Talk about great men: I’ve gotten to know @drsanjaygupta even pre-pandemic. Honest to god, there’s no one who has worked harder and tirelessly to get it right and speak to the American 🇺🇸 people, a true tzaddik
But there’s so much more: truly great ones: @DrLeanaWen who has put herself out there articulating the complexities of the pandemic, I’ve learned so much
And @celinegounder and her years of infectious diseases experience who takes care of complex patients, I’ve learned so much
Many thanks @AlisynCamerota @VictorBlackwell for hosting me with @celinegounder on new mask rules, based on 1) steep declines in virus transmission, 2) vaccine availability, 3) the science showing reductions in asymptomatic transmission and virus shedding
It shows vaccinations also reduce virus shedding in asymptomatic individuals, it means that vaccinated parents need to worry less about transmitting virus to their unvaccinated kids
That’s ridiculous @joshrogin I never said it doesn’t matter. I said we need an international team to investigate the origins in Hubei Province, collecting samples of blood from local animal reservoirs, people across a wider area. Also I said...
Also I said after the first pandemic CoV emerged from Southern China in 2002, we and others in the scientific community began working on coronavirus vaccines, because we knew this would not be the last. And we were right
The point is China is the perfect mixing bowl of animal reservoirs and dense human populations that gives rise to coronaviruses and influenza viruses, something known for a very long time
For me one takeaway from this morning’s testimony: the US Govt has no overarching coherent COVID19 vaccine policy for global health: a few million dose donations here, some patent waiver action, but no comprehensive roadmap for vaccine diplomacy
Also I’m not hearing much of a plan for how to best combat vaccine refusal in order to reach the last mile and get the country fully vaccinated
I thought @US_FDA did a good job articulating how they worked to approximate the BLA during the emergency use process
Lots of discussion about Tucker Carlson or Laura Ing. or other Fox News anchors. I have a slightly different view. I don’t think this is coming from any of them. This is an executive decision by Fox News and News Corps (have you seen WSJ Opinion lately?) to go full on antiscience
We have to understand better why? Is it as simple as a dog whistle to keep the 30 million together? Many identifying now as White Nationalists based on the broadside attack against me last wk. Or to fend off Newsmax or OAN? Or because of Putin Russian support? We just don’t know
But the public health consequences are just devastating. Have you seen the weekend vaccination numbers? Almost half in deep red states compared to blue blueish states. As a nation we can’t vaccinate our way out of this mess unless we can stop the antiscience aggression
Many thanks @AlisynCamerota @VictorBlackwell for hosting me following @POTUS remarks important to optimize access for those who want to get vaccinated. I was enthusiastic about his comments, but also there were a few elements missing, here they are:
1. The conservative lobby and four polls now showing that 40-50% of Republicans won’t get vaccinated. We must expand our outreach to conservative groups. Remember it’s not 70% of adults we must reach, it’s 70% of total population, and that means almost all adults
2. We’ll need to vaccinate Canada 🇨🇦 and northern Mexico 🇲🇽 to also halt virus transmission in the US. This means more than sending a few million AZOx doses