Good news from #HHS: we are at the LOWEST THREAT LEVEL in the US that we have ever been in the entirety of the pandemic, when looking at cases + positivity rate + inpatient + ICU together (#vaccineswork). Taking each at time: healthdata.gov/Health/COVID-1…
-Test positivity: Last 7 days test positivity rate is lowest it has been during the pandemic: 4.0% (Light Green)
-Cases: 97 cases per 100k for the Last 7 Days down -11% from previous 7 days (Orange)
-Inpatients with COVID-19: At 5% (Light Green)
-ICU for COVID: 11% (Yellow)
.
Still only 3 states outside of the Light Green or Dark Green Zone on Inpatient Beds (MI -- orange, MD, yellow, PA -- yellow). Keep following these metrics to see the pandemic recede with the increasing roll-out of vaccine & decide when public health emergency over in US
Wow, even more good news. US down 10,000 cases in past 7 days (HHS data). Remember my data analyst predicted we could be at 10K cases total in all of US by 5/29/21? Seems possible. Let's watch and see. Tipping point reached and then some. usatoday.com/in-depth/news/…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
7 reasons why think immunity to COVID from vaccination or infection will be long-lived (and why I continue to marvel that CEOs of companies who stand to make profit from boosters get to message that boosters needed; instead, please donate vax to India). 1. Memory B cells:
We discussed this at more length before; remember this amazing memory B cell paper that showed us that 32 people ages 91-101 who survived 1918 flu pandemic STILL had memory B cells that could produce neutralizing antibodies to that strain 9 decades later nature.com/articles/natur…
Memory B cells last long time & hang out in germinal centers (like lymph node) until they are needed again and then come out to produce neutralizing antibodies against the pathogen. Do we know COVID-19 vaccines produce memory B cells? Yes from this paper researchsquare.com/article/rs-310…
Wanted to tweet on masking as getting a lot of interest in this today (I am not a ventilation scientist; I am just an epidemiologist/ID doctor who can see from epidemiology studies how low risk outdoor transmission is). #1, Indoor masking is important when case rates high; wrote
many papers on this over the pandemic including with experts like @linseymarr. But study after study showing how low risk of outside transmission is which led to CDC recommendation of not masking outdoors when vax & many experts to not mask outside at all unless in large crowd.
Those studied summarized by multiple people in multiple threads & we summarized some in this WSJ article below which is why so many now calling on @CDC to remove mask requirements for unvaccinated children outdoors. wsj.com/articles/take-…
Ok, was trying to stay off Twitter until Saturday but this question of children masking outdoors (in camps, etc.) keeps coming up. Let's discuss #outdoortransmission. Viral particles disperse quickly in the outside air medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
A study in Wuhan, China, which involved careful contact tracing, discovered that just one of 7,324 infection events investigated was linked to outdoor transmission (none of the outbreaks identified from outside transmission). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/in…
In a recent analysis of over 232,000 infections in Ireland, only one case of COVID-19 in every thousand was traced to outdoor transmission. irishtimes.com/news/ireland/i…
My understanding is trade commissioner under President Biden (Katherine Tai) deliberating & decision may be made to temporarily waive COVID-19 patents tomorrow. Please see this article I wrote in TIME comparison to HIV (let's not fail moral test) time.com/6046096/india-…
I go over history of the HIV treatment world and how we debated and debated patents on this planet while millions died in sub-Saharan Africa from AIDS in the meantime; it took the international community and activism to change this; we don't have years, we have days with COVID
India and South Africa asked WTO for this temporary waiver of patents in October 2020 and it didn't happen; would India be in different position now? Open letter from Big Pharma to Biden on 3/5/21 said this proposal by India was 'unfortunate'. We can do now (ok, off Twitter 2 d)
Think we are getting tripped up on definition of #herdimmunity: form of indirect protection from an infection that occurs when a significant % of population has become immune to an infection (through vax or previous infection). 74 cases/9.05 million Israel ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/co…
(with openings and mingling) with a 63% 1st dose vaccination rate >16 years old (Pfizer only approved down to 16) means those unvaccinated (not yet or children) have INDIRECT protection from infection because virus not circulating much ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinat…
This is why children back in school without masks/ distancing: they are not protected by vax but by levels of virus circulating to be so low it is close to 2019. Do you see what I mean by definitions? Call it containment but protects others for more & more adults to be immune
Pres. Biden gives metric today of when counties, states, US out of public health emergency which is 70% 1st dose for >18 year old (US at 56.3% 1st dose >18 per CDC data, 14% more to go! CA 63%; SF 72%). Good to link end of emergency to metrics (vax rate) nytimes.com/2021/05/04/us/…
I'd like to be clear what President Biden means by 70% 1st dose vaccination rate >18 years old. We are not at 44.4% first dose for >18 years (that is % total population); we are at 56% >18 years. Use that metric covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…
And one more point- places with high natural immunity like CA who had terrible 3rd surge will come down and stay down with cases sooner - places like MI need higher rates of vax (CA seroprevalence study done while vax not yet rolling in general population) sfchronicle.com/health/article…