"One year ago, the first death from #COVID19 was reported”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser. Now: almost 2 million deaths.
"And while we are hopeful about the safe and effective vaccines that are being rolled out, we want to see this sped up and vaccines allocated equitably."
@DrTedros @WHO "I call for a collective commitment so that within the next 100 days vaccination for health workers, and those at higher risk in all countries are underway”, says @drtedros.
@DrTedros @WHO A @WHO team is in China now, says @drtedros, "working with producers of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines to assess compliance with international quality manufacturing practices ahead of potential emergency use listing by WHO”.
@DrTedros @WHO "Over the weekend, @WHO was notified by Japan about a new variant of the virus”, says @DrTedros. "The more the virus spreads, the higher the chance of new changes to the virus."
@DrTedros @WHO "Most notably, transmissibility of some variants of the virus appears to be increasing”, says @DrTedros. "This can drive a surge of cases and hospitalizations, which is highly problematic for health workers and hospitals already close to breaking point."
@DrTedros @WHO "What's most critical is that we sequence the virus effectively, so we know how it's changing, and how to respond”, says @DrTedros. “While diagnostics and vaccines still seem to be effective against the current virus, we may need to tweak them in the future."
@DrTedros @WHO "We call on all countries to increase the sequencing of the virus to supplement ongoing surveillance monitoring and testing efforts and to share that data internationally”, says @DrTedros. “This helps us better understand when variants of concern are identified."
@DrTedros @WHO Members of @WHO mission on #sarscov2 origins "are commencing their travel to China”, says @drtedros. “Studies will begin in Wuhan to identify the potential source of infection of the early cases.”
@DrTedros @WHO Q about equitable vaccine distribution.
“Right now we have an inequitable situation where vaccines are going to high-income countries and upper middle-income countries and not yet to the lowest income countries”, says Bruce Aylward.
@DrTedros @WHO "We have strong confidence that we should be able to be vaccinating in February in these countries”, says Bruce Aylward. “But we cannot do that on our own, we require the cooperation of vaccine manufacturers to prioritize deliveries to the COVAX facility”, financiers, suppliers.
@DrTedros @WHO "Most notably, transmissibility of some variants of the virus appears to be increasing”, says @DrTedros. "This can drive a surge of cases and hospitalizations, which is highly problematic for health workers and hospitals already close to breaking point."
@DrTedros @WHO "What's most critical is that we sequence the virus effectively, so we know how it's changing, and how to respond”, says @DrTedros. “While diagnostics and vaccines still seem to be effective against the current virus, we may need to tweak them in the future."
@DrTedros @WHO "We call on all countries to increase the sequencing of the virus to supplement ongoing surveillance monitoring and testing efforts and to share that data internationally”, says @DrTedros. “This helps us better understand when variants of concern are identified."
@DrTedros @WHO Members of @WHO mission on #sarscov2 origins "are commencing their travel to China”, says @DrTedros. “Studies will begin in Wuhan to identify the potential source of infection of the early cases.”
@DrTedros @WHO Q about equitable vaccine distribution.
“Right now we have an inequitable situation where vaccines are going to high-income countries and upper middle-income countries and not yet to the lowest income countries”, says Bruce Aylward.
@DrTedros @WHO "We have strong confidence that we should be able to be vaccinating in February in these countries”, says Bruce Aylward. “But we cannot do that on our own, we require the cooperation of vaccine manufacturers to prioritize deliveries to the COVAX facility”, financiers, suppliers.
@DrTedros @WHO “We are ready to start vaccinating”, says Aylward. But threefold challenge:
1. manufacturers prioritizing supply to COVAX (and getting info on efficacy and quality to WHO)
2. Countries with access to vaccine sharing/donating doses
3. country readiness to vaccinate
@DrTedros @WHO “This disease can be significantly controlled by the application of the measures that we have been outlining here for a year", says @DrMikeRyan. And many countries have managed to do that, he points out, others have not, for different reasons:
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan "The disease has come early, it entered silently, they've been caught unawares, they haven't been able to sustain a response over a long period of time, surveillance systems have been weak, their populations have not been willing or able to implement longterm behavioral measures"
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan "For those of you who have the virus under control: Do not lose control. Look at what other countries are suffering, as they have lost control of the virus”, says @DrMikeRyan.
"So if you're in a low incidence or a zero incidence situation: Keep it up. It is worth the effort."
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan "If you're - as many countries are - in a difficult transmission environment right now: There are no other options, but to do what you've done before”, says @DrMikeRyan.
“All we can do is pick ourselves up and take the fight back to the virus."
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan New variants are almost like "a substitution in 2nd half of a football game”, says @DrMikeRyan:
“It gives the virus some new energy, some new impetus, it adds to the challenge you face … It doesn't change the rules of the game. It doesn't change what we need to do to win."
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan New variants are making control harder, says @mvankerkhove. But: "There were increases in transmission in a number of countries before these variants … were circulating, and that was due to increased mixing of people. There's no way around that. "
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan @mvankerkhove “The number of contacts that individuals had and their families had increased significantly over the Christmas and New Year holiday”, says @mvankerkhove. "And that has had a direct impact on the exponential growth we have seen in many countries."
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan @mvankerkhove Exponential growth in some places is almost vertical, @mvankerkhove notes. "But that doesn't mean we've lost the battle. … Biggest thing that we can do right now is keep physical distance from others. I know that's really difficult. But it is true."
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan @mvankerkhove “Let this mission and the other missions be about the science, not about the politics”, says @drmikeryan on @WHO mission to China.
"We are looking for the answers here that may save us in the future, not culprits and not people to blame.”
@DrTedros @WHO @DrMikeRyan @mvankerkhove “We can blame climate change, we can blame policy decisions made 30 years ago” on everything from urbanization to how we exploit forests, says @DrMikeRyan.
“If you're looking for someone to blame, you can find people to blame on every level of what we're doing on this planet."

• • •

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

Keep Current with Kai Kupferschmidt

Kai Kupferschmidt 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 @kakape

9 Jan
“Because #B117 can grow exponentially even in communities that are keeping #SARSCoV2 under control, the situation is extremely urgent. If we want vaccination to win this new race, we have to slow down the new virus while it’s still rare.”
Read @mlipsitch!
statnews.com/2021/01/09/we-…
And @kesvelt, of course. Was missing space there...
What to do right now on #b117?
1. “find the enemy”: Test for the variant!
2. “redirect resources to the new and faster-spreading threat”
3. “consider diverting doses of #Covid19 vaccines to any region with large clusters of cases for whole-community vaccination”
Read 6 tweets
7 Jan
"Without increased control to slow its spread, there will be an increased impact on already stressed and pressurized health facilities”, @hans_kluge said at @WHO_Europe press conference this morning, talking about #B117.
@hans_kluge @WHO_Europe "It is our assessment that this variant of concern may over time, replace other circulating lineages, as seen in the United Kingdom, and increasingly in Denmark”, @hans_kluge said. “With increased transmissibility, and similar disease severity, the variant does ... raise alarm."
@hans_kluge @WHO_Europe He urged countries to act by:
1. "investigating unusually rapid transmission and unexpected disease presentation or severity”
2. “increasing the sequencing of systematically selected subsets of #SARSCoV2 infections”
3. sharing this data
Read 5 tweets
6 Jan
I’ve said before that I’m watching Denmark closely for clues on #B117, so a short update.
The Statens Serum Institut @SSI_dk has an interesting note here on the spread of B.1.1.7 (I’m using google translate):
ssi.dk/aktuelt/nyhede…
@SSI_dk While cases in Denmark are declining and percentage of #B117 is still low, experts there expect that percentage to keep growing and estimate that the new variant could make up half of all infections in Denmark in 40-50 days. Image
@SSI_dk If that is true and #B117 takes over Danish experts expect cases in the country to rise again. By how much depends on how low the reproduction number R is.
The scientists estimate that reducing R to 0.7 (for the old variants) would keep the new variant from spreading too. Image
Read 5 tweets
5 Jan
I’ve written a lot in the last two weeks about #B117 and the uncertainty surrounding its exact effects.
So let me talk about something that we can be pretty certain about: what we should be doing.
New story is here: sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/v…
Quick thread to come.
First: How good is the evidence that #B117 is more transmissible? It’s still far from a slam dunk. But as @AdamJKucharski told me: “We're relying on multiple streams of imperfect evidence, but pretty much all that evidence is pointing in the same direction now.”
At this point we probably have to look to countries other than the UK for confirmation that #B117 is more transmissible.
“The dynamics and the spread of this strain internationally is probably going to be the strongest evidence we will have”, @EvolveDotZoo told me.
Read 12 tweets
5 Jan
"We have entered a new phase of the pandemic where solidarity is needed like never before”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser on #covid19.
"We are in a race to save lives right now."
@DrTedros @WHO “Case loads are so high in several countries that hospitals and intensive care units are filling up to dangerous levels”, says @drtedros. People mixed more indoors during holidays, he says. “New variants which appear to be more transmissible are exacerbating the situation."
@DrTedros @WHO "We are in a race to prevent infections, bring cases down, protect health systems and save lives, while rolling out highly effective and safe vaccines to high risk populations”, says @DrTedros. "his is not easy. These are the hard miles, we must tread together."
Read 18 tweets
2 Jan
We’re in a new year and we have also entered a new phase of this pandemic. So I thought I’d start off the new year with a quick catch-up thread on the UK variant B.1.1.7 and where we are at in this pandemic.
The variant caught scientists' attention in early December based on a surge in cases around Kent and sequencing data showing it carried a host of mutations. (I wrote about this and how a quirk in the PCR is helping track it here: sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/m…).
CAVEAT: The pace at which we have learnt about this new variant is astonishing. But it’s important to realize that a lot of crucial lab experiments take longer. Most data now is looking at noisy epidemiological data and making inferences based on that.
Read 19 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!