Completely WRONG article:

First, it says bizarrely: “The claim that B.1.1.7 is more transmissible is based on primarily epidemiological evidence and data on increased viral loads”

NO: The reason we know it is more transmissible is that it dominates other variants over time.
1/
There is no doubt it is more transmissible because it is now over 60% of cases in London. And the effect happened so quickly it is huge. It’s obvious.

2/

Second, having a more rapidly transmitting variant like this in a country means cases increase more rapidly even when people are wearing masks and avoiding contact. Getting cases to go down is much harder, with stronger restrictions and more social and economic impacts.

3/
The relative spreading rate to the normal strain is doubling every 10-15 days. So if your actions are just holding the line with the usual variants it will double every 10-15 days. Horrendous.

4/
So we don’t want it to get to new places, we want to stop it. Taking strong measures to stop transmission works with preventing it from getting to new places.

5/
Just like in Australia, stoping the recent outbreak in Victoria went along with preventing cases from getting to NSW and other Australian states so that they didn’t have to take such strong measures (or any!).

6/
The way to fight an outbreak is to defeat it. Doing half measures, allowing new variants to get to new places, is accepting defeat.

Travel bans are an effective response to outbreaks, they let you have no cases in some places, they give you a chance.

7/
Divide and conquer the virus in different places. Don’t let it bring in reinforcements, especially not ones with supercharged new capabilities to defeat you.

8/
What we need now:

1. Limit non-essential travel and require all incoming travelers to quarantine in designated isolation centers for 14 days upon arrival.

Banning flights from just the UK and South Africa will be insufficient.

9/
2. Limit all non-essential interaction in shared indoor spaces to drive down transmission.

3. Strengthen widespread adoption of isolation, testing, contact tracing, and quarantine.

10/
4. Adopt a “Zero Covid” strategy to eliminate the virus as rapidly as possible, followed by opening up areas where community transmission has been eliminated (a “Green Zone” exit strategy).

11/
5. These actions must be accompanied with support from the federal, state, and local governments to meet the financial and other needs of citizens during this challenging period. This will require monetary support for people who can’t work during lockdowns;

12/
..housing and other necessities for those who must isolate or quarantine; access to masks and other pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions; and mental health support for individuals and groups.

See attached

13/
More #6 (but it is not too late to take action)

• • •

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

Keep Current with Yaneer Bar-Yam

Yaneer Bar-Yam 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 @yaneerbaryam

26 Dec
African countries combined now average more than 20k daily cases and continue to set new highs. Not only South Africa, which is quickly approaching previous highs, several other African countries are also experiencing new outbreaks. Image
Eritrea reported a new high of 74 yesterday, from a daily average of 6 cases just a week ago. Image
Egypt reported 1,021 cases yesterday. Over the last week, daily cases have been growing at 10% daily. Image
Read 4 tweets
25 Dec
COVID Action Group to the CDC: Extend the temporary eviction moratorium in order to protect the health and wellbeing of families during the COVID-19 pandemic Image
In order to protect public health during the pandemic, the CDC has implemented a moratorium to stop evictions. That
moratorium is set to expire on December 31, 2020. While the stimulus bill that has been passed by the House and the Senate includes a provision to extend..

2/
.this moratorium, it is unclear whether that bill will become law by the end of the year. Failure to do so would place Americans struggling to pay their rents to lose their homes, exacerbating the already devastating impacts of the pandemic across the country.

3/
Read 7 tweets
25 Dec
What is the EXIT strategy?

Is there a practical strategy for return to the normal life as we knew it, or did we yield to the coronavirus invasion?

1/
Waiting for mass vaccination would be a passive acceptance of 100,000s more deaths, millions hospitalized, long covid quality of life, and severe economic consequences.

2/
Imposing restrictions to combat transmission (shut downs, stay at home orders) appears in some places politically suicidal, still the question whether to close or keep open becomes mute. Once hospitals overflow, and deaths are out of control, there is no choice but to close.

3/
Read 14 tweets
25 Dec
Many people are trying to make NOW be ok. But this will often come at the sacrifice of the future, which is a very big price to pay.

Consider what happens when risks are being taken and you take one risk and are OK. Should you take 10 or 100 or 1000 risks?

1/
When a daily risk is 1 in 100, one day has just that risk.

But if it is 10 days, the same risk requires reducing the daily risk to 1 in 1000.

The more times you take a risk, the lower you want the risk to be. Don’t habituate risk, it will catch up to you.

2/
If you make a mistake, the one time risk is often small, but if you choose to do it again, the strategy becomes high risk.

See gambler’s ruin.

3/
Read 4 tweets
25 Dec
South Africa and its encircled countries continue to see new highs. Yesterday Lesotho reported 179 cases and Eswatini reported 153 cases, from averages of 14 and 31, respectively, two weeks ago. The UK announces a travel ban on South Africa. Image
Bolivia reports a rapid increase in daily cases. Yesterday they reported 1,005, compared to less than 100 at the beginning of this month. Testing positivity is also soaring. Image
Japan reported a new high of 3,275 daily cases. Besides Tokyo, Kanagawa also sees cases surging recently, overtaking Osaka to be the second-highest prefecture in terms of daily cases. Image
Read 4 tweets
24 Dec
South Africa reported 9,501 cases yesterday, as the daily average reaches the highest since August. The new variant first identified in South Africa (different from the one identified in the UK), is now detected in cases in the UK.
The US reported 195,033 new cases with 3,401 deaths. Currently, hospitalizations see new highs, approaching 120k. Hospitalizations are increasing by about 4k per day for two weeks.
As they reach 1M total cases, Peru's daily average cases and deaths are currently accumulating much slower than during its peak, which occurred around August.
Read 4 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!