ROLLOUT FINISH DATE: "All residents at elderly care homes in Denmark 🇩🇰 will have received their first dose of the #COVID19 vaccine by **today**” (if desired).
The entire country of Denmark will have gotten vaccine by June 27th. Wow!
GOOD NEWS—a mutation seen in a few #SARSCoV2 variants doesn’t seem to harm the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, finding “no reduction in neutralization activity against virus”.
HOWEVER—did not yet test for worrisome E484K mutation, which many experts say might.🧵 statnews.com/2021/01/08/pfi…
2) A colleague of mine, @AliNouriPhD, wrote a post on a recent reinfection case involving the E484K mutation. We know it can “escape” many current neutralizing antibodies.
3) What do we mean by “escape neutralizing antibodies”? It means antibodies known to bind the common type of the #SARSCoV2 virus no longer bind to the mutated version. And that is what we are noticing with the E484K mutation that’s in receptor binding domain. (@jbloom_lab credit)
HORRENDOUS—Physician for US Congress sends a warning that the protective safe room for Members of Congress where tons of people were huddle together—had someone w/ #COVID19, and thus everyone possibly exposed. Everyone asked to get PCR test.
We knew this could happen. Horrible.
2) We knew something like this could happen. That’s why @LisaBRochester tried to hand out masks to everyone in the safe room.
FOLKS—if you think #COVID19 cases is really bad in the US, it is even more epically surging in the UK 🇬🇧 & Ireland 🇮🇪. I made a short video... and highlighted the simultaneous rise in the more contagious b117 variant. Denmark CDC thinks B117 will become dominant strain by Feb. 🧵
2) the new variant B117 is now 25% of all cases in Ireland last week. Up form 9% 2 weeks before that.
Ireland 🇮🇪 & N. Ireland are in a serious #COVID19 crisis. Cases surging past 🇬🇧.
➡️Ireland also has increased presence of the B117 variant—now found in **25%** of cases that underwent further testing in week to Jan. 3, up from just 9% two weeks earlier. reuters.com/article/us-hea…
2) This dooms day B117 variant taking over scenario with sharp vertical increase is exactly the most feared scenario Denmark CDC — Denmark 🇩🇰 is also seeing sharp rise. And they fear they will soon lose control. See thread 🧵
3) To be clear—even if we hold the virus in check with a minimum R=0.96... by the time the new virus variant takes hold, it will be woefully insufficient, since the B117 strain is 40-80% more infectious (multiply current R*1.4 or *1.8). Other experts agree....
❤️HEARTWARMING—it was past 12am & for 90 min, he crouched down & filled half dozen trash bags. When he finished cleaning up the Capitol rotunda, he cleaned adjacent rooms. Then worked until 3am to certify the election—he had been awake for >36 hours. Who is he? Rep @AndyKimNJ 🙏
2) I had the honor to meet @RepAndyKimNJ in spring 2018 when both of us we running for Congress. I didn’t make it, but @AndyKimNJ made it. He has kindness of a Korean-American son, and the heart of a lion. (36 hours straight no sleep!!). Respect ✊🏼
3) “I was just overwhelmed with emotion,” Kim, 38, told @NBCAsianAmerica. “It’s a room that I love so much — it’s the heart of the Capitol, literally the heart of this country. It pained me so much to see it in this kind of condition.”
2) Notice how big a drop school closing offer in dropping R below 3.3 baseline. And especially when combined with other things, schools can bring it down below R<1. #COVID19
@dgurdasani1 has more children’s data - follow here.
3) here are the specific details of each govt intervention’s R reduction and their 95% CIs from@the study.