1/ Our new piece in @statnews — along with vaccine rollout, the US needs a high filtration mask initiative
Every American should have access to high filtration masks for use any time they have to be outside their home in indoor spaces #covid19
___ statnews.com/2021/01/07/nat…
2/ As the pandemic surges, most of the cases I am now seeing in the hospital do not know where or how they were infected
A number of them report wearing cloth masks regularly, & this is much better than no mask
6/ And the vast majority of us cannot afford to “stay home” no matter how much this phrase is repeated. We have to get groceries/other basic supplies; many work on the frontlines in diff jobs, healthcare or otherwise; others use public transport. #covid19 coronavirus.medium.com/messaging-abou…
7/ So there are two major components to better masks
🔹 Source control- reducing the amount of droplets & aerosols emitted into the environment from an infected person (many whom won’t know they are sick!)
🔸Personal protection- protecting healthy people from breathing these in
8/ Masks that can do both of these things well will have a sig effect on reducing growth
They essentially function as a temp vaccine in terms of stopping spread (possibly better, given we don’t know how well our current vaccines stop onward transmission) #covid19@AdamJKucharski
8.5/ We outline in other pieces we have written what qualities those masks need to have
12/ While there is now continuous news about the new #B117 variant, & whether vaccines will hold equivalent efficacy against this strain (& others), here too we can rely on better masks
Because masks are focused on stopping *how* the virus transmits rather than the virus itself
13/ Many experts have called for the best way to slow the spread of new variants is to keep doubling down on transmission-halting interventions
Better masks should be a serious priority here
The Defense Production Act should be leveraged for this just as for vaccines #covid19
13.5/ Other private efforts have also been underway like @xprize awarded to @LuminosityLab@ASU which is a group of college/grad students that designed the “Floemask” which builds on existing surgical mask designs
1/ Important point from @K_G_Andersen — variant #B117 in San Diego; may not change what we need to do— but is an urgent reminder that we are not even doing what we need to do well enough as it is.
1/
Outbreak of #covid19 on an 18 hour flight in September flying from Dubai to New Zealand now officially published
7 ultimately infected; 4 likely in flight, sitting within 4 rows of one another, 2 of them while reportedly wearing masks
2/ 5 out of the 7 had been tested **before the flight** and tested negative
2 didn’t report getting tested before the flight but are *not* thought to be the index cases (those who started the outbreak)
BUT Index case was tested **5 days** before the flight!
3/ I circled the days that index case *should have been tested* — 24-48 hours before flight, when they had likely started incubating the virus; when detection could have happened; when the outbreak could have been prevented
2/ We need to implement absolute, not incremental, restrictions on nonessential venues. Those businesses need additional $$ protections in return. Anything that needs to remain open (grocery, pharmacies) needs to operate at regulated capacity w/ ⬆️protection for frontline staff
3/ Need to repurpose hotels/dorms etc as safer & better isolation & quarantine spaces; & $$ incentivize people to use them (punitive measures don’t work as well here & tend to become regressive)