2) VENTILATION is key. Both ventilation and masks needed to reduce risk indoors. But most buildings not ventilated well enough.
3) Key is ventilation. Japan assumed it was airborne from the very beginning. Hence their mask culture and focus on air flow. Here is how to ventilate your school classrooms if unable to open window. #COVID19
4) here are the next key priorities for the pandemic... thread 🧵 below.
Experts warn that we need to also fund what's killing & affecting more people: chronic diseases—mental health, diabetes, cancer, lung & heart disease—the 'other global pandemic’.
2) What's more, NCDs are the leading cause of death worldwide and account for over 70% of all global deaths each year. Efforts to combat these chronic diseases are chronically underfunded; just two percent of development assistance funding for health goes to NCDs.
3) Therefore, as the incoming administration renews the US' commitment to the WHO and the global community at large, it should consider renewing and improving the country's commitment to fighting noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) as well.
FANTASTIC NURSING HOME NEWS—Eli Lily’s monoclonal antibody drug can lower the risk symptomatic #COVID19 by 80% when used preventively among nursing home residents. Cuts risks overall by 57% among both staff+residents. Huge.
2) Lily will now seek expanded emergency use authorization from the FDA. The detailed numbers are linked below.
3) Unlike vaccines that trains / teaches your bodies how to recognize the spike protein and build your own immunity, monoclonal antibody drugs directly infuse working synthetic antibodies against the virus into your system. This is useful for people with slower immune systems.
BREAKING—Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody drug cuts risk of symptomatic #COVID19 by up to 80% among the vulnerable nursing home residents. Lilly's Bamlanivimab cut risk by 57% overall among both nursing home residents and staff combined. endpts.com/eli-lillys-ant…
2) next up: Lily seeks “expanding the emergency use authorization to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in these facilities,” according to CSO Dan Skovronsky.
3) Unlike vaccines that trains / teaches your bodies how to recognize the spike protein and build your own immunity, monoclonal antibody drugs directly infuse working synthetic antibodies against the virus into your system. This is useful for people with slower immune systems.
BREAKING—US smashes the all time #COVID19 daily death record once again, with 4131 deaths in one day.
TOTAL EXCESS DEATHS since Feb 1, 2020:
... now over 470,000. 😢
2) Excess deaths are defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods. The expected average is from 2015-2019.
3) Excess deaths captures both underdiagnosis (if someone died without ever having a positive test) or indirect effect on healthcare system that leads to other deaths due to displaced healthcare (hospital full, ambulance delayed, medical equipment shortages, staff shortages, etc)
REINFECTION & VACCINE SENSITIVITY—the concern is now growing very very real. This piece highlights the big S Africa 🇿🇦 CDC report I shared earlier, where antibodies from previously infected don’t recognize the #B1351 variant in 48% of patients. 🧵 #COVID19 nytimes.com/2021/01/20/hea…
2) “The results “strongly, strongly suggest that several mutations that we see in the South Africa variant are going to have a significant effect on the sensitivity of that virus to neutralization” says a virologist from @nicd_sa, South Africa’s CDC.
3) And the #B1351 variant did not just 48% had “complete immune escape”, but 90% also showed reduced immune response. That’s a lot.