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Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
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6 May, 7 tweets, 2 min read
Feeling great today on my ER shift:
- hardly any new critically ill COVID cases
- almost every patient I’ve seen is vaccinated with at least one shot

And the good news keeps coming:
It looks like vaccines will work for all of the variants of concern:
By Sept-Oct almost every child will have access to them as well:
Some places like Saskatchewan are developing fairly solid reopening plans tied to overall vaccination rates:
And a single shot of vaccine is proving to be very effective, though we should prioritize second doses for 70+ people.
Numbers will come down in the next few weeks, but we shouldn’t relax prematurely. We can completely crush COVID transmission and ensure safety for our kids until they get their shots this fall. Let’s aim for ZeroCovid:
Expanding on one of the points above, just how amazingly effective even a single dose of the vaccines are:

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More from @KashPrime

Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
6 May
Data from @GovCanHealth which was obtained by @kellygrant1 at @globeandmail with some astonishing stats on effectiveness of the vaccines, even after a single dose. The calculations behind these numbers are here: Image
This matches roughly with similar stats published by Ontario Public Health. You can download it here: publichealthontario.ca/-/media/docume…
Also discussed here:
Much discussion about the new study from Qatar showing the second dose is more effective, but our situations are not comparable. They stuck to the 3w schedule, so could not study how immunity evolves after more time.
cp24.com/news/early-eff…
Read 7 tweets
Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
27 Apr
Nova Scotia is giving everyone a masterclass on how to crush an outbreak. With a test positive rate of just 1% they are
- closing schools, non-essential businesses
- limiting essential retail to 25% capacity
- rapid testing 2% of the population daily - a huge undertaking
They long ago limited entry into the province, non resident visitors are being turned back at the border and airport. A far cry from the tepid restrictions at the national border.
cbc.ca/news/canada/no…
Their premier even posts his itinerary everyday! You can just tell every minute is being spent making things safer for his people. A very sharp contrast to the rest of the country.
Read 7 tweets
Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
26 Apr
Yet another missed opportunity in this pandemic. A drug developed in Canada, and is used all over the US... only to languish on shelves here. Used early enough it can spare many from severe Covid-19. Many of my patients here could have benefited...
Early trials with just the single antibody showed a tepid response, but combined with etesevimab, both together showed really promising results with no real downside to the patient. 70% reduction in hospitalization and death.
investor.lilly.com/news-releases/…
This represents multiple failures

1) Gatekeeping by our public health and infectious disease experts who are far too conservative and refuse to consider a novel treatment at a critical time, and used the initial issues with the single drug to write off the entire drug category
Read 6 tweets
Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
18 Apr
Our travel precaution system in Canada is a joke. We need to stop international travel, especially from hotspot countries with lots of variants. We could have prevented or slowed the spread of the UK and P1 variants in Canada, but chose not to.
Passengers from India are the number one source of travel related Covid cases, and the country is nursing a huge surge of cases with its own new variant, the B.1.617 or 'Amravati' variant. Fake negative Covid tests can be easily bought prior to travel.
The second highest source of Covid cases is the UAE, which will soon return their double-decker superjumbo jet into service on the Dubai-Toronto route
torontosun.com/news/local-new…
Read 6 tweets
Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
10 Apr
Hard to believe the chair of the infection control committee at the @WHO is spouting misinformation about N95 masks to argue against their widespread use to save lives. This kind of thinking is why the WHO has been almost entirely useless in this fight.
Acne vs Death from Covid. Not much of a choice!

This is the event where this took place, where you can watch the full video:
To some of my infectious disease colleagues:
You were wrong about:
- how serious this pandemic was early on
- the utility of masks
- the early use of therapeutics (steroids, IL-6 inhibitors, monoclonals)
and you are wrong about airborne spread.
Read 5 tweets
Kashif Pirzada, MD Profile picture
9 Apr
Really looking forward to this event later today. Heavyweights in the field discussing how Covid is transmitted. Implications are huge, if we agree its airborne, we can protect billions of people with better masks and ventilation strategies. Register here: events.ucalgary.ca/obrien/#!view/… Image
Dr. John Conly is chair of a WHO expert group responsible for much of their current infection control policy
The WHO is hugely influential in setting policies for 194 member countries; any movement by them on this issue will have a huge impact on the lives of billions.
Advocates have been arguing that SARS2, like SARS1 has significant airborne spread, proven by superspreader events... now only worsened with the new variants. @zeynep's work has been a huge help to us front-liners trying to advocate for this.
Read 8 tweets

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