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Pradheep J. Shanker

25 Oct, 9 tweets, 2 min read

This, by Cuomo, is an attempt to look serious on this issue.

Narrator: at this point, it is clear he is not serious on this issue.

nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-ope…

"The winter...will be “season of the vaccine.” We can identify questions concerning vaccine but not yet answers. When will a vaccine be developed? Will US believe it is safe? How long will it take to accomplish the massive undertaking of vaccinating the entire population?"

Cuomo has done as much as ANYONE other than Trump to convince people the vaccine is not safe.

Instead, if he was serious, he would have been leading the effort to show how states can implement vaccination...which he has yet to do.

"Will the federal government develop the competence to effectively administer the vaccine, or will the states once again be left to manage on their own? Can state administrations even manage such a task?"

This is a state responsibility.

In single payer countries, the central govt is responsible.

But in hybrids, like Germany and the US...it is localities and individual physicians. Does Cuomo not understand this?

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

And OMG:

"We are deploying a new strategy of targeting viral “micro-clusters"...Monitoring micro-clusters involves increasing the testing regimen to identify low-level spreads...allows containment before a large number of people are infected..."

There is ZERO evidence this works unless your background infection rate is ZERO. Taiwan, South Korea, etc are examples.

NY after this Spring had a positive test rate of 1-2%, give or take. That is too much for this policy to work.

Testing simply is not fast enough to respond to this. You would need to lockdown, stop infections in public 100%, test all suspected patients, and then quarantine. Then, MAYBE you could make this work.

In short, this really isn't good science. Sure, you may be able to target some clusters, but you can't target the clusters in young people, etc with mild symptoms, who are still spreading the virus. Only a total lock down could do that.

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More from @Neoavatara

Pradheep J. Shanker

@Neoavatara

25 Oct

Here is my problem with the entire pearl clutching over the mask mandate.

First and foremost, masks are not some magical 'Cloak of Invisibility' that protects you from COVID-19. It is another layer of protection...but nothing more than that.

And not even the BEST protection.

SOCIAL DISTANCING is by far, by geometric multiples, more important for protection from infection than ANYTHING else. Doubling the distance of distancing likely diminishes risk of infection by a factor of 10.

Ironically, this will even be true after getting the vaccine!

Even with the vaccine, your risk of infection is not zero (for numerous reasons).

So until we can prove almost perfect effectiveness of the vaccine, social distancing should still be performed!

Read 8 tweets

Pradheep J. Shanker

@Neoavatara

25 Oct

So, #CoronaVirusUpdates...

Things are clearly getting worse. If you can hunker down, this is probably a good time.

Couple comments about these charts...

1. Testing is probably sufficient, or close to it. This is no longer a testing problem.

2. Deaths are staying low, likely because of better treatment as well as a younger cohort.

Read 4 tweets

Pradheep J. Shanker

@Neoavatara

24 Oct

The five countries with the highest rate of infection worldwide are all in Europe, according to Johns Hopkins University's latest moving average. The worst-hit nations are the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France.

cnn.com/2020/10/24/eur…

"When I listen to the scientists, and the Scientific Council, we foresee [living with the virus] at best until next summer," Macron said, speaking during a visit to a health center.
Macron added that his government aims to impose new coronavirus restrictions in a targeted way."

Meanwhile...

washingtonpost.com/world/polish-p…

Read 6 tweets

Pradheep J. Shanker

@Neoavatara

24 Oct

@jadler1969

"This is all a bit rich coming from Schumer. Let’s consider some history. Prior to his arrival in the Senate, senators were generally reluctant to openly oppose judicial nominees on ideological grounds, but Schumer worked to change that." nationalreview.com/bench-memos/se… @jadler1969

"Schumer led an unsuccessful effort to filibuster confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Afterwards, in a 2007 speech to the American Constitution Society, he proclaimed he should have done even more to block Alito’s confirmation..."

"...and argued that Senate should not confirm any additional Bush nominees to the SCOTUS should any more vacancies arise. In his view, senators should seek to prevent judicial confirmations that might tilt the balance of the Court..something he would conveniently forget in 2016."

Read 5 tweets

Pradheep J. Shanker

@Neoavatara

24 Oct

Good part: we are testing more than ever.

So far ok: deaths haven't spiked...yet.

Bad: Case number has increased, which wouldn't be terrible, except...

VERY BAD: Hospitalizations up again.

#CoronaVirusUpdate

Note...this is not age adjusted...which means CA, TX may not be good, but they aren't awful.

WI, MN, IL, IA, SD, ND are the real hotspots.

But the Midwest and Northeast are worsening.

But you can see the bad.

Wisconsin is absolutely awful. They look like Arizona in the middle of summer.

Read 8 tweets

Pradheep J. Shanker

@Neoavatara

23 Oct

You know what I hate the most about this election cycle?

THE ABSOLUTE LACK OF GOOD BIDEN/TRUMP GIFS.

You meme makers have failed America. For shame.

FOR SHAME.