This happened faster than I expected, and I’ve been anticipating major upswings. We’re unfortunately just at the beginning

Going into fall w 60k cases/d means winter may well dwarf the spring and summer peaks

It’s up to us to change the course. But won’t w/out proper leadership
I’m referring to the fact that we are right back to our summertime peak. So early into this long winter.
This makes me mad as hell and really really sad. Not just for the ppl who will die (1000/d right now) but for the stores that will close, the families that will lose jobs, the health effects due to COVID and as important as anything else, the mental health effects that will occur

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Michael Mina

Michael Mina Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @michaelmina_lab

21 Oct
Severe #COVID19 resulting from Original Antigenic Sin??

May be a contributor. Makes sense

Superb paper evaluating cross-reactivity between donor B cells targeting SARS-CoV-2 and other seasonal Coronas.

This figure (2) is really depicts it well...

1/

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
This figure depicts one persons different B cells (x axis) across 3 different weeks in time, and how they react to SARS2 spike (y axis - broad categories) and how the secreted antibodies from those B cells reacts with other seasonal coronaviruses (y axis - smaller categories)

2/
What is remarkable is the change over time from day 9 to day 16 in the binding of antibodies to the seasonal coronavirus OC43 by B cells elicited by exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike ectodomain (S ecto).

3/
Read 11 tweets
16 Oct
NEW! research shows rapid antigen tests can work in a real world setting - with asymptomatic and symptomatic people. The rapid "paper-strip" antigen test called the BinaxNOW detected >90% of people with high viral loads who are likely to be infectious
nytimes.com/2020/10/15/hea…

1/
I've written about the BinaxNOW from @abbottnews before and why these types of tests can be 'game changers' for our ability to combat this virus


2/
As expected... the BinaxNOW did NOT detect all PCR positive people... only ~60%

BUT DID detect >90% of those with high/contagious virus load. THESE ARE THE PPL THAT MATTER most when trying to cut off transmission chains.

3/
Read 20 tweets
14 Oct
Rapid test data!

@MarionKoopmans and team evaluate rapid “paper-strip” Ag tests against likely contagious virus samples

Here @AbbottNews PanBio and SD Biosensor rapid tests perform very well to detect infectious virus

But, not all tests are equal

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
1/ Image
The authors evaluated a number of different tests against PCR positive and culture positive specimens. (Culture positive is generally appreciated as representing likely transmissible virus).

They find a large disparity across different tests...

2/
Against culturable virus, they find that the Abbott PanBio Test and the SD Biosensor (Neither available in the US right now) perform very well. An additional 3 tests were evaluated 2, also looked quoted good but the rapigen performed quite poorly.

3/
Read 4 tweets
14 Oct
New research! Starring... Ct values!

We endeavored to ask:

Can we create a brand new metric to know if #COVID19 is increasing/decreasing without staring at case counts & fractions positive - both greatly obscured by test practices.

Yes! w/ Ct values!

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
In this incredible Tweet thread 👆 @jameshay218 describes the new work - we hope will lay new groundwork for public health authorities to track this/future viruses & if control strategies are working

Work also w co 1st author Lee Kennedy-Shaffer, @mlipsitch & @SanjatKanjilal
One piece that is so cool about this method is we do NOT need a time series of case data to create a trajectory (those little bars on @nytimes website or google that we’ve all stared at for the past 9 months to see trend up vs down in cases). We can do it from a single day!

3/
Read 7 tweets
13 Oct
Important

This virus is not happening in a vacuum where no information existed previously

On Immunity, On testing, On serology, On transmission, On masks, On treatments...

We must stop this narrative that we know nothing of this virus until we learn it anew - again.

1/
The constant drum beat of “we do not know that yet” is tiring.

We KNOW SO MUCH! about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. We knew it before this virus was ever discovered!

We’ve watched since January with study after study reaffirming out expectations of this virus in SO MANY WAYS.

2/
In many we ways we got lucky on this front.

Take HIV for ex. HIV was a new virus for which we generally did have to rewrite the text book

But this virus is different from HIV in that it is behaving in almost all ways per the “textbook”.

3/
Read 19 tweets
13 Oct
So important in this pandemic to NOT let RARE events make the headlines & grab our attention

@NPR - this should NOT be a headline unless you’re going to have daily headlines that say “Millions NOT reinfected today with COVID19”

People are scare enough

npr.org/sections/coron…
Re-exposures are essential to build our immune system. This is not in question. They are like training.

But like anything, when enough people get a re-exposure, there are going to be rare cases here and there that go awry and someone gets more sick the second time.

2/
But this is rare and should NOT be interpreted as people will not build protective immunity and that vaccines will not work.

The take away from this piece should be “In a rare event, a person in the US gets a severe second infection with SARS-CoV-2”

One other point

3/
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!