The most impressive US accomplishment of the 1st 100 @POTUS days is having built a wall to fend off a major B.1.1.7 strain surge. Vaccine immunity in >140 million people provided the requisite defense against this more formidable version of the virus.
It will be remembered as an extraordinary time when Americans came together to vaccinate up to 4.6 million people in a day, with tens of thousands of volunteers helping to get one another protected
Now for the 1st time the goal of containment is in sight, which will be harder, getting tens of million more vaccinated with incentives, education & taking on the aggressive anti-vaxx movement
And the vital need to turn outward, to help the rest of the world build a similar wall
What is containment?
What the UK and Israel achieved: ~2 new cases/100,000 people
We are at 17/100K and our only way to get there is more vaccination
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An exceptionally important perspective on the anti-vaccine empire, by @PeterHotez@nature today nature.com/articles/d4158…
The need for a counteroffensive to hundreds of websites, ~58 million social media followers, influential groups, Russia-sponsored disinformation to defeat covid
In 2020, T cells were largely ignored w/r to covid infections.
In 2021, T cells are being largely ignored w/t to covid vaccinations.
In part, because they are rarely assessed.
A review of some recent studies /1
A misleading headline
No question about the profound crisis in India but to ascribe it to B.1.617, a variant of interest, in inaccurate,
It's not a "double mutant"—there are 13 mutations /1
2 other major variants, B.1.351 (SA)and B.1.1.7 (UK), are circulating (graph via @trvrb) See his🧵
"It's hard for me to infer the degree to which new variants are driving the surge in cases in India" /2
The 3 key spike mutations in B.1.617
E484Q is unlikely to be of consequence cell.com/cell-host-micr…
L452R is shared with CA variant; it has some but not very high level of immune evasion
P681R in many other variants, of uncertain significance /3
Just published @nature
The largest study of post-covid sequelae, >70,000 hospitalized, >13,000 out-patients, with controls, characterizing the significant risks across all organ systems #LongCovidnature.com/articles/s4158…
New case report and correspondence @NEJM nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… “Our case suggests that the rare occurrence of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) could be related to the adenoviral vector”
If you have zero cerebral venous sinus thromboses (CVST) and low platelets after 182 million doses of mRNA vaccines but do see this, albeit very rarely, with at least 2 adenovirus vector vaccines, I think "could be related" is an understatement.
I am disappointed that ACIP is putting off any J&J vaccine recommendations for another 7-10 days to review more data, since it is unlikely that will change anything or the need to make a decision
I wrote about the variants @nytopinion today, concluding:
"The science of virus variants and evidence from our vaccine armamentarium should instill confidence that we’re moving toward the [pandemic] exit ramp" nytimes.com/2021/04/13/opi…
Why should we be confident about our ability to prevail over the virus variants?
All variants are innocent until proven guilty.
Most are scariants. A handful are real.
A thread to update what we know about them
My summary table, updated: 1. The magnitude of B.1.1.7 higher lethality now in question with new @TheLancetInfDis paper (for review of all studies, see table by @_nickdavies: