • Is the new geography a place of transmission, a place of care, or just where exposed travelers were identified?

Numbers To Watch

Numbers to watch

Ebola virus disease

  • Suspected, probable, confirmed, and ruled-out cases by health zone and report date.
  • Deaths inside and outside formal care, especially community deaths and healthcare-worker deaths.
  • Contact tracing performance: listed contacts, high-risk contacts, follow-up completeness, symptomatic contacts, and contacts lost to follow-up.
Numbers to watch

Avian influenza and H5N1

  • Human case count and whether cases are mild, severe, or fatal.
  • Exposure setting, especially dairy, poultry, culling work, and wild-bird interfaces.
  • Any sign of household, healthcare, or unexplained transmission beyond direct animal exposure.
Numbers to watch

Measles transmission and vaccination

  • Confirmed cases and outbreak-associated cases rather than rumor-level totals.
  • Vaccination status of cases and affected communities.
  • School, childcare, household, and travel links that show whether containment is failing.
Numbers to watch

Hantavirus and cruise-ship outbreak

  • Confirmed versus suspected cases, because panic often outruns laboratory certainty.
  • Whether exposure points to rodents, enclosed lodging, or close-contact transmission.
  • Severity markers such as ICU care, pulmonary edema, shock, and deaths.
Numbers to watch

Dengue and arboviruses

  • Cases, severe dengue, hospitalizations, and deaths.
  • Serotype shifts, if reported, because they can change severity expectations.
  • Urban mosquito control failure and the pace of geographic expansion.
Numbers to watch

Historical epidemiology and ancient pathogens

  • Severity markers such as hospitalization, ICU care, shock, ventilation, or deaths.
  • Exposure chains, close-contact links, and whether secondary transmission is actually documented.
Numbers to watch

COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

  • Confirmed case counts by report date and jurisdiction, not just the biggest headline total.
Numbers to watch

Tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance

  • Exposure chains, close-contact links, and whether secondary transmission is actually documented.
  • Whether the geography count reflects new transmission, imported detection, or patient transfer.

Framing Traps

Framing trap

Ebola virus disease

  • Coverage often defaults to cinematic fatality framing or distant-risk reassurance and misses the operational details that determine control: isolation delays, healthcare spread, burial practices, contact follow-up, laboratory turnaround, and whether the headline count is lagging the epidemic.
  • Do not confuse place of care, evacuation, or detection with place of transmission.
  • Do not blur suspected and confirmed cases in the headline or lead.
Framing trap

Avian influenza and H5N1

  • Coverage often jumps straight to pandemic rhetoric without separating animal spillover, isolated human infection, and evidence of sustained person-to-person transmission.
Framing trap

Measles transmission and vaccination

  • Reporters often overfocus on raw case counts and underplay outbreak size, exposure settings, and vaccination status, which are usually the more informative signals.
  • Do not confuse place of care, evacuation, or detection with place of transmission.
  • Do not let thin brief-source follow-ups outrun what direct or fully reported sources actually establish.
Framing trap

Hantavirus and cruise-ship outbreak

  • Coverage often treats all hantaviruses as one epidemiologic problem, when the key distinction is whether the event looks like classic rodent exposure or the much rarer Andes-virus pattern with limited human-to-human spread.
  • Do not let thin brief-source follow-ups outrun what direct or fully reported sources actually establish.
Framing trap

Dengue and arboviruses

  • Coverage frequently treats dengue as a generic tropical fever and underplays serotype history, hospitalization pressure, and the difference between routine seasonal burden and exceptional surge.
  • Do not treat evacuation, quarantine, or travel action as automatic proof that the underlying epidemiology has worsened.
  • Do not let thin brief-source follow-ups outrun what direct or fully reported sources actually establish.
Framing trap

Historical epidemiology and ancient pathogens

  • Do not let the newest angle bury the basic accounting of who is confirmed, where exposure happened, and what officials have actually said.
Framing trap

COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

  • Do not let the newest angle bury the basic accounting of who is confirmed, where exposure happened, and what officials have actually said.
Framing trap

Tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance

  • Do not confuse place of care, evacuation, or detection with place of transmission.

Disease Sheets

Disease sheet

Ebola virus disease

Ebola remains a defining outbreak-desk disease because healthcare transmission, funeral practices, laboratory capacity, community trust, and international alarm can all move faster than the confirmed count.

  • Suspected, probable, confirmed, and ruled-out cases by health zone and report date.
  • Deaths inside and outside formal care, especially community deaths and healthcare-worker deaths.
Disease sheet

Avian influenza A(H5N1)

H5N1 is one of the few diseases where occupational exposure, food systems, animal surveillance, and pandemic-risk communications all converge in the same file.

  • Human case count and whether cases are mild, severe, or fatal.
  • Exposure setting, especially dairy, poultry, culling work, and wild-bird interfaces.
Disease sheet

Measles

Measles is a clean reporter desk disease because it reveals vaccination gaps, school and household spread, travel-linked importation, and public-health capacity all at once.

  • Confirmed cases and outbreak-associated cases rather than rumor-level totals.
  • Vaccination status of cases and affected communities.
Disease sheet

Hantavirus syndrome

This is a rare but frightening severe-disease story where a single unusual cluster can force questions about travel safety, rodent exposure, and whether Andes-virus-style person-to-person spread is in play.

  • Confirmed versus suspected cases, because panic often outruns laboratory certainty.
  • Whether exposure points to rodents, enclosed lodging, or close-contact transmission.
Disease sheet

Dengue

Dengue is now one of the best climate-and-city disease stories on earth because mosquito range, urban crowding, and health-system stress all show up in it.

  • Cases, severe dengue, hospitalizations, and deaths.
  • Serotype shifts, if reported, because they can change severity expectations.