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Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
@DrEricDing
Feb 7, 2021 • 25 tweets • 15 min read • Read on X
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⚠️SURGING #B117 WITHIN US—growing 7% per day, doubling every 9.8 days nationally, & expected to become dominant by March 23rd. It is surging fastest in Florida—doubling every 9.1 days. Scientists are extremely worried: 35-45% more transmissible.🧵#COVID19
washingtonpost.com/health/ukvaria…
2) new preprint, led by @K_G_Andersen, “Our study shows that US is on a similar trajectory as other countries where B.1.1.7 rapidly became the dominant #SARSCoV2 variant, requiring immediate and decisive action to minimize #COVID19 morbidity and mortality” medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
3) Here is the current inferred number of #B117 cases in each state and in Florida and California, to Jan 30th.
4) Florida seems to be experiencing the faster rate of growth. (Maybe because @RonDeSantisFL @GovRonDeSantis hasn’t put in much mitigation). #B117 will become dominant in Florida sooner... likely by March 8th.
5) Why is #B117 worse than other #SARSCoV2? It carries a package of mutations, including many which change the structure of the spike protein that enhance its ability to bind to human ACE2 receptor, yielding higher viral loads, and may shed more virus when coughing or sneezing.
6) “It is here, it’s got its hooks deep into this country, and it’s on its way to very quickly becoming the dominant lineage,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the new paper.
7) other wild cards in play, in the form of additional variants, such as #B1351 from South Africa and worrisome because it contains a mutation (E484K, nicknamed “Eeek”) that lowers but does not entirely undermined the efficacy of vaccines.
8) Will return to Eeek mutation later, but #B117 also led to a super outbreak that infected 10% of an entire Italy 🇮🇹 village in just a few weeks. 140 of 1400 residents. 60% children.
9) As explained 2 days ago, don’t be deceived that total cases are dropping, there is actually a surging underbelly of #B117 cases that is much much more transmissible and will cause another surge soon in March and April. Please read this 🧵 below.
10) Here is what is going to happen... currently R is ~0.9 in many places, but with the more infectious #B117, the R will jump 50% approximately. And it is inevitable (all CDC and Danish models say this) that B117 will take over as the reigning dominant variant soon—Alberta 🇨🇦
11) Danish models show the same thing. Unless we slam the R current to <0.7, but optimally <0.6 right now, we will be in a world of trouble soon.
12) And Germany 🇩🇪 also shows the same phenomenon—that #B117 will become the dominant reigning variant (new strain??) and cause a late March / April new surge. Especially if vaccine rollout is slow. sueddeutsche.de/wissen/coronav…
13) The solution to defeating the #B117 is to chase a #ZeroCovid approach and slam the R even lower to below 0.7.... but optimally 0.6 or less. So that even when the #B117 arises, it will keep R under 1 (0.6*1.5=0.9). And by keeping R at 0.6 now—we will have buffer room for B117.
14) other way to win is with fast mass vaccination like in Israel 🇮🇱 that has already vaccinated 60 shot per 100 people in the elderly. Hence now look how fast the cases, hospitalizations are diverging for those age 60+ vs 59 or under. That is the effect of **mass** vaccinations.
15) Israel with 60 shots per 100 people (note 200 per 100 needed for full coverage, which we can only do when kids vaccine approved) is currently 4x 🇬🇧 and 6x ahead of the US. We need to all get to Israel level vaccinations by March...
16) And vaccines do work well for the general #B117 variant. Just a bit attenuated for South African #B1351 variant that has the E484K “Eeek” mutation. See thread 🧵
17) ...But we also discovered the #B117 has a sublineage with also the E484K “Eeek” mutation. UK researchers found it in 11 people across England and Wales. And there is some concern about this.
18) So what do we know about the #B117+E484K combo sublineage? Not much except this preprint study showing it is might be more resistant to antibody neutralization (more antibodies needed in lab study to neutralize the pseudovirus) than the common strain and the regular B117.
19) We don’t know about vaccine resistance yet, but could #B117+E484K be bad? it emerged in UK twice—independently arising in Wales, and in England, plus in 🇧🇷 & 🇿🇦—so 4 times means convergent evolution is real. And convergent evolution is usually always greater survival fitness.
20) #B117 is becoming a beast. Israel is seeing a sharp rise in the number of children and teens getting infected with #COVID19. “This is something we did not witness in previous waves,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said. Some think it’s due to B117. jpost.com/health-science…
21) More than 50,000 🇮🇱 children and teens have gotten #COVID19 since the start of Jan, many more than in any month during 1st/2nd waves.

“We got a letter from the Israeli Association of Pediatrics that says they are very worried about the rate of disease in younger students”
22) “one hypothesis is that it is tied to 🇬🇧#B117 mutation, which has spread rapidly across Israel.”

“The British variant is more contagious, so it increases the chances of infection in children,” Cyrille Cohen, head of Bar-Ilan University’s immunotherapy laboratory, told JPost.
23) We might end up back at square one if we don’t stop these mutants. It was just discovered this week that the #B1351 variant with the Eeek mutation is so evasive —people with prior #COVID19 has no extra protection against this variant —not even for severe reinfection!! See 🧵
24) BOTTOMLINE: “We have to be concerned about the mutants”.

Fauci is right about the concern of #B117, #B1351, #P1.

We gotta end pandemic fast with vaccines and #ZeroCovid approach, or else we will be back to square one again. Another wave is brewing.
25) Summary of the vaccines and their efficacy and also for the mutations.

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More from @DrEricDing

Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Feb 2
⛓️CONCENTRATION CAMPS—D.H.S. is setting up a huge network of detention camps. They are converting the U.S. as a region for eligible for ‘expeditionary military deployment’ & no-bid no-public-comment contracts to build a “ghost network” of 10,000-person concentration camps. Jesus. Image
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2) How the Pentagon is Quietly Building Trump’s Concentration Camps

SCOOP: A repurposed Navy contract to funnel tens of billions to ICE for a nationwide "ghost network” of concentration camps—just got a lot bigger.

By @PabloReports
migrantinsider.com/p/how-the-pent…
3) A massive Navy contract vehicle, once valued at $10 billion, has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda.
The mechanism for this expansion is the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract (WEXMAC), originally designed for military logistics abroad. In a move to bypass traditional competition delays, the Navy’s Supply Systems Command has repurposed the vehicle for “TITUS”—Territorial Integrity of the United States.
This $45 billion increase, published just weeks ago, converts the U.S. into a “geographic region” for expeditionary military-style detention. It signals a massive, long-term escalation in the government’s capacity to pay for detention and deportation logistics. In the world of federal contracting, it is the difference between a temporary surge and a permanent infrastructure.
As for taxpayer accountability over how their money gets spent, there is no "grace period" or setup time for contractors. The companies already contracting with the government are grandfathered into future contract increases. The Navy turns a "pilot program" into a permanent, massive-scale operation overnight with fast money incentives like “task orders” that can be issued in days or even hours.
Task orders allow DHS to bypass the months-long public bidding process for every new facility. When the contract says task orders are issued when "specific dates and locations are identified," it means the infrastructure is currently a "ghost" network that can be materialized anywhere in the U.S. the moment a site is picked.
Read 6 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Jan 29
📉25% LOWER ALL-CAUSE MORTALITY! Wowzers—one of the largest long-term safety studies ever undertaken—offers the clearest answer yet: “Among 28 million French adults aged 18–59, those who received an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine were less likely to die in the subsequent four years than those who remained unvaccinated, corresponding to a 25% lower risk of death from all causes.”—and works even better among young adults—⬇️35% lower risk for ages 18-29!

Links in thread 🧵 below👇Image
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2) Vaccinated individuals had a 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19 (weighted hazard ratio [wHR], 0.26 [95% CI, 0.22-0.30]) and a 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality (wHR, 0.75 [95% CI, 0.75-0.76]), with a similar association observed when excluding severe COVID-19 death. Sensitivity analysis revealed that vaccinated individuals consistently had a lower risk of death, regardless of the cause. Mortality was 29% lower within 6 months following COVID-19 vaccination (relative incidence, 0.71 [95% CI, 0.69-0.73]).

jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…Image
3) also importantly, “The study found no increase in the risk of deaths from cancer, heart disease, accidental injury or any other major category: in every case, vaccinated individuals had equal or lower rates of death.”
gavi.org/vaccineswork/m…
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Jan 12
☢️THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR LIFE—E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution. the EPA plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives.

Gift🎁🔗
nytimes.com/2026/01/12/cli…Image
2) For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules.
Not anymore.
3) Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Oct 14, 2025
🧠DEMENTIA PREVENTION—Almost everyone needs to go out now and get the shingles vaccine ASAP. Don’t wait until age 50 for standard eligibility—ask your doctor for singles vax. MULTIPLE large studies worldwide now show that shingles vaccine strongly prevents dementia onset. Do it. Image
2) Both the RZV vaccine (Shingrix) shown in red, and the ZVL vaccine (purple line) against shingles prevented dementia.

nature.com/articles/s4159…Image
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3) In addition to shingles vaccine, the TDAP vaccine (against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), flu vaccine, and RSV vaccines all prevent dementia too. Get the shots to save your brain. 🧠

Gift 🎁 link 🔗
wapo.st/4700VJL
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Sep 22, 2025
⚠️TYLENOL & AUTISM—RFK Jr and Trump are wrong—the largest & best study in the world in 2.5 MILLION KIDS—found no increased autism risk with acetaminophen (aka paracetamol, Tylenol) use by the mother during pregnancy. A crude unadjusted analysis found only a preliminary 5% risk, but once you adjust for family by matching using sibling controls (who didn’t get autism), the even tiny 5% risk vaporizes to 0% 📉. (Fun fact: I used to do drug safety epidemiology and have been whistleblower against big pharma when their drugs were dangerous—so I know a few things about drug safety data). Thread 🧵.Image
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2) “To address unobserved confounding, matched full sibling pairs were also analyzed. Sibling control analyses found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with autism…”

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…Image
3) “Conclusions and Relevance  Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analysis. This suggests that associations observed in other models may have been attributable to familial confounding.”

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…Image
Read 14 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Jun 16, 2025
📍 THE 17 FIRED MEMBERS OF CDC’s VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACIP) speak out…

📍“As former ACIP members, we are deeply concerned that these destabilizing decisions, made without clear rationale, may roll back the achievements of US immunization policy, impact people’s access to lifesaving vaccines, and ultimately put US families at risk of dangerous and preventable illnesses.” 🔥

Full text:

Vaccines are one of the greatest global public health achievements. Vaccine recommendations have been critical to the global eradication of smallpox and the elimination of polio, measles, rubella, and congenital rubella syndrome in the US. They have also dramatically decreased cases of hepatitis, meningitis, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, tetanus, and varicella (chickenpox), and prevented cancers caused by hepatitis B virus and human papillomaviruses.1 Recent scientific advancements enabled the accelerated development, production, and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines, leveraging novel technologies that are estimated to have prevented approximately 1.6 million hospitalizations and 235 000 deaths in the US alone.2
For more than 60 years, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—codified in the federal regulations (42 USC 217a: advisory councils or committees)—has served as a panel of experts that reviews the most up-to-date evidence on vaccines and monoclonal antibodies (eg, against respiratory syncytial virus [RSV]), providing sound recommendations to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding how vaccines should be used. ACIP recommendations are the cornerstone of the immunization program in this country. First, they serve as guidance and are the national standard for the use of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized and licensed vaccines, providing a unified and trusted approach to vaccinations for the diverse array of immunization providers across the US. Second, they ensure science-based and tested immunization schedules that are optimized for well-timed protection against serious diseases. Third, the recommendations affect insurance coverage and safeguard broad access for vaccines. Fourth, ACIP’s continued monitoring of disease epidemiology and scrutiny of vaccine safety inform timely updates to recommendations that have maintained the trust and protection of the population. This transparent and ongoing surveillance of vaccines is one of the most stringent around the world, historically making the deliberations and decisions of this committee a beacon for immunization programs globally, while also serving as the foundation for recommendations harmonized with leading medical organizations in the US.3,4
ACIP committee members have always been selected through a rigorous process based on their expertise in immunology, epidemiology, pediatrics, obstetrics, internal and family medicine, geriatrics, infectious diseases, and public health. Historically, committee members were chosen because they worked at hospitals, clinics, health departments, universities, and other organizations where they dedicated themselves to caring for patients, conducting research, and helping to prevent and treat infectious diseases. Members’ deep understanding of immunization issues ensured that vaccine policies were grounded in scientific evidence, aligned with the needs of economically, socially, and medically diverse US communities, and always considered the public value, trust, and acceptability of vaccines.
Despite recent suggestions to the contrary, health care providers and the US public trust ACIP. For the past 18 years, the National Immunization Survey has shown that 99 of every 100 children in the US have received at least some recommended vaccines by 2 years of age, consistent with acceptance of ACIP recommendations implemented by trusted clinicians (National Immunization Survey - Childof Healthy People 2030).…Image
2) Full text part 2:

This does not suggest the population is so distrustful that it warrants dismantling the process by which vaccines have been recommended. ACIP standard procedures have minimized the risk of alleged conflicts of interest and biases. For decades, members of ACIP have undergone a thorough application and review process to participate. Proposed members submitted letters of support from other known experts and peers, completed an interview process, underwent a background check, and disclosed financial interests that might be considered a conflict, including any professional or financial relationships of immediate family members. Historically, it has taken up to 2 years for nominees to be approved to join ACIP.
Once part of the committee, ACIP members spent significant time preparing for meetings, reviewing the scientific evidence, and chairing work groups that, along with many CDC public health officials, led to the final recommendations that were determined during public meetings, which also included opportunities for public comment. Recordings of these meetings, agendas, and presentations were publicly available. Additionally, members agreed to ongoing monitoring and disclosure throughout their tenure. For example, potential conflicts of interest were reviewed throughout their time on the committee. Statements about potential conflicts were required during each meeting and before each vote, and members recused themselves from voting if any conflicts were identified. These disclosures have also recently been posted on the CDC website for public scrutiny. ACIP was among the most stringent and transparent of the federal committees, and we hope those criteria will apply to any new members joining the committee.
The abrupt dismissal of the entire membership of the ACIP, along with its executive secretary, on June 9, 2025, the appointment of 8 new ACIP members just 2 days later, and the recent reduction of CDC staff dedicated to immunizations have left the US vaccine program critically weakened.5,6 These actions have stripped the program of the institutional knowledge and continuity that have been essential to its success over decades. Notably, the ACIP charter specifies that committee members serve overlapping terms to ensure continuity and avoid precisely the disruption that will now ensue. The termination of all members and its leadership in a single action undermines the committee’s capacity to operate effectively and efficiently, aside from raising questions about competence.
Compounding these concerns, recent changes to COVID-19 vaccine policy, made directly by the HHS secretary and released on social media, appear to have bypassed the standard, transparent, and evidence-based review process.7 Such actions reflect a troubling disregard for the scientific integrity that has historically guided US immunization strategy. The newly stated strategy to replace ACIP members with individuals who will “exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry” is already leading to warnings by academic and scientific institutions, professional organizations, and the public who for decades have known well that these sought-after qualities precisely characterized the now-dismissed members of the ACIP.5
3) Part 3:

As former ACIP members, we are deeply concerned that these destabilizing decisions, made without clear rationale, may roll back the achievements of US immunization policy, impact people’s access to lifesaving vaccines, and ultimately put US families at risk of dangerous and preventable illnesses. Vaccines and the anti-RSV monoclonal antibodies are lifesaving, and people in the US deserve to have recommendations and broad access to use them to prevent serious diseases. In this age of government efficiency, the US public needs to know that the routine vaccination of approximately 117 million children from 1994-2023 likely prevented around 508 million lifetime cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1 129 000 deaths, at a net savings of $540 billion in direct costs and $2.7 trillion in societal costs.8Finally, as individuals, we remain committed to evidence-based vaccine policy, both through our ongoing work in immunization science, public health, and medical education, and by supporting future efforts to keep America healthy that uphold scientific rigor and the public’s trust.
Read 4 tweets

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