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Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
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24 Mar, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Bad News Bias: "The U.S. media is offering a different picture of Covid-19 from science journals or the international media, a study finds." Incredibly incisive continued reporting by @DLeonhardt of NYT. Media in this country biased towards bad news.
nytimes.com/2021/03/24/bri…
It is not your imagination. See figure on share of COVID-19 coverage that is negative. Article writes "If we’re constantly telling a negative story, we are not giving our audience the most accurate portrait of reality. We are shading it". This portrait of reality is not
what we are reading in the science journals, where reality is so much more positive. Media is focusing on few places where cases rising, not majority where they are falling for instance. Or not focused enough on who is still in hospital- unvaccinated. Grateful to @DLeonhardt
So, I repeat my tweet from yesterday. When you vaccinate the majority of individuals in a healthcare worker setting or nursing home, this is what #covid19 looks like; this is what will happen..will be very hard to get covid19 and restrictions will end.

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More from @MonicaGandhi9

Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
25 Mar
Excellent biostatistician @dvgbiostat can help us understand how LOW your risk of getting #covid19 is after vaccination:
-Without vaccination, would expect among 1000 people to see 26 infections
-With full vax among 1000 people, would see 0.5 (or a 50/50 chance of seeing 0 or 1)
Using data from the two healthcare worker studies in NEJM 3/23 DURING surge much exposure (HCW). Also few cases could be asymptomatic and noninfectious. As community prevalence goes down with mass vax, risk vanishingly low.
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
Since papers didn't tell us whether the very low number who got COVID (4/8121) after vax had low viral loads in their nose (or asymptomatic as had asymptomatic screening in one study), likely vaccination controlled symptoms, spread too. Image
Read 6 tweets
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
25 Mar
Important to look at dropping hospitalizations in U.S. among older groups getting vaccinated when judging power of the vaccines (as opposed to younger groups not yet vaccinated). So, when you look at crude cases not yet dropping in many places, look at age-based hospitalizations
From CDC source, Look at drop in last 7-day hospital admissions from 2/24/21 to today- rate drop more dramatic in older ages
>65 yrs: Down -44% (17,019 to 9491)
50-63 yr: Down -23% (15,987 to 12207)
18-49 yrs: Down -16% from 2/24/21 (9058 to 7065)
covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…
Greater drop in hospitalizations among older due to >65 being vaccinated first (although 2 doses in majority of >65 not yet reached). In terms of New Jersey, one of the slowest states to vaccinate long-term care facilities which explains lower drop there
Read 5 tweets
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
23 Mar
True, cases going up in Michigan, uptick in hospitalizations but deaths remaining low so far, 3 facts:
-Smaller proportion of new cases from >=60 yrs old
-Hospitalizations per case lower than rate before vaccines started
-Deaths staying low
bridgemi.com/michigan-healt…
See this report. So, like in UK and Israel when B117 more transmissible, vaccinations will bring this down but would go as fast as possible there, keep restrictions until get to higher rate, will come down. Severity of illness/ case lower already with vax: wwmt.com/news/local/as-…
And twitter friend reminded me prior surges in Michigan were more mild so likely not a lot of natural immunity. Unlike CA which has 30% natural immunity after latest surge + vaccines on top of it= quick quell
sfchronicle.com/health/article…
Read 4 tweets
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
22 Mar
U.S. trial of AztraZeneca results out. 32,449 adult participants, 2 doses, 4 wks apart. 5 cases of severe COVID-19 illness and all in placebo arm so protects against this (from WaPo article). 141 cases total, 79% effective, 80% in those >65; no clots
apnews.com/article/us-dat…
Think great to have 4th option. But agree with this article is U.S. isn't going to use the doses, then please donate them
nytimes.com/2021/03/17/opi…
Here is actual press release from U. of Oxford on the new trial- conducted in U.S., Chile, Peru. Must have given more details to reporters to get the above, but the page also includes all the previous AZ data and the real-world data so nice summary overall
ox.ac.uk/news/2021-03-2…
Read 7 tweets
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
22 Mar
When people say 'it is a race between cases and vaccines', I don't really think variants are driving that race, just the virus itself. In the 3 places in the country where variants most prevalent (FL, Michigan, CA), cases going down in 2 of them (FL, CA). cdc.gov/coronavirus/20… Image
Above is link if you want to look at variant prevalence in our country from CDC (of course, depends on genotyping). Nor - to be fair- does opening in FL, Mississippi, Texas seem to be associated with increasing cases although other states opening too. nytimes.com/interactive/20… Image
Overall across varied country, cases, hospitalizations and deaths all down as shown by above link and figures as we increase vaccination rate but vaccination rate still variable across country & 25% of our population has had 1 dose (compared to 40% UK).
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Read 4 tweets
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH Profile picture
21 Mar
Wanted to drill down a bit more about the importance of the T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 to give you more reassurance of enduring protection from vaccines (even against variants). Technical article here but CD4/CD8 cells have role in both acute infection cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092…
But, importantly, in recovered infection to give you durable immunity, along with memory B cells. Latter simulated by vaccine-induced immunity (you didn't get acute infection, you stimulate the immune response so that you can't get infected if you encounter virus). If you
just measure antibodies, you are measuring "tip of iceberg" in terms of your immune response to natural infection or vaccination so always ask - what about T cell responses to either? (and eventually, memory B cells too which give you long durable immunity). In fact, authors
Read 12 tweets

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