I disagree with folks dismissing the implications of the UK variant of concern.

While individual behaviors to avoid transmission may not change, the impact at the population level is serious: hospitals are already at capacity.

Quick thread
/1
Any factor that ramps up transmission (biological or behavioral) amplifies cases, and as a result, severe cases and deaths. When hospitals hit capacity, cases that could have been treated successfully will be triaged along increasingly stringent crisis standards of care.
/2
At the population level, this also impacts government responses about control measures, which impacts now & future justifications
Short thread on that here:
/3

In addition, this changes the game for reporting future outbreaks. The travel bans imposed on the UK risk delaying future variant reporting around the world (even if there's other public health justifications to slow spread of the variant) –which is a public health issue too
/4
Fundamentally (regardless of the new variant) we need US governments to be adopting immediate control measures with economic supports. Congress' funding was woefully inadequate. In this gap, where no action is being taken, a more transmissible variant in US would be a disaster /5
Adding to this a really important and useful thread by @trvrb

• • •

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

Keep Current with Dr Alexandra Phelan

Dr Alexandra Phelan 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 @alexandraphelan

21 Dec
Public Health England has just released their updated report on the UK #SARSCoV2 variant

"Investigation of novel SARS-CoV-2 variant: Variant of Concern 202012/01"

I'll do a quick summary thread below & link to report:
A cluster was identified & used to assess increasing incidence of the Variant of Concern (designated as such 18 Dec) in Kent, UK:
- 4% (255/6130) of Kent cases had available genomes
- in Kent: 117 genomically similar cases identified (10-19 Nov)
- in UK: 962 genomes of VoC(8 Dec)
Out of that 962 UK wide, epi data was available for 915 individuals.

As of 20 Dec, VoC present mainly in London, South East & East of England regions.

The report goes into the details of how the VoC testing is carried out.
Read 8 tweets
20 Dec
A lot of good discussion today about what we know and don't know about the new #SARSCoV2 variant in the UK.

But what does this mean (if anything) for government responses & public health law control measures, even if greater transmissibility is confirmed?

Quick notes (1/7)
Firstly, the virus is already sufficiently transmissible to be a concern. As others have noted, already important critical public health measures (avoiding crowds, social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing) will address variants that emerge:
(2/7)
First "but": any potential increase in transmissibility might shift how we weigh the stringency or priority of certain interventions, and how justifications for public health laws determine what is "the least restrictive measure".
(3/7)
Read 7 tweets
10 Dec
Vaccine news that may not be covered outside of Australia:

The University of Queensland/CSL #covid19 vaccine trial has reportedly been abandoned for really interesting reasons, with one less potential vaccine for global COVAX Facility pool.

Quick thread:
smh.com.au/politics/feder…
The UQ/CSL vaccine (V451) uses a molecular clamp vaccine platform with the COVID-19 spike protein: the clamp "locks" the spike protein to be more stable for purification & manufacture. It contains a small component derived from HIV that cannot infect people & poses no health risk
However, this component resulted in some participants (out of 200 volunteers inc. placebo & vaccine) in Phase 1 trial producing "a partial antibody response" which interfered with HIV screening tests (which detect HIV antibodies, not virus) resulting in false positive HIV tests.
Read 5 tweets
9 Dec
With the vaccine Executive Order now up, President Trump has ordered that "Americans" have priority to "US Govt COVDI19 Vaccines".

I want to push back on some arguments dismissing the risk of this as there are very concerning impacts.

whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…
United States Government COVID-19 Vaccines are defined in the EO as "COVID-19 vaccines developed in the United States or procured by the United States Government"

This does not limit the scope of the EO to those purchased under APAs, but includes vaccines developed here.
That said, implementation of EO will likely start w vaccines purchased by US Govt under APAs. This alone is concerning:

US govt has bought signif. number of global mRNA vaccines:
– Moderna: 100m doses/266m in APAs + 400m option
– Pfizer: 100m doses/590m in APAs + 500m option
Read 6 tweets
1 Dec
This is a huge drop of China #COVID19 documents from @npwcnn. Unfortunately, this leak confirms points I & other China, health, law folks have said since Jan.

I'm going to summarize some of the key findings in 🧵below

Here's full report:
edition.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asi…
Finding 1: Hubei (Wuhan's province) had 20 times increase in "influenza cases" in Dec. High number of "unknown cause" is flag: flu relatively easy to confirm if tested. Also not clear how many confirmed influenza, & if so, if/what samples or GSD was shared w @WHO GISRS.
🧵2/10
Finding 2: signif underreporting of daily new cases & deaths in Feb & Mar. If you recall, this was a live issue at that time w reclassification of case definitions by Chinese health officials, but report indicates deliberate politicization of data to present optimism.
🧵3/10
Read 10 tweets
29 Nov
Lovely piece from @guardian on our recent publication in Proc @royalsociety B "What would it take to describe the global diversity of parasites?"

It may not be apparent but this is also a story of rectifying colonial "exploration narratives".

🧵1/6

theguardian.com/environment/20…
To follow the article, here's a great explainer thread about our piece by @wormmaps about the science of estimating how many uncounted parasites there may be (including the Brothers Grimm & uncountable things):

🧵2/6

https ://twitter.com/wormmaps/status/1329070889372176384?s=20
In the @guardian piece, I love this quote about entire unknown worlds:

🧵3/6
Read 7 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!