Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
Jul 30, 2020 17 tweets 21 min read Read on X
“The pandemic does not mean life has to stop”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser. "We must all learn to live with the virus, and to take the steps necessary to live our lives while protecting ourselves and others, especially those at the highest risk of #COVID19."
@DrTedros @WHO "In many countries, more than 40% of #COVID19-related deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities”, says @DrTedros. Up to 80% in some high-income countries. @WHO has new policy brief on preventing and managing #covid19 in such facilities. who.int/publications/i…
@DrTedros @WHO But young people are at risk too, says @DrTedros. “One of the challenges we face, is convincing younger people of this risk. Evidence suggests that spikes of cases in some countries are being driven in part by younger people letting down their guard."
@DrTedros @WHO "We have all seen the harm done by misinformation”, says @DrTedros. “But information alone is not enough.” Says countries are using many tools to influence behaviour: information campaigns, laws, regulations, guidelines, fines. “We are learning what works and what doesn’t."
@DrTedros @WHO “That’s why behavioural science is so important”, says @DrTedros. Announces that @WHO has created "Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health”: 22 outside experts, chaired by @CassSunstein.
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein New group incl. experts in psychology, neuroscience, behavioural economics, anthropology and more, says @DrTedros. It will "advise @WHO on how to increase and improve the use of behavioral and social sciences in a range of health areas, including #covid19."
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein “Health involves behavior, and whether we're speaking of #covid19 or sexual and reproductive health or smoking, or other non communicable diseases, human behavior is at the root of it”, says @CassSunstein and runs through a few things "we know":
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein - habits are persistent even if unhealthy, but they can be changed
- humans often focus on present more than future and that can lead to unhealthy behavior
- humans tend to be unrealistically optimistic and that can lead to good outcomes, but also reluctance to take precautions
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein "We know that simple, clear communications are often highly effective, and that complicated, unruly communications aren't.
We know that it's essential to meet people where they are, rather than to speak in terms that are unintelligible”, says @CassSunstein.
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein Q about situation in Latin America.
"Many countries still have very very intense community transmission”, says @DrMikeRyan. “The number and rates of cases and deaths is still rising across large areas in Central and South America so from Mexico, all the way down to Argentina"
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan “From the perspective of @WHO we still consider Central and South America to be an epicenter of of transmission and much work is still to be done”, says @DrMikeRyan. “Progress is being made, but Latin America is still very much in in a big fight to battle this disease."
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan Q: How will @WHO ensure that most vulnerable people in Africa have access to any successful vaccine?
In response @doctorsoumya explains COVAX facility. (I explain what that is here: sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/v…)
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan @doctorsoumya If COVAX works, "perhaps for the first time we would have a situation where people, regardless of where they live, will get the vaccines, as they become available at the same time, rather than some countries having to wait for others”, says @doctorsoumya.
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan @doctorsoumya Q about how WHO looks back at past six months (since #PHEIC declared).
“It has been a pretty incredible six months”, says @mvankerkhove. "I think we can characterize the response globally as mixed.” Many countries that had experience with SARS, MERS, etc did better, she says.
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan @doctorsoumya @mvankerkhove "I think we're all learning lessons that there's been a deep underinvestment in the public health architecture, the capacity to do surveillance, the capacity to do contact tracing, the capacity to run an integrated response”, says @DrMikeRyan.
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan @doctorsoumya @mvankerkhove WHO may have overestimated public health capacities in some countries, says @DrMikeRyan. “I do think we need to look really, really hard at what we assume to be capacities for public health intervention in all countries.”
@DrTedros @WHO @CassSunstein @DrMikeRyan @doctorsoumya @mvankerkhove A single person or community making healthier choices tomorrow than it did yesterday can make a dent in a problem, says @CassSunstein. “That kind of thing scales up from cities to nations, and from nations to continents and of course, to the world."

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More from @kakape

Nov 1
So what have I learnt about #misinformation research? I tried to condense it into a list of the 5 biggest challenges the field faces.
Second story in my package of stories about misinformation research is up here (and thread to come):

science.org/content/articl…
Let me start with the first:
What even is misinformation?
When I started reporting on the field, eager to delve into things I was really frustrated that I kept coming back to this basic question. I told friends it felt like trying to take a deep dive in a puddle, always forced back to the surface.
In retrospect, it seems obvious that this was going to be a thorny problem that I would have to spend a lot of time on. The definition you use really defines the shape of the problem and it also kinda helps to be sure you're talking about the same thing as your interview partner...
Read 18 tweets
Oct 30
I’ve reported on infectious diseases for 15 years, but during the covid-19 pandemic and even more during the global outbreak of mpox clade IIb, I was shocked by the amount of misinformation I was seeing. Misinfo had always been part of any outbreak, but this felt different.
I ended up spending almost a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow (@KSJatMIT) to try and understand misinformation/disinformation better, to - I hope - be a better infectious disease journalist.
It’s been an interesting experience in turns fascinating and frustrating and when I went back to full-time science writing earlier this year I decided to try and put at least some of what I’ve learnt into words.
Read 10 tweets
Aug 15
I'm seeing a lot of confusion already out there about #mpox and the differences between clades and lineages. I will get into this in more detail later, but for now:
We really don't know for sure whether there is any material difference between clade Ia, Ib, IIa and IIb.
The differences we see might have very little to do with the virus and everything to do with it affecting different populations in different places and spreading different ways once it gets into certain contact networks. Real world data is not comparing apples and apples here...
We will learn a lot in the coming weeks and months and things will become much clearer. But for now there is a lot of uncertainty. My advice as always: Don’t trust anyone who pretends that things are clear and obvious.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 10
In May I wrote about researchers' plans to infect cows in high-security labs with avian influenza #H5N1 to better understand the infections and how easily the virus is transmitted. The results from two of these experiments are now out here in a preprint:
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
WHAT DID THEY DO?
In one experiment (at Kansas State University) 6 calves were infected with an #H5N1 isolate from the current outbreak oronasally and then housed together with three uninfected animals ("sentinels") two days later.
In the other experiment (at Friedrich Loeffler Institut) 3 lactating cows were infected through the udder with an #H5N1 isolate from the US outbreak and 3 other lactating cows the same way with a different #H5N1 isolate from a wild bird in Europe.
Read 13 tweets
Jun 20
One question at the heart of the #h5n1 outbreak in US cows has been: Is there something special about this virus? Or is H5N1 generally able to do this and this particular version was just "in the right place at the right time"?
Quick thread, because it seems we have an answer
Researchers in Germany have done an experiment in a high-security lab infecting cows directly with the strain of #H5N1 circulating in cows in the US (B3.13) and infecting others with an #h5n1 strain from a wild bird in Germany.
(I wrote about the plans here: )science.org/content/articl…
In both cases they infected the udders directly through the teats and in both cases the animals got sick. They "showed clear signs of disease such as a sharp drop in milk production, changes in milk consistency and fever." That suggests there is nothing special about B3.13.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 13
The thing that I find most frustrating about the entire mpox/gain-of-function debate is how the uncertainties that lie at the base of it all just become cemented as certainties that are then carried forward.
(If you know anything about me you know I love me some uncertainty...)
Most importantly: The interim report on the investigation into these experiments released on Tuesday numerous times calls clade II "more transmissible" or even "much more transmissible".
But that is a claim that has very little evidence at all.
In fact you can find plenty of literature that argue the exact opposite, that in fact clade I is more transmissible.
Just, as an example, here is Texas HHS:
"Clade I MPXV, which may be more transmissible and cause more severe infection than Clade II..."
dshs.texas.gov/news-alerts/he…
Read 7 tweets

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