Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
May 3, 2021 21 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Sobering—“It is already clear that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily & vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.”

➡️ Vaccine hesitancy hurts public health.🧵 #COVID19
nytimes.com/2021/05/03/hea…
2) I don’t like this— “daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.”
3) “rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in US for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.”

➡️I don’t like waving this surrender flag.
4) “Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe.
5) “The virus is unlikely to go away,” said Rustom Antia, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “But we want to do all we can to check that it’s likely to become a mild infection.”

➡️No, I think we can do better with #ZeroCovid approach.
6) “The shift in outlook presents a new challenge for public health authorities. The drive for herd immunity — by the summer, some experts once thought possible — captured the imagination of large segments of the public.”

➡️putting all eggs into vaccine basket inadequate.
7) “To say the goal will not be attained adds another “why bother” to the list of reasons that vaccine skeptics use to avoid being inoculated.”

➡️ INDEED—this is why this “vaccine savior” singular push is tricky to communicate. We need both vaccines & #ZeroCovid approach.
8) “People were getting confused and thinking you’re never going to get the infections down until you reach this mystical level of herd immunity, whatever that number is,” Fauci said.
“That’s why we stopped using herd immunity in the classic sense,” he added.
9) Fauci: “I’m saying: Forget that for a second. You vaccinate enough people, the infections are going to go down.”

➡️ My take: This is true, but “down” for some (India and Brazil) is not adequately down for others. “Down” is too subjective. And allows authoritarians to dismiss.
10) HERD IS A MOVING TARGET: “Early on, the target herd immunity threshold was estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of the population. Most experts, including Dr. Fauci, expected that the United States would be able to reach it once vaccines were available.
11) “But as vaccines were developed and distribution ramped up through the winter and into the spring, estimates of the threshold began to rise. That is because the initial calculations were based on the contagiousness of the original version of the virus…
12) “The predominant variant now circulating in the United States, called B.1.1.7 and first identified in Britain, is about 60 percent more transmissible.
As a result, experts now calculate the herd immunity threshold to be at least 80 percent…”

MY TAKE: likely 80-90% for #P1.
13) “If even more contagious variants develop, or if scientists find that immunized people can still transmit the virus, the calculation will have to be revised upward again.”

My take➡️ we need to get serious that we need both vaccines and a #ZeroCovid mitigation approach.
14) At this point, all creative approaches to get people to vaccinate are on the table… even comedy…
15) “How insulated a particular region is from the coronavirus depends on a dizzying array of factors.
Herd immunity can fluctuate with “population crowding, human behavior, sanitation and all sorts of other things,” said Dr. David M. Morens, a senior adviser to Dr. Fauci.
16) “The herd immunity for a wealthy neighborhood might be X, then you go into a crowded neighborhood one block away and it’s 10X.”
Given the degree of movement, a small wave in a region with a low vaccination level can easily spill over into where a majority of is protected.
17) “At the same time, the connectivity between countries, particularly as travel restrictions ease, emphasizes the urgency of protecting not just Americans but everyone in the world, said Natalie E. Dean. Any variants that arise in the world will eventually reach the US.” ⚠️
18) Let me repeat: •Any variants that arise in the world will eventually reach the United States”!

➡️So damnit, those living in cushy bubbles in Manhattan who think we don’t have to worry about 🇧🇷#P1 or 🇮🇳 #B1617 variants coming to the US (you know who you are!)—wake up!
19) The only one thing that annoys me as much as anti-mask/anti-vax people are those who are “don’t worry about variants / vaccines will solve it soon” folks who dismiss the seriousness of variants & and foolishly think #COVID19 is over in US. It’s not!

nytimes.com/2021/05/03/hea…
20) Also, #P1 is rising across many parts of the US, hence we need to vaccinate more than ever.
21) Unvaccinated people need to stop thinking they are invulnerable.

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More from @DrEricDing

Mar 26
HOLY CRAP! The Francis Scott Key Bridge has collapsed after a ship collision in Baltimore. The 1,200 feet (366 m) span bridge was the third longest span of any continuous truss in the world.

2) my god— The Francis Scott Key bridge is one of the main highways that forms the beltway of Baltimore. The collapse has been called a mass casualty incident and it is unknown at this time how many vehicles may have been on the bridge at the time of the collision & collapse. wtop.com/baltimore/2024…Image
3) Multiple vehicles have fallen into the water. This is not a small bridge folks - it’s one of the largest truss bridges in the world - and facilitates much of the flow of shipping in the port of Baltimore - which is now likely toast for a while.
wtop.com/baltimore/2024…
Read 16 tweets
Mar 19
Dear @CDCDirector Mandy Cohen… you’ve completed abdicated the “control and prevention” in CDC’s name. Countless have been maimed by #LongCovid, and continue to be harmed.

My thoughts on @Slate’s health podcast—13:30 min mark—



slate.com/podcasts/well-…
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wel…
2) What @CDCDirector did by dropping isolation rules for active #Covid infectious patients— to green light them to goto work and school and shopping centers to spread the virus is complete dereliction of duty to public health. See thread 🧵 on details why. 👇
3) of course I had to misspell “completely” in top post. But while to err is human…. To correct… divine. Maybe @CDCDirector Cohen should learn some contrition. Meanwhile:
Read 4 tweets
Mar 15
📰BREAKING UPDATE—A close friend of @Boeing whistleblower John Barnett who was found dead in his hotel parking lot last week (while still testifying against Boeing) said he had told her just before his court deposition—➡️”If anything happens to me, it's not suicide." See 🧵👇
2) "I know that he did not commit suicide," said Jennifer, a friend of Barnett's. "There's no way." ➡️Jennifer said they talked about this exact scenario playing out.

However, now, his words seem like a premonition he told her directly not to believe.

abcnews4.com/news/local/if-…
Image
3) "I know John because his mom and my mom are best friends," Jennifer said. "Over the years, get-togethers, birthdays, celebrations and whatnot. We've all got together and talked." When Jennifer needed help one day, Barnett came by to see her. They talked about his upcoming deposition in Charleston. Jennifer knew Barnett filed an extremely damaging complaint against Boeing. He said the aerospace giant retaliated against him when he blew the whistle on unsafe practices.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 13
📍Hey folks—on #TikTok—as an American born in China—I have a few thoughts in this post. First of all, I would NOT ever recommend allowing TikTok to access your contact book 📔 of friends, or let TikTok connect to find your Facebook friends, or add your phone number. TikTok claims to be a “global private company” but it’s a wholly owned Chinese company—how big of a deal is it? Well, years ago, Google hit the nuclear eject button and forced itself to fully pulled out of mainland China—why? Because Google got into a fight with Chinese govt—because any media company operating in China must be subject to CCP control and grant communications access (read: for censors/monitoring/data tapping) to the CCP government. Google refused—and hence Google doesn’t operate anywhere in mainland China anymore. For same reason… TikTok being owned by Bytedance, a wholly owned China company—they are subject to same CCP control. TikTok just needs to divested from China and become US owned. Do yourself a favor meantime — disconnect your address contact book 📕 and your FB from TikTok if you must use it, and try not to use your📱number if possible (but still use a 2FA). I don’t want a ban of TikTok but I do support the TikTok divestment from China (so that it is fully US owned). I think TikTok is useful and powerful, but we need to secure it for us fellow Americans by supporting the ***divestment*** so that US controls it. I hope people see I’m not anti-TikTok—I just want us to make it better and more secure to protect our freedom of speech, privacy, and civil liberties. Thanks for listening. And may there be peace ☮️ in the Middle East.Image
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2) I recommend you disconnect as many access points to your phone as possible from TikTok, if you must use it. Trust me on this. I use a ton of social media (I run other large social pages besides Twitter)—but TikTok I don’t touch beyond the most basic limits. Image
3) Congresswoman @RepSpanberger knows what’s she’s talking about — she was a former CIA officer. TikTok will always be subject to Chinese data control as long as it is Bytedance owned.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 11
⚠️HOLY SMOKES—A famous whistleblower against @Boeing on safety issues, has just been suddenly found dead in his truck in his hotel parking lot—all while **testifying in the middle of his week of depositions** against Boeing. JFC. Many of John Barnett’s claims about dangerous Boeing practices have already been verified by the FAA. If we don’t hold accountability for his death, whistleblowers won’t come forward in the future—which would endanger publicly health & safety.
bbc.com/news/business-…Image
Image
2) WTF — “It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.” ➡️ people don’t suddenly commit suicide in a parking lot while at a hotel to testify against @Boeing for days and days.
@Boeing 3) Everyone needs to watch John Oliver @LastWeekTonight episode on Boeing immediately… it’s fire 🔥

Read 23 tweets
Mar 6
“We’ve known, there are lots of studies (that show) up to 50% of all cases are transmitted asymptomatically, which means fever is not the relevant thing here.” And many patients never develop a fever at all during a COVID-19 infection.

Read more at: miamiherald.com/news/coronavir…
2) This means if they are feeling kind of sick but don’t have a fever, they may not isolate at all based and may spread the virus to others. The guidelines are “wishy washy” at best and require people to self-diagnose… if an illness is COVID-19, flu, RSV

miamiherald.com/news/coronavir…
3) “Feeling better is subjective, right? What is ‘feeling better’ to one? If you have symptoms that aren’t better explained by another cause, we don’t have the testing for other causes. And what is ‘better explained’? All these things are just so nebulous and undefinable,”
Read 6 tweets

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