Thread by @LizSzabo

LIVE @DrPaulOffit: Good news. No difference in rates of Bell's palsy between vaccinated people and non-vaccinated.

Some ppl have developed bleeding issues a day after vaccine, but that's "too soon" for the vaccine to have caused the bleeding.

https://twitter.com/JAMA_current/status/1359982319273086978

I'm live tweeting another great interview w/ Dr. Howard Bauchner. He notes that we have 6 months now of vaccine data, since first large study began. No serious safety issues. He said he's reassured.

LIVE: "Here's when to worry" about covid variants eluding vaccines, @drpauloffit says, when people who were vaccinated gets covid again and is hospitalized."

LIVE: Brazilian and South African variants are "very close. When you talk about one, you talk about the other." What you really care about is clinical response, not test tube data. @JNJGlobalHealth found the vaccine could prevent hospitalization/death from covid, even in Africa

LIVE: @drpauloffit says testing a new vaccine against a vaccinated person's blood is an incomplete test. In real life, the vaccine is usually more effective than it appears in blood, b/c patients in real life can rally T-cells out of their bone marrow

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT says, "It is a bat coronavirus. It is adapting itself to be transmitted in humans... That's what the virus does."

LIVE. @drpauloffit said @NIHDirector reconvened the ACTIV vaccine work group to talk about covid variants. "We thought we were done. Now, with the variants, we are meeting again."

LIVE: When you get your second dose "you get a tremendous dose of neutralizing antibodies," says @drpauloffit. "It's a powerful response that's good enough" to protect against *current* South African strain.

LIVE: Companies are working with FDA on ways to update vaccines, if needed, to protect against variants. They could have a multivalent vaccine to protect against multiple varieties of coronavirus, says @drpauloffit.

LIVE. "There will be more variants. We can be assured of that." The hard part was not developing the vaccine. The hard part is "we've never had a mass distribution system for adults... Now the biggest problem is production" says @drpauloffit.

Dr. Howard Bauchner wonders if people will accept the @JNJGlobalHealth vaccine. "We set the bar so high at 95%, people aren't going to be satisfied at 60-70%." khn.org/news/article/w…

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT notes that @JNJGlobalHealth is researching a 2-dose vaccine. If it works better than a one dose vaccine, he said, you'd just get the second dose.

LIVE: @drpauloffit notes that @merck's Ebola vaccine used in West Africa was done on an emergency authorization. Company then went back and got regular FDA approval. Covid vaccine makers could do same.

LIVE: Which questions do you really want to know, Howard Bauchner asks. @drpauloffit says "Things that worry me the most" = Will a viral variant emerge that makes the vaccine not work?

Second thing that @drpauloffit worries the most about -- a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine. But so far, the vaccines are amazingly safe.

LIVE: The last thing @drpauloffit worries about: Will the anti-vaccine lobby be so influential that large numbers of people refuse covid vaccines, preventing us from reaching herd immunity?

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT said he feels good that more and more people are willing to get the covid vaccine. It's normal to be hesitant, he said, about a novel technology.

LIVE: "We're all vaccine skeptics," says @drpauloffit. "Everyone who sits around the table at the FDA, you want to see the data." But he said we have data on 40 million Americans and the vaccine is very safe.

LIVE: @drpauloffit. "You're only as strong as the weakest country out there." We still give polio vaccine even though there hasn't been a case in the U.S. since the 1970s b.c polio is still spreading in Pakistan. Someone infected w/ polio could arrive in U.S. any time.

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT. Chinese vaccine is made the way "we make the rabies vaccine." He wants the Chinese vaccine data published.

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT: Vaccine now being tested in thousands of children as young as 12 to make sure the vaccine makes neutralizing antibodies. "You're not going to see efficacy trials in children" with 40,000 people.

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT: The number of kids who died from covid this year is about the same as seasonal influenza. Eventually, kids will be vaccinated.

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT: "You have to be humble and expect surprises in medicine."

LIVE @DRPAULOFFIT: Will covid vaccines be mandated? "I don't think states will mandate these vaccines" b/c they were approved through emergency authorization, which makes them basically an experimental product.

LIVE: @DRPAULOFFIT says he is guardedly optimistic about the spring, hoping that covid will spread more slowly as the weather gets warmer and more people are outside.

That is the END of Dr. Howard Bauchner's interview w. @drpauloffit, although you can watch the video.

Every interview with Offit feels like a lightning round b/c he talks so damn fast. ;--)

@threadreaderapp unroll please