Thread by @DrEricDing

Hospital ICUs overwhelmed despite fast vaccinations—Chile 🇨🇱 made a critical mistake—its government eased restrictions on travel, business and schools much too early, creating a false sense of confidence that pandemic was over. This always been my fear. 🧵
nytimes.com/2021/03/30/wor…

2) “But the country’s speedy and efficient vaccination drive — only Israel, UAE & Seychelles have vaccinated more per capita — gave Chileans a false sense of security and contributed to a sharp spike in new infections and deaths that is overloading the health care system.”

3) “The surge in cases, even as >1/3 of Chile has received at least the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, serves as a cautionary tale for other nations looking to vaccination drives to quickly put an end to the era of beleaguered economies, closed borders, and social distancing.

4) “The rise in cases triggered a new set of strict lockdown measures that have restricted mobility for much of the country, affecting nearly 14 million people.”

5) My take—I’ve said many times before this was my biggest fear, more than even mutations. That the moment we start vaccinating, political leaders will get pressure to immediately reopen before enough people been vaccinated. And political pressure will build more and more....

6) Especially after vaccinating elderly, the pressure on politicians will be so great that they would then swing the doors open to celebrate their vaccine program success and try to capitalize on immediate reopening euphoria politically. But they will endanger more...

7) Because vaccinations arriving will give the lay public the sense that pandemic is basically over whenever there are critical nuances of efficacy time delay, lack of vaccine herd immunity until 75-85% of population vaccinated (even higher if more contagious variant)...

8) basically this euphoria and false sense of success will cause people to potentially become EVEN MORE RECKLESS and cavalier in their personal behaviors—which may lead people to spread the virus more among those unvaccinated & recently vaccinated with incomplete protection yet.

9) And we know from epidemiology that comparing "faster spread & lower severity" vs "slower spread & high severity" scenarios—which will lead to more people hospitalized in the end???

➡️ faster spread & low severity will yield more total hospitalizations. that is brutal truth.

10) Furthermore, Chile is using SinoVac’s CoronaVac, which in Brazil only recorded 50.4% efficacy for total symptomatic infections. (It’s 78% effective in preventing mild cases that needed treatment and 100% effective for moderate to serious cases)
google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.…

11) “When transmission rates are high, the vaccine does not rein in new infections right away. And with the new variants, which are more contagious, we’re not likely to see a big impact until the vast majority of the population is vaccinated.”

12) Chile vaccination rate is very high, yes. But it is a VERY recent surge in vaccine rollout. Remember SinoVac’s vaccine is a 2 dose vaccine that needs 2-3 weeks after each shot for efficacy, which is a moderate 50% overall. So only early/mid Feb people are “fully” vaccinated.

13) People (politicians & lay public) are also very very slow to recognize what has long been exponential increase until it’s too late. People often think of exponential increase as just the vertical rise in cases—but that’s not only what exponential increase is—hence react late.

14) Hospital ICUs now at the highest level of the pandemic in Chile 🇨🇱. Rushing to open is always tempting but it’s the road to disaster if we don’t mitigate until vaccinations are high enough.

https://twitter.com/gemvep_usach/status/1376907841387302919

15) There is a strong reason 🇩🇪 Chancellor Merkel warned about a surge was coming. She knew we couldn’t fully reopen. Because she understood the data. More politicians need to understand the data, especially on the variants. See 🧵

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1375450991647207426