Share this page!

Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
Twitter logo
20 Nov, 5 tweets, 5 min read
I feel a bit guilty sometimes as a German science journalist for tweeting almost exclusively in English and so rarely highlighting the work of great German colleagues or scientists on twitter, so today’s #ff for those who speak German (just a selection, of course):
There’s @maithi_nk who has done an outstanding job most prominently in some very smart and funny videos
@Fischblog has been excellent (though someone should investigate whether he has engaged in insider trading of toilet paper)
The team at @zeitonline_wis has done a great job covering #covid19, interviewing many key figures not just in Germany with great pieces from @jaSimmank and @flor8i
@LambrechtO and @ChBaars have started a vaccine podcast that I’m only beginning to listen to now but I trust them
Always worth following @hfeldwisch and of course the work my friends and colleagues at @riffreporter are doing.
Many others, but the truth is I cannot keep up with all the good Journalism out there be it English or German
On the science side you can follow things by following amongst others @EckerleIsabella, @CiesekSandra, @c_drosten, @ViolaPriesemann, @BrinkmannLab, @C_Althaus and @ChanasitJonas. @karl_lauterbach is the rare politician who reads studies (and tweets them out past midnight)

• • •

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

Keep Current with Kai Kupferschmidt

Kai Kupferschmidt 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 @kakape

Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
19 Nov
“Now, scrutiny of school openings in countries where the virus is resurgent paints a more complex picture of the risks and how they might be managed.”
No-one I’d trust more to explain what’s going on with #COVID19 in schools than @GretchenVogel1 & @jcouzin sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/c…
“students enrolled in urban public schools from Los Angeles to Chicago, which in normal times may struggle to provide enough soap and toilet paper, continue to learn from home, whereas wealthy private schools have installed tents for outdoor learning and hired more teachers”
“I think schools should close last,” says @MichiWagner4. But he cautions that it’s wishful thinking to suggest open schools can’t fuel spread of the virus. Closing them can be “one of the most powerful measures we have, but also one of the most costly” to children.
Read 4 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
19 Nov
Question to my colleagues and the twitterverse in general:
Looking back at these past 11 months, what are key quotes about #covid19, the pandemic and the response that have really stuck with you?
Any language will do (if you give a translation).
“Science is our exit strategy” from @JeremyFarrar is one of the sentences that my mind keeps circling back to.
@JeremyFarrar "Be fast, have no regrets... If you need to be right before you move, you will never win” from @DrMikeRyan is another one. (He has said a lot of memorable things, but this one really struck a chord.)
The entire segment is worth watching:
Read 13 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
17 Nov
“None of these scenarios are palatable.”
This assessment of #covid19 scenarios for the next months by SPI-M-O, one of the groups advising UK government, is really interesting. I wish public communication was this candid and consistently so.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
It dismisses 3 scenarios as implausible without vaccine roll-out/therapeutics:
⁃eradication
⁃shielding high-risk groups while building up herd immunity
⁃“managed epidemic”, with little or no government interventions or behaviour change but little damage to economy or health
It also states clearly that “any economic evaluations of interventions should not be compared to a “COVID-free” world, as each of the scenarios have substantial economic implications.”
Read 6 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
16 Nov
Good vaccine news continues:
@moderna_tx just announced its vaccine has shown 94,5% efficacy.
In the study of more than 30,000 participants, 95 #covid19 cases were observed (starting two weeks after second dose):
90 in placebo group
5 in vaccine group

buff.ly/3puVGK6
@moderna_tx Like Pfizer/Biontech last week, this is an interim analysis of an ongoing study and this is a press release not a peer-reviewed article.
But this is one more indication that the first generation of #covid19 vaccines will work and work better than most had hoped for.
@moderna_tx Particularly interesting that Moderna also looked at severe cases of #covid19:
For this interim analysis there were 11 severe cases, all of them in the placebo group.
This does not mean that the vaccine prevents severe cases, but at least it is consistent with that.
Read 7 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
12 Nov
Was so busy the last few days that I did not even have a chance to look at @WHO’s sitrep on #covid19 until today. As you can imagine it does not make for pleasant reading. But here goes:
@WHO Last week @WHO reported almost 3,7 million new cases of #covid19.
That’s a new record, of course.
It is more than 6 new cases every second!

WHO also reported 54,835 deaths from #covid19.
That’s roughly one person dying every 11 seconds.
@WHO Look at this graph:
We are climbing a mountain of death.

If things go well and effective vaccines really are rolled out in a few months to protect at-risk groups (maybe even curb spread of the virus), all these preventable deaths will seem even more senseless and cruel.
Read 5 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
12 Nov
Yesterday, I pretended to be a normal infectious disease reporter for a day and wrote about an interesting new preprint: the first report of leprosy in wild chimpanzees.
Quick thread on why this is important before I get back to covering #covid19

sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/l…
Leprosy is a facinating disease: It is ancient and everyone has an image of it (hence the terrible stigma), but at the same time we know shockingly little about it, like when and where it emerged or how exactly it spreads.
One thing people were sure of: Leprosy afflicts only humans. That has turned out to not be quite true, however. Researchers have found leprosy in squirrels in UK and in armadillos in the Americas. In both cases it’s the same genotype (3I) that apparently came from humans.
Read 10 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!

Like this author's thread?

Get email notifications when new thread is out from this Author!

Check out other threads from this Author!

Read all threads by @kakape