1/n And no one is claiming that we’ve studied the vaccine for long enough; or that we know all the side effects. There may be side effects — some unknown.
2/n But extrapolating from the 7 severe cases in the 20,000 in the unvaccinated group, it would mean around 100,000 severe cases. And that’s likely a strong underestimate because the control group contains young people and those with no comorbidities.
3/n And so we may be (may be) realistically talking about 200,000 severe cases.
4/n The application we’ve been working on (Othena.com) tracks self reported effects based on EVERY batch of vaccine for all the approved ones. It is being integrated to the CAIRS.
5/n And btw, the 200,000 number (for the US) represents about half the total cancer deaths per year. It’s close to the number of US combat deaths in WW2. Just to get some perspective.
6/n All this data, extrapolations, comparisons, batch specific, real time info on adverse events etc will be logged into Othena.com for everyone to see. Then you make your own decision. But use information, not instinct. We will know more every day, every month.
7/n And once again, health care workers are going first. Thank them (especially those in the frontlines) for their service. Declare 2021, “the year of nurses.” Their services were (are) incredible.
The incredible amount of fake news is also disheartening. Tomorrow I’ll take on some of the “myths” that have been circulating around the vaccines. Eg: NO ... mRNA does not integrate into your genome

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More from @DrSidMukherjee

21 Dec
I'll post all the steps, but it won't be prescriptive. I believe in improvisational cooking. Add, subtract, make it yours. But be honest: $20 to a food bank.
Only requirements: cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, chilies, ORGANIC chicken with skin on, oil (or butter), coconut milk, green cardamom (optional), coriander leaves(optional), $20 to food bank (not optional)
And next week, I'll post at least two veggie recipes. I am not partial to meat...
Read 4 tweets
21 Dec
1/2 OK, let's move the challenge. I'm a good cook. Shamelessly good (mostly Asian). If you agree to donate $20 to a local food bank or charity, I'll post our family dinner recipes every night. I'll donate as well until Chistmas (I'm not religious but it's a date)
2/n Tonight I made hotpot. Boiled water, added soy sauce, chillies, SLUG of Miso and Chinese Szechuan Chili Crisp. Cut Tofu, mushrooms, cabbage, carrots, pork slices, scallions, noodles. Everyone had a bowl and had hot pot...
That’s the end of the hotpot Image
Read 6 tweets
20 Dec
1/n As we watch NEW strains of COVID emerge, it becomes even more important to get vaccinated. New strains can only emerge as the virus multiplies within hosts. More hosts = more strains. It is a number's game.
2/n If one of those strains was to become resistant to the vaccine, then the entire effort to vaccinate will become moot.
3/n And if one of those strains began to cause more severe disease in younger people, vaccine hesitancy among those who say "oh it's just a bad cold" will spiral into an enormous disaster.
Read 5 tweets
13 Sep
1/n The AZ vaccine adverse effects are seriously concerning. First, since public money flowed into the project through OWS, we need to have access to the data to figure out what happened. If needed, this should be escalated (legally)
2/n Transverse myelitis is a rare event but has been seen with vaccines before. Several questions need to be addressed -/ but systematically
3/n possibility 1: related to previous medical conditions. MS etc. Thats the best case scenario for AZ because one can exclude such patients of detectable
Read 9 tweets
17 Jul
@VincentRK @manal_mehta @jhuber 1/n Important discussion with several unresolved questions. First, there are people with T cells to SARS-Cov2 because they have been exposed to other beta-coronaviruses. There is substantial homology in the nucleoproteins. This is shown in 2 papers, including the Nature paper.
@VincentRK @manal_mehta @jhuber 2/n Are these people "immune" to SARS-Cov2 or do they get attenuated disease ? We don't know. Do they spread virus ? We don't know. Intriguingly, the number is around 40% which is around the number that were not infected in the Antarctic cruise.
@VincentRK @manal_mehta @jhuber 3/n Second: we know that the antibody titer AFTER infection has attrition over time, especially if infection is not severe. How do we define "seroprevalence" ? At what cutoff -- since it's a moving target for some people ?
Read 6 tweets
6 Jul
1/n IMPORTANT: Can someone please publish a homology map of all the beta coronaviruses that have been circulating in human populations ?

Why? Because at least 2-3 papers suggest that there is pre-existing immunity, at least CD4/8 cell mediated, because of cross reactivity.
2/n Just two lines of evidence: the Antarctic cruise had 59 percent infection. But what about the other 41 percent ? And the Cell paper by Nusszenweig suggests that at least 40 percent (odd) showed CD4 responses.
3/n Notably, these responses are more capsid directed (and obviously) MHC restricted. As opposed to Spike.
Read 13 tweets

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