As I approach a decade on @twitter, some things I've learned for it's utility for science and medicine: 1. By using allmytweets.net (exported as a PDF format), I can usually find any article I've cited, searching a word or hashtag. So tweeting became my 1° archival method
2. In contrast to concerns about copyright infringement, journals like to have their article contents posted @twitter. It's equivalent to @readcube, since it doesn't provide the PDF. And it really helps people who don't have access, dealing w/ the paywalls
3. Live @twitter feedback makes your presentations better. You learn what points resonate, and those which engender confusion or consternation. A lot more specific and useful than the generic, customary "enjoyed your talk"
4. As people scroll thru their twitter feed, they want to go quickly. One method often used is to highlight a single sentence. I like to highlight the whole or major portions of a piece to preserve its context, and useful when I refer back to it.
5. I probably tweet too much ("twitterorhea"), but I'm just sharing what I read and it's the best way I have to archive stuff. And if we all shared what we read (that was interesting),we'd get smarter faster.
6. Can never underestimate the value of humor. I curate cartoons and it never ceases to amaze me how popular they can be compared to what I think is a really important science contribution. @twitter brings cheer :-)
7. Every one of the >20K tweets I've posted comes from me. I view any ghost-tweeting as similar to ghost-writing---unacceptable.
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My new essay @guardian
"Why one-shot after a Covid-19 infection should suffice to be considered fully-vaxxed" theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Summarizes extensive new evidence that confirmed Prior Covid ("Natural Immunity" or NI) + 1-shot is as protective as 3-shots /1
These 6 new reports (5 in the last week) all demonstrate that NI + 1-shot provides a consistent high level of added protection from reinfection, across multiple variants, which is not ameliorated by additional shots /2
I've reviewed considerable other new data here, such as the J&J vaccine randomized, placebo-controlled trial report last wk @NEJM which showed NI had superior protection vs moderate-to-severe Covid than 1-shot of the vaccine (90% vs 56%, respectively) erictopol.substack.com/p/ground-truth… /3
We've learned a lot about Prior Covid ("Natural Immunity") over the past year, but the US/CDC continues to negate the abundant evidence for it providing any protection erictopol.substack.com/p/ground-truth… w/links
And there's substantial new data, I'll review🧵here /1
Last week, the large J&J 1- shot, placebo-controlled trial w/ >2,000 participants who had Prior Covid published @NEJM
Vaccine effectiveness vs moderate/severe disease
Prior Covid 90%
J&J Vaccine 56%
Yet 1-shot J&J vaccine = "fully vaccinated" @CDCgov
Nothing for Prior Covid /2
Neutralizing antibodies after Prior Covid are present out to 16 months in 214 people (graph)
And another study showing persistence of memory B cells at 15 months /3
Today >3,400 Covid deaths reported in the United States, a 7-day average exceeding 2,600 lost lives.
This likely represents the current wave peak; 80% of the US pandemic peak when there were no vaccines. Compared to 20% in countries with high % vaccination and booster rates
OTOH at least we're seeing a rapid descent of hospitalizations to the 100,000 level
🆕 Omicron [O] and Delta [D] outcomes for hospitalizations, deaths and by vaccines in > 1 million O and ~450,000 D cases in England papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
—75% reduced hospitalization risk for O vs D
—For O, Booster >70% protection vs hospitalizations and deaths across all ages
2 and 3 dose vaccine effects vs hospitalization (both AZ and mRNA)
and
Prior Covid, without vaccination, had moderate protection (HR 0.53) vs hospitalization for Omicron, and high protection vs death.
Children age < 10 had infrequent hospital admissions and the incidence did not differ significantly between Delta and Omicron
New: Assessment of an Omicron-specific booster vs Moderna original (vs ancestral) booster in macaques: no difference
"An Omicron boost may not provide greater immunity or protection compared to a boost with the current mRNA-1273 vaccine" biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
Interesting to note that the same was seen for the Beta variant with the Pfizer vaccine, original vaccine booster vs Beta-specific booster, which led to abandoning that strategy.
3rd shots of the original vaccines are performing far better than expected 👍
A very good thread on the new Omicron-specific booster study and the overarching issue by @erlichya
New @CDCgov
Reduction of death by vaccination and booster by age, per 100,00 people, vs unvaccinated, relative, with absolute data below covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…
Age 65+
2 shot 92% reduced
3 shot 99% reduced
Age 50-64
2 shot 95% reduced
3 shot 99% reduced
By age: cases and vaccination/booster status
As cases were rising steeply in December with emergence of Omicron, booster vs 2-shot was associated with 50% or more reduction of cases across the 3 age groups
And much higher % drop for vaccination vs unvaccinated
Which goes along with this new data posted showing booster had vaccine effectiveness of >60% vs Omicron infections covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…