A ladder. Off the chart again with 83,000 new confirmed infections the past 2 days. Years from now people will look back and think how is this possible in the USA. Bleak? 2/
It doesn't have to be. We know we could achieve marked suppression by a universal mask mandate and aggressive non-pharmacologic mitigation measures. That doesn't have to equate to the "L" word. But timing is critical now 3/
😷😷😷
In the next 4 months, 130,000 American lives could be saved by universal mask use, according to the new @IHME_UW forecast which gets us to >510,000 deaths by end February @NatureMedicinenature.com/articles/s4159…
As compared with the status now:
"Mask use has emerged as a contentious issue in the United States with only 49% of US residents reporting that they ‘always’ wear a mask in public as of 21 September 2020"
Almost the whole country is in the "Uncontrolled Spread" category covidexitstrategy.org 1/
The Upper Midwest and Sturgis, likely America's largest superspreader event
870 infections per million people in ND is an unprecedented peak in the US pandemic and around the world (2nd is SD/Czech Republic, currently 740) 2/
What if Lilly's monoclonal antibody trial was stopped due to futility? 1. A pause at 300 patients after 5 days of treatment was pre-specified in the protocol nytimes.com/2020/10/13/hea… by @KatherineJWu@katie_thomas
2. Trials have stopping rules for 3 main reasons:
—futility (further enrollment would not show benefit)
—safety (the intervention appears to have a hazard that precludes further enrollment)
—efficacy (the efficacy evidence is overwhelming and it would not be ethical to proceed)
3. Since the pause was pre-specified and Lilly announced a "potential safety concern," we don't know yet if it was for futility or safety. So far there have not been safety issues disclosed for the monoclonal antibody programs w/ now thousands of patients enrolled (Ab or placebo)