1/3: Unless we implement a national #COVID19 vaccination plan and strategy, by mid-late spring the number of #COVID19 deaths in America could reach 640,000, equivalent to Americans who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic
2/3: The plan must have at least 3 elements: 1) massive expansion in vaccine hubs, high throughput vaccinating 2 million Americans/d 2) liberalize unnecessary restrictions, make it easy 3) more vaccines, we won't get there with mRNA vaccines alone - we need the 3 additional types
3/3: We have no other choice: We've squandered every opportunity to contain this virus. This current administration left us with only a single arrow, and this time we cannot fail. It has to be our national priority.
Guess I should have added a 4th: a serious communication plan for the American 🇺🇸 people, which includes a counteroffensive against the disinformation from homegrown antivaccine groups and the Russian government

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More from @PeterHotez

10 Jan
I want to say this is one of the largest mass #COVID19 vaccinations to date. Congratulations @SylvesterTurner and sincere thank you @HoustonFire @houstonpolice @RODEOHOUSTON @astros and to the volunteers. Hope it becomes a new model for the nation.
I’m glad this happened here in #Houston. Given our national failures in containing COVID19 in 2020, our backs are against the wall: Vaccinating our way out is our last hope. For it to happen mass immunizations like this must become the new normal
Increasingly I hope we can pivot away from fussy and confusing 1b 1c restrictions and open up the nation to vaccinations. We won’t vaccinate the necessary 2-3 million Americans per day by dissecting lunch checks and asking who ordered the salad nicoise and who had the turkey club
Read 6 tweets
4 Jan
Going to a single dose would undermine the last remaining credibility of OpWarpSpeed. If you look at the published data it’s only 2 doses for both mRNA vaccines that provide reasonable virus neutralizing antibodies. And it’s only 2 doses that protect apple.news/AM61Z3Q8wTyuym…
Asking the American 🇺🇸 people to compromise their safety and protection because no one thought that we needed a health system to provide high throughput vaccinations is unacceptable. We have to stop being so mediocre, and do hard things. Under Trump we became a nation of wimps
We now need to implement a health system that can vaccinate 1.5 million Americans every day from now until the fall. We need leaders who welcome challenges and like to roll up sleeves. Not lazy feckless ones who are frightened by science textbooks
Read 5 tweets
1 Jan
This may be the right direction, in fact our recombinant protein vaccine might be a great booster. Problem is this: Zero experimental evidence. While it’s something I’ve suggested in lab meetings, zoom calls, without actual data in hand it’s a non-starter nytimes.com/2021/01/01/hea…
Op Warp Speed delivered vaccines, but they went heavy in the direction of new technologies oblivious to a reality that we don’t have a health system in place to deliver them high throughput. We’re opening 40 million IKEA boxes, just now reading the “assembly required”stickers
It’s why we pushed for our low cost, easy to deliver recombinant protein vaccines now being scaled for production and tested across India 🇮🇳 , a 40 year old well tested technology, safe for use in kids.
Read 5 tweets
30 Dec 20
Texas hospitals have received over 600,000 doses yet only about 100,000 vaccinated so far? These aren’t bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon. We don’t need age vaccines, are we overthinking this? Texas 1b lots of adults with underlying conditions, vaccinate them houstonchronicle.com/news/article/T…
There’s no reason to hang on to vaccine stocks (except for second doses), just move them out and get people vaccinated ASAP. More vaccine is coming
Maybe I’m too subtle. So here it goes: 1. In 2020 we royally messed up COVID19 control, failing to launch a US strategy causing 350,000 deaths 2. By failing, we backed ourselves into a corner 3. Our last hope is to now vaccinate our way out of this. 4. Ignore antivax conspiracies
Read 4 tweets
23 Dec 20
THREAD 1/5: I know this is not very nice just a couple of days before Christmas but I have to say I'm concerned about the CDC press release today, and the status our virus genomics surveillance program SPHERE
THREAD 2/5: Here's the statement: "Given the small fraction of US infections that have been sequenced, the variant could already be in the United States without having been detected"
THREAD 3/5: And this one: "The VOC 202012/01 variant has not been identified through sequencing efforts in the United States, although viruses have only been sequenced from about 51,000 of the 17 million US cases"
Read 6 tweets
22 Dec 20
1/5: Many thanks ⁦@EricaRHill⁩ ⁦@JohnBerman⁩ for hosting me on ⁦@NewDay⁩: I voiced strong opinions this AM on how to proceed regarding the emergence of the the SARS CoV2 variant B.1.1.7. Bottom line: Not a question of opinion, it’s an evidence based decision
2/5: Over the Summer the CDC launched SPHERES, a virus genomics sequencing consortium, a similar approach led the UK to discover variant 1.1.1.7. We should therefore already know if the new variant has entered the country. cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
3/5: My expectation is that by COB today, the CDC will inform the American people: 1) If indeed the virus has entered the US, 2) its extent, where and if it's outcompeting other virus strains, 3) epidemiologic models showing how quickly it is expected to spread, and...
Read 5 tweets

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