Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update November 9: Today is the day for some joy.

I have talked to @EricTopol @larrybrilliant and 3 other world class scientists about the new vaccine candidate.

Follow here if interested.

Sorry finishing up one more convo then will tweet. 2/

It feels like we had 4 years if nothing but shitty news & all our good news was saved up for one week.

What’s up with that? 3/

The news today on the vaccine even if you’re cautious has to be considered excellent news. The details are here. 4/

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1325772895906394117

My first thought was— too good to be true. Sorry but I think there’s little allowance or trust in joy.

So I called the smart people and the skeptics. I said tell me the downside. Tell me what we don’t know. Tell me how I should feel. OK, tell me to shut up and listen. 5/

First off: until today they didn’t really know whether a vaccine would work. They knew they could help you create antibodies, but not that those antibodies would prevent disease. They all feel we crossed that important bridge today. 6/

“Zero reason to doubt it”
“Best day of the pandemic so far”
“We thought flu vaccine. This is way way better”
“On a scale of 1 to 10, this is a 12.”
“We are finally playing offense.” 7/

Part of what’s so encouraging is that they now feel the virus and the spike protein are a pretty easy mark.

That the virus is lethal because it’s novel, not because it’s complicated. 8/

All felt this meant the other candidates— Moderna, AZ, J&J & others are much more likely to succeed.

Good. We will need them all. 9/

We know it works on people up to 85. Don’t know about kids, don’t know about pregnant women.

Other things we don’t know... 10/

How long does the immunity last?
Does it work on severe and mild or just mild cases?
Are you still contagious if you are vaccinated?
Does it work after the fact ad an innoculation? 11/

The supposition is that there were at least some severe cases protected.

The question on contagion has everything to do with if the disease impacts the upper-respiratory system. If it does, it is not contagious through sneezing etc. 12/

There are 50 million doses produced by the end of the year. 2 doses per person. 25 million people.

US purchased many vaccines but didn’t fund through Warp Speed. So sorry Mike Pence said that. It doesn’t make it true. 13/

I am still tracking down US allocation. Vaccines come in a cold storage box being manufactured that can contain the vials at -75 degrees.

A logistical problem but honestly. So what. These are called SMALL problems. People dying are BIG problems. 14/

Small....
Big...
Small...
Big...

We can handle it. 15/

Side effect profile? Seems like normal stuff. Mild stuff. But there is more road left here to complete the study. So let’s watch it. 16/

1.2 billion for next year. Plus other candidates means next year will roll out likely from front line workers to seniors to at risk people.

There may be other clever strategies. With a lot fewer doses you could ring vaccinate if people are willing to contact trace. 17/

Instead of test-trace-isolate. Test-trace-isolate-vaccinate. With high compliance you would wipe out the bug rapidly. (This is from a Brilliant guy) 18/

Implications:
1. This is the light at the end of the tunnel we’ve been looking for. If you’re fatigued you now have reason for hope. To make it through safely. 19/

2. Be safe this winter. You can have next winter.

This is everything you need to know here to be safe this winter. Very important. 20/ Smarturl.it/inthebubble

3. Scott Atlas and the Great Barrington and all those people are exposed for what they are.

Cruel & wrong.

Pushing natural herd immunity and killing people rather than being safe & waiting. 21/

4. Trump team fully supported Atlas in growing wild case count. Hard to claim credit for this strategy. But, this is a day to be magnanimous. So thank you for all you’ve done to grow to 1 million new cases/week. 22/

5. If the numbers are right, we need 60% compliance instead of the 80-90% we thought to get to herd immunity.

When the R0 gets down to .5 we will get the benefit of exponential decay! We flip the script on the bug. 23/

From January to today the scientists have really done miraculous work.

There is work to do. There are questions to answer. But this is solid solid news. 24/

We MUST stay safe. Keep our health care workforce safe. Keep our families safe. Not let our guards down.

And goddamn smile again. Exhale. Train each other to accept good news. It’s been so missing I hardly remember what 2 in a row feels like. /end