New information. >8000 close contacts of reported cases tested for #COVIDー19. Most interesting/concerning/comforting result is 34% of close contacts were + for COVID. This is very large fraction of contacts infected- suggests much wider spread. But 1/n.
There is a silver lining. The large numbers of contacts found to be positive were largely without symptoms, or at least not requiring medical attention themselves at enrollment.... 2/3
So, despite a potentially larger fraction of close contacts than we might have currently known of (though the rate is not too surprising), the data reinforces that most will NOT have severe diseases and many will be very mild. Very nice work by the authors! 3/3
In addition - they looked at coinfections. The Most Important part for me in this regard was the lack of any evidence for crossprotective immunity between #COVID19 and other coronaviruses. 3% COVID+ had other Coronas vs only 1% of COVID negs had other Coronas....
The data here points towards trend of excess coinfections with other Coronas among COVID (no causal argument being made here).
Alternatively, this could point to a methodological issue- false pos for seasonal Coronas because of presence of #COVID19 ? Cannot rule out here.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Joseph Hibbeln MD has long researched and advocated for optimizing nutrition, including studying things like seafood consumption in pregnancy and role of mercury consumption and whether it is linked to autism. Generally he’s come out saying it’s not.
Summary: No evidence of anti science or anti vaccine. Likely very balanced and nuanced rigorous scientist to serve on ACIP.
2/
Cody Meissner MD
Is a pediatric infectious disease expert at my Alma mater - Dartmouth. He is a rigorous scientist and has defended vaccines while formally recognizing underlying issues that are causing people to turn away from them - such as vaccine success driving down disease - affording people the luxury of focusing on very rare side effects while forgetting the real impacts of the diseases.
One of the most common tropes is that measles is fine & doesn’t cause damage…
This is highly inaccurate
Measles literally grows by infecting and killing memory immune cells. It causes loss to existing immunity creating vulnerabilities & acute damage that is often severe
2/
To discover the massive-stealth-impact measles has on immune protection against infections not associated w measles, we looked at what happened in populations after measles outbreaks swept through, decade after decade across nations…