It’s fascinating to me to see people pull up tweets from Feb 2020 as a means to try and discredit people working in pandemic response. Our guidance evolves with the data and science, which is at a rapid pace during a pandemic of a novel disease. (1/3)
This is a tough part of our job, but one that means we’re improving continuously. PubHealth & healthcare response means leaning into these evolutions. Many of us speak to media/on social media in additional to our day jobs & it’s about using the best info we have at the time(2/3)
What I do find disparaging is when folks do this for nefarious goals..and ironic when it’s involving people who have self-identified as not engaging in anything related to ID/epi/pandemic response until spring 2020. We’re all tired, let’s try to be kind & respectful. (3/3)
Adding that Dr. @KrutikaKuppalli has been especially attacked for this, which is really heartbreaking.
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For everyone dumping on vaccine rollout- yes there have been a lot of issues & bottlenecking, but please know that a population-wide vaccine distribution is *tough*. Especially as hospitals and health dpts are doing the heavily lifting while under the weight of this surge.
We absolutely need to improve it and this has been another item in a long list of things the US has struggled with during COVID-19, but please note just how challenging and fractured a population-scale effort is.
Really, what this emphasizes is the need to provide more sustainable resources for these efforts (ahem, and public health in general). In short - critique and analyze the failures, but also acknowledge the Herculean effort this work requires.
“People have been doing this for almost a year without backup.” Each COVID-19 peak has sapped more energy & morale, & afterward, fatigued HCWs have had to deal with a backlog of postponed surgeries, as well as new pts who have been sitting on their medical problems..”
Dr. @drjessigold -“In a crisis, you can say, ‘It makes sense that I’m anxious, sad, and not sleeping.’ But there’ll be a surge of problems once people finally get a chance to breathe and realize what the toll has been.”
In terms of aerosols, droplet, & “airborne”- the best approach to communication I’ve found is that this requires enhanced respiratory protection in a healthcare setting. It’s not entirely airborne and it’s not entirely droplet, but rather something in the middle. (1/n)
We know this means different things for AGMP. For the public, I think it’s a good lesson in that the “6 ft” rule isn’t a hard rule in that there’s no magic force-field that prevents the virus from going further. Infection prevention involves multiple things simultaneously (2/n).
That Swiss cheese approach comes to mind - ventilation won’t do it all. Just like masks or distancing alone won’t. When we describe transmission it’s important to discuss these principles. Scicomm is critical & I’m hoping the CDC is working to explain these pieces better (3/n)/
It's increasingly worrisome that we're not talking about healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in COVID-19 patients. Across the country we are seeing spikes and several studies have shown elevated risk for HAIs, especially bloodstream infections. 1/
COVID-19 patients, especially those in ICUs, are more likely to have invasive medical devices (urinary catheters, ventilators, central lines, etc.) - these are wonderful medical tools but also increase the risk for infection. 2/
These pts are medically complex, fragile, & we are still learning about how to improve their quality of care. For example -placing them in the prone position makes line care in pts with vascular issues that much more challenging, especially w/respiratory secretions. 3/
And this is why we read the whole study - "The temporal, spatial, and exposure evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 transmission may have occurred during the flight. However, the majority of 16 cases in the outbreak were not attributed to transmission on the flight.”
“Exposure to the virus in Wuhan or by infected members within the same tour group account for most cases in the outbreak."
"Our investigation suggests that it is important to take measures such as wearing a mask, temperature screening, and quarantine of close contacts to reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 before, during, and after flights.” - Again something we know and have been emphasizing.
Folks, it's SO important to differentiate masks in terms of efficacy/wearability/medical contraindications. This is a prime example of why we need to explain that sure, N95s are higher particulate filtration, but they also require fit-testing to *truly* work + health screening.
I'm a trained fit-tester to help expedite mask-fitting in our hospitals during this pandemic. It is dangerous to push N95s on people without explaining that they require a TRUE fit to work effectively and ultimately, many people can't wear them due to medical conditions.