Thread by @yaneerbaryam

Bhutan vaccinated 35.6% of its population in 13 days (with at least one dose).

(This had been planned for a while, as they accumulated a stockpile of doses, and awaited an auspicious time to deploy them:

https://twitter.com/VanGennepD/status/1358187375592095750

)

1/

Per-capita, Bhutan has had 1/100 as many Covid cases as the US, and 1/1,000 as many deaths.

2/

Bhutan may end up being the first country to both sustain zero-Covid from the beginning, as well as reach sufficient vaccination that they are likely to keep it out permanently. (At least, with the original variant.) Congratulations, Bhutan!

3/

President Surangel Whipps, Jr. of Palau arrived in Taiwan to open the travel bubble (the first foreign dignitary to visit Taiwan since the beginning of the pandemic)

4/

"Taiwanese health authorities had calculated that the chance of Covid-19 reaching Palau via the travel bubble was one in four million."

5/

"We feel that we can now tango. We can work together and feel safe. We trust each other... There is no guarantee that there won't be any Covid. There is no guarantee. However we've done everything to prepare ourselves."

6/

A one-in-four-million chance of Covid entering their country: that was the threshold at which they felt safe enough to allow travel -- even in light of economic struggle, in a nation “which before the pandemic relied on tourism for more than half its gross domestic product.”

7/

It is safe to say that if the rest of the world knew how to price the risk of Covid outbreaks, as Palau exemplifies, we could get to a far better economy quite soon.

8/

Florida may have under-reported Covid deaths by almost 5,000 from March until September of last year.

https://twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/status/1376894825136599040

9/

“Our results suggest that Florida experienced 19 241 (15.5%) excess deaths from March to Sept 2020, including 14 317 COVID-19 deaths and an additional 4924 all-cause, excluding COVID-19, deaths”

10/

ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJ…

Adding this here

https://twitter.com/DrZoeHyde/status/1362994944806281216?s=20

[Thanks @geekblake for helping with today's update.]