BREAKING—Sweden 🇸🇪 imposing further bans on public events. Prime Minister: "It's going to get worse. I'll say it again. It's going to get worse. Take responsibility to stop the spread of infection. Don't have dinners. Don't have parties. Cancel.” #COVID19thelocal.se/20201116/break…
2) This is a dramatic shift in tone from Sweden before. Sweden epidemic surge is just too hot now. Higher than its neighbors, despite previous predictions of greater herd immunity. Didn’t pan out.
3) here was Sweden’s bold and arrogant proclamation previously. 🤔
4) Previous limitations were insufficient. “An earlier exemption which meant restaurants were excluded from the limit on event attendees will also be removed with the law change. Previously, restaurants allowed to host events for >50 people, but no longer the case.”
5) “More than eight people will still be allowed in restaurants at the same time (although not as part of the same group) but the change means restaurants will in practice not be able to host events such as music performances due to the eight-person limit on events.”
6) Longer thread 🧵 on Sweden’s controversial herd approach, including Swedish scientists who opposed the dumb pandemic response approaches.
(HT to @WKugelberg for the awesome annotated timeline graphs).
7) And Swedish mortality has increased. And by a lot versus nordic neighbors.
8) Our World In Data also notes: Sweden deaths take longer to show up compared to other countries, because they tabulate the figures differently. So the "Sweden has a 2nd wave of cases but not deaths!" argument is bunk. ourworldindata.org/covid-sweden-d…
9) EXCESS MORTALITY for Sweden 🇸🇪 versus prior years and comparison with its Nordic neighbors. Guess herd approach didn’t work out so well.
2) It’s closer to 3.6 million. The estimate does not include an approximately equal number of latent infections among people who caught the virus in recent days and can’t pass it on yet because it is still incubating (waiting to become contagious).
3) This is much bigger than the officially diagnosed number of cases— which is an average of 477/mil/day in US.
If we assume each case is infectious for ~10 days, the 3.6 million is roughly 2.3x the average number of new cases recorded in the past week *10 days.
4) above is not exact, because severe hospitalized cases can be infectious for up to 20 days. But the average infectious period is 10 days. But as a minimum, it implies we are missing ~70% of all cases (1-(1/(2.28+1))). Better than 10-20x before. But still many cases undetected.
BREAKING—Updated results from Pfizer said it’s #COVID19 vaccine is 95% effective (vs 90% in previous early results) and had no serious side effects. 94% effective in older adults. Of 170 cases, 162 in placebo. Of 10 severe, 9 in placebo. This is HUGE!! nytimes.com/2020/11/18/hea…
2) If the F.D.A. authorizes the two-dose vaccine, Pfizer has said that it could have up to 50 million doses available by the end of the year, and up to 1.3 billion by the end of next year.
3) However, only about half of its supply will go to the United States this year, or enough for about 12.5 million people — a sliver of the American population of 330 million
📍BEST RAPID ANTIGEN TEST. This is the super awesome, very accurate, cheap $5, rapid antigen Abbott PanBio #COVID19 test used to find active infectious virus (& recommended by the renowned @michaelmina_lab).
Sobering—“Within a few weeks, COVID-19 will be the single leading cause of death on a daily basis in the United States” once we hit 2000 deaths a day. #COVID19
2) US epidemic. Not going so well:
➡️ 8 US states had more new cases/capita than any country
➡️ If US States were countries: 15 of the top 20 worst hit would be US States.
3) And I agree that #COVID19 could be likely the largest mass casualty event on US soil. Though one could argue the European invasion of North America that killed 9/10 Native Americans might be close.
WORRISOME—#COVID19 mutation becomes more concerning. The coronavirus can mutate swiftly in one person’s body.
New case study: #SARSCoV2 “resurged again & again in the body of an infected man, eventually killing him while showing fast-paced evolution”. 🧵 nature.com/articles/d4158…
2) doctors “followed the course of #COVID19 in a 45-year-old man with autoimmune disorder, who was on immunosuppressants.”
➡️ Roughly 40 days after he first tested positive, follow-up tests indicated that virus was dwindling — but it surged back, *despite antiviral treatment*.
3) “The man’s infection subsided and then returned 2x more before he died, five months after his first #COVID19 diagnosis.
“Genomic 🧬 analysis showed that the man had not been infected multiple times. Instead, the virus had lingered and **quickly mutated in his body**.”