Thread by @yaneerbaryam

While the UK's cases are about level overall, cases of the Indian variant are rising rapidly, nearly doubling in the last week:

bbc.com/news/uk-571461…

The UK plan to exit lockdown soon, may change in a few days depending on data about the Indian variant, which could keep the lockdown in place for longer.

Boris Johnson vowed to take strong action against any new variants entering the country.

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telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

India reports over 267,000 new cases yesterday. While daily cases have decreased (from over 400,000), deaths continue to rise. With 4529 new reported deaths, India has seen the biggest one-day increase in deaths on record for any country.

3/

Based upon the new CDC guidelines mask mandates have been removed in multiple states. It is unwise to lift mask mandates this early, while community transmission is still taking place:

4/
nationalnursesunited.org/nnu-urges-cdc-…
covidactiongroup.com/mask-guidance-…

The ability of vaccines to reduce transmission as well as severe cases is an opportunity to both prevent more cases and to achieve elimination. With intention, we can avoid the risk of breakthrough variants and endemicity. The benefits would be tremendous.

5/

By combining vaccination with masks and other precautionary measures, we can maintain an ongoing reduction in cases with much less than the usually cited threshold.