Thread by @AbraarKaran

1/ Three Cs from Japan- avoid crowds, prolonged close contact, & closed spaces (poor ventilation)

These fundamental principles must be the core of reducing transmission during #covid19 surges in large unvaccinated populations

Adhering to these requires serious social supports

2/ There will still be a number of essential activities that must be done for survival.

The safest way to do these is with the best personal protective equipment available: namely, high filtration masks, whether N95 or reusable eN95 respirators, or equivalents KF94, KN95, FFP2

3/ Beyond these, rapid at-home POC diagnostics (cc @RanuDhillon @sri_srikrishna) at scale could be key; ideally, these should be available universally before surges happen--> these can quickly remove highly-infectious people from the pool daily before they become superspreaders

4/ The combination of 3Cs, social supports, high-filtration masks, & rapid POC diagnostics could functionally stop epidemic surges until populations are vaccinated.
#covid19

5/ We wrote about this in the context of controlling the current surge in India @washingtonpost

We are also working w/ mask & brace manufacturers as a team to tackle one part of this strategy for India @larmbrust @KatherinePasem1 @FixTheMask

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/0…

6/ We have been clear about the role of hi-fi masks since the beginning; as far back as the first surge in the US April 2020, we argued that to safely reopen, get the public better PPE especially for indoor, crowded use such as in workplaces @HarvardBiz
hbr.org/2020/05/a-plan…

7/ When we received significant pushback on this- primarily from academia, incl infectious disease & public health experts who were convinced that droplets were the primary mode of #SARSCoV2 transmission, we tried to build the case for essential workers
hbr.org/2020/10/essent…

8/ Some argued that hospitals, where everyone wore surgical masks, were evidence that the public was OK w/ cloth.

Hospitals which had better ventilation, regular testing, & which used 3-ply medical grade masks at minimum +N95s for any Covid rule-out cases...

9/ Not to mention that patients are most infectious right before they become symptomatic; meaning, by the time they are sick & admitted to hospitals, they are likely less to be contagious than when they are in the community setting (not always the case, of course)
#covid19

10/ Ultimately, we spent the last year in the US trying to figure out how to stop #covid19 before we had vaccines

Vaccines are a game-changer, no doubt

But countries around the world are now suffering because of vaccine inequity

11/ Figuring out the most scalable solutions to curb transmission quickly is essential.

While this seems like an India or South Asia problem now, it is very much a global issue-- many of us are concerned where these catastrophic surges are going to pop up next. #covid19