An outbreak in Ireland 🇮🇪—what’s the source? 61 #COVID19 cases from a student social gathering, 16 from a hotel wedding.

Why haven’t we learned college parties & indoor weddings are a bad idea yet?

Some say I’m overdramatic in tweets, but this is why I shout from the rooftops.
2) If anyone knows me personally, I’m actually not a loud or dramatic person. I’m quite low key in person. And I never cared to really use Twitter in the decade that I’ve had an account. I’ve only begun using during the pandemic because of the lack of urgency for public health.
3) when I shouted aloud in Jan 2020, i only had 2000 or so followers collected over 10 years. It didn’t define my life or career. But I see the power in which we can mobilize action if we join together to warn others. And that is my only goal. nymag.com/intelligencer/…
4) To be clear, I have no book deals in the works, I have no YouTube channel, I don’t really use FB or do live events that much, I have no merch store, and I certainly don’t have any publicist trying to get me TV show appearances (whisper, some experts do).
5) hence I only really do this Twitter thing to warn the public. I’ve even put other career advancing projects on hold so I can focus more time doing this, because the pandemic is a crisis, and there is a fierce urgency of now to act and save lives.
6) This is also why a volunteer team of scientists and health advocates have teamed up to co found COVID ACTION GROUP— an all volunteer team focused public health action. Our group doesn’t seek any donations. The group does NOT “do consulting” for clients.
covidactiongroup.net
8) Our COVID ACTION GROUP puts out guidance to the public. It seeks to advocate and to warn the public. That’s our plan. That’s it. Zero other agenda.

covidactiongroup.net/#field-guides
9) We do have a more US-centric focus though. Thus, if you are based in the UK, the closest volunteer group similar to us is @IndependentSage, which also is a great group of precautionary-principle driven public health advocates. They are great. independentsage.org
10) p.s. We also have an amazing COVID ACTION GROUP cofounder alum— former @FAScientists president @AliNouriPhD who has just joined Biden administration as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy! Thank you Ali for bringing me to FAS and being a mentor this year.

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More from @DrEricDing

7 Feb
Almost 1 year ago, Feb 26, 2020, authors wrote in a top journal that the coronavirus posed “limited threat outside of China” & “wearing mask in public does not prevent people from getting” #COVID19

➡️We should have listened to the actual aerosol scientists instead on masks! 🤦🏻‍♂️ ImageImage
2) This above JAMA short article and info graphic was widely read and cited in the media. jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…

Meanwhile many in Asia — especially Japan 🇯🇵 South Korea 🇰🇷 and Taiwan 🇹🇼 (& China) recognized airborne transmission early because their aerosol experts led the way.
3) Meanwhile, a medical expert for all the top airlines in the world was quoted by Bloomberg to “forget face masks”. I highly doubt Dr David Powell of @IATA had any real expertise or experience in aerosol transmission or epidemiology.
Read 4 tweets
6 Feb
Worrisome discovery—Among placebo group for Novavax’s vaccine in South Africa🇿🇦: people with prior #COVID19 infections appeared just as likely to get sick as people without prior infections—means past infection wasn’t fully protective for #B1351 variant.🧵
washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02… Image
2) The #B1351 has swiftly become dominant in South Africa, but has been found worldwide. The variant has been detected only a handful of times in the United States, including a case reported Friday in Virginia—3rd US state to identify the presence of the #B1351 variant.
3) The preliminary finding from the 🇿🇦 vaccine trial (placebo group), based on a data set with limitations, stirred debate and concern among researchers. Also notice how the #B1351 variant has become near “dominant” in South Africa? Not a coincidence. Image
Read 14 tweets
6 Feb
I’m trying hard to square this:

📍CDC this weekend: not really safe to have a #SuperBowl party with people outside your home.

📍Also CDC: it’s safe for teachers to teach kids/teens, in person, indoors, 5 days/week.

🤔...and let loud kids eat at lunch indoors unmasked? #COVID19 Image
2) To be clear — I am a firm believer kids need to go back to school. and as an epidemiologist, a staunch CDC advocation. But we need to call a spade a spade on this issue. Kids definitely do transmit. Here is the best collection of evidence in 🧵why it does from Dr @dgurdasani1.
3) This makes the clear case that school transmission of #COVID19 does occur, and increases when cases levels rise—which then further drives school transmission. It’s an analytical thread but it’s the Bottomline: Schools are not impervious to transmission. Can’t lie to ourselves.
Read 18 tweets
5 Feb
What’s worse than simple mutation? RECOMBINATION! Recombination is the large scale “copy and pasting” mixing of whole sections of genome 🧬 swapping from one virus to another.

And the bad news is—many experts think it’s likely happening with #SARSCoV2.🧵
nytimes.com/2021/02/05/hea…
2) But it is not just these small genetic changes that are raising concerns. The novel coronavirus has a propensity to mix large chunks of its genome when it makes copies of itself.
3) “Unlike small mutations, which are like typos in the sequence, a phenomenon called recombination resembles a major copy-and-paste error in which the second half of a sentence is completely overwritten with a slightly different version.
Read 13 tweets
5 Feb
Israel 🇮🇱 is seeing a sharp rise in the number of children and teens getting #COVID19.

>50,000 children & teens have been diagnosed with coronavirus since the start of the month, many more than Israel saw in any month during the first or second waves. 🧵
jpost.com/health-science…
2) “We got a letter from the Israeli Association of Pediatrics that says they are very worried about the rate of disease in younger students,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post. “This is something we did not witness in previous waves of corona.”
2) Although the exact strain in these Israel 🇮🇱 pediatric cases are unclear, there is another similar pediatric outbreak in a village in Italy 🇮🇹. 10% of the town is infected and mostly children.
Read 6 tweets
5 Feb
Holy cow: 10% of the village of Corzano 🇮🇹 has the #B117 variant—10% of all residents! 60% of cases are kids from kindergarten and primary school, other 40% are their parents, says the mayor. Schools in the village now closed. ansa.it/amp/lombardia/…
2) Israel is seeing a sharp rise in the number of children and teens getting infected with coronavirus, according to 🇮🇱 Health Ministry.

“This is something we did not witness in previous waves of coronavirus,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said.#COVID19
m.jpost.com/health-science…
3) forgot to mention, the mayor of the village in Italy 🇮🇹 is also #COVID19 positive.
Read 9 tweets

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