⚠️New #COVID19 recommendations amid spike in #DeltaVariant ➡️All Mississippi residents ages 65+ & anyone with chronic conditions, should avoid all indoor mass gatherings **regardless of vaccination status**. Good. Delta is ~4x more severe than old strain🧵 mississippitoday.org/2021/07/09/msd…
2) The rapid rise of Delta variant cases and virus outbreaks combined with the state’s low vaccination rate led the Mississippi Department of Health to release a slew of new COVID-related guidelines on Friday.
3) The new recommendations, which will stay in place through July 26, also include:
📍All unvaccinated Mississippians wear a mask when indoors in public settings.
📍All Mississippians 12 years of age and older get vaccinated.
4) State Health Officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said that these were decided on because Mississippians collectively have not done what it takes to protect us all, and wants to give the most vulnerable individuals the best guidance so they can survive Delta surge the state is facing.
5) “At this pace, and given the sort of external dynamics that are in play here, we’re going to remain vulnerable for a long time,” Dobbs said.
6) “I don’t think that we’re going to have some miraculous increase in our vaccination rate over the next few weeks, so people are going to die needlessly.” ⚠️
7) “And so when we look at who our most vulnerable people are, it’s going to be the people 65 and older, or who have chronic medical issues.”
8) Where is the evidence that #Delta is ~4x or more severe than old strain? There’s actually 3 studies. One key study from Singapore Ministry of Health actually found #DeltaVariant to have 4.9x higher odds of oxygen, hospital admission, or death!
9) In this same study, the Singapore researchers found #DeltaVariant to have much higher viral load than other major strains. Thus, the higher severity is indeed very likely. Both lab and epidemiology supports it. This is also likely one reason why Delta is so transmissible too
10) Before i add more studies on #DeltaVariant in this thread 🧵, I want you all to consider that all these countries are more vaccinated than Mississippi and other Southern conservative state. Yet they are still seeing rapid surges. And accompanied by hospitalization ⬆️ in 🏴
11) “2 dozen” countries with **near vertical rise** in #COVID19 cases. Let that sink in. #DeltaVariant is damn serious.
12) We honestly need to mask regardless of vaccination status too. Here is direct proof, again from detailed analysis from Singapore. Lots of transmission events from vaccinated to unvaccinated.
13) Also notice the large number of asymptomatic transmission (many among vaccinated) in the Singapore outbreak analyses. This is why we need to mask - and do more testing in hotspots even when no symptoms. Masking vaccinated is key to stop chains of transmission to unvaxxed.
14) before I hear one more nonsense comment about “vaccines don’t work”, I want to share this ⬇️. Umbrella ☔️ example is best — it does protect you from rain, but not all water. Doesn’t mean umbrella is useless. You should wear a raincoat (mask) and water resistant clothes too.
15) and in this case with surging #DeltaVariant (equal to a violent thunderstorm ⛈ coming in), you need to do all protective measures: vaccinate, wear mask, ventilate, air disinfection, mass test, contact trace, avoid indoor gathering, and shield elderly. #Delta going vertical.
16) And indeed, sick frail older folks who are vaccinated are possibly much more prone to #COVID19 infection after vaccination. A preprint. Though note, it doesn’t mean young people don’t get breakthroughs (just not due to these factors). medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
17) But but but… do these elderly vaccination breakthroughs cases lead to hospitalizations??? …unfortunately—YES. The authors note: “Post-vaccination infection in frail older adults was not entirely benign, with 30 out of 120 (25%) in this group presenting to hospital.” Wow. ⚠️
18) Okay, more good news & bad news from the same study:
📌Semi-good / Semi bad news—vaccines increase the likelihood asymptomatic infections. Good it’s mild, but bad for testing pickup & stopping silent spread!
19) Why is asymptomatic infections so bad even if it’s mild? Because the properties of a silent #COVID19 infection means it’s less likely to be testing identified & less likely to be isolated to stop it. This is why vaccinated people (many asymptomatic) must mask! CDC is wrong!
21) Both WHO and Los Angeles and California Capital all recommend that vaccinated people should mask while #DeltaVariant surging. CDC does not. While I love CDC, the @CDCDirectoris wrong here. CDC much change directions while #DeltaVariant is surging.
22) Even if your country is vaccinated heavily, you’re not immune from #DeltaVariant causing hospitalization and deaths. As reminder, all critical indexes of hospitalizations, ICU ventilation beds, & deaths all rising in England 🏴! Elderly & vulnerable are at high risk.
23) Sobering— “I’m hearing from my ER colleagues what they are facing now is worse than the surge they faced during the winter,” @meganranney said. #DeltaVariant summer winter is coming. wpri.com/health/coronav…
24) Sporting events are also very risky for high risk elderly folks, and those immunocompromised or have chronic diseases. Don’t risk it. Tell your family it’s too risky amid #DeltaVariant surge.
25) #DeltaVariant is more severe damnit! Forgot to add the other two severity studies— UK data from England and Scotland found 2.4x and 2.6x higher risk of hospitalization than #alphavariant, which is already 64% more severe than older. Thus 1.64*2.5x = Delta is 4x more severe!⚠️
26) Don’t believe me? Just read the exact report from UK govt scientists on #DeltaVariant severity…. The ~2.5x more severe than Alpha / ergo 4x more severe than older strains, is on par with Singapore data of ~4.9x more severe (see post #8 above).
27) we need to shield unvaccinated kids too… 7 kids in the ICU in one small state like Mississippi means countless at risk nationwide while #DeltaVariant surges.
3) “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more”.
SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown University Medical School—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, and has committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon** (one of the most difficult surgical fields in all of medicine!!!), she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants, which cannot be easily replaced. Her phone was seized at the border. A federal judge handed down an injunction against her deportation—but she was already deported on a plane en route to Paris. Brown’s kidney transplant clinic is now strained by her deportation.
2) Full text:
PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island doctor who had traveled to Lebanon to see her parents was prevented from re-entering the United States at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, her lawyer and a colleague said.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, who lives in Providence, has been working at Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension since last July, and she [has] been part of the transplant service at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Dr. George Bayliss, the organ transplant division’s medical director. She has been studying and working in the United States for about six years, he said Friday.
The US consulate in Lebanon had issued her an H-1B visa, which is given to people in specialty occupations requiring expertise. The visa was valid through mid-2027, said Thomas S. Brown, an attorney representing her and Brown Medicine.
Alawieh was detained when she returned to Logan airport, and family members are afraid that she is about to be deported to Lebanon, he said.
“We are at a loss as to why this happened,” Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”
He said her phone has been seized and he has not been able to contact Alawieh.
Bayliss said a lawyer filed a petition with the US District Court in Massachusetts, and Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh should not be moved outside of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice. But he said that message apparently did not reach immigration officials in time, and a plane carrying Alawieh left for Paris.
“This is outrageous,” Bayliss said in an interview. “This is a person who is legally entitled to be in the U.S., who is stopped from re-entering the country for reasons no one knows. It’s depriving her patients of a good physician.”
A US Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, was not able to immediately answer questions about Alawieh on Friday evening.
Bayliss said Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut medical school and came to the United States for a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She then landed a transplant fellowship at University of Washington and had a residency in the Yale hospital system before starting at Brown Medicine last July, he said.
“She’s really a very humble and able person,” Bayliss said. “She takes care of her patients. She is talented and thoughtful and a great addition to our division.”
Bayliss said Alawieh went to Lebanon to visit parents and planned to be gone for two weeks. He said she texted a colleague at 6:30 p.m. Thursday saying she was back in Boston, but then her family heard from immigration officials.
Dr. Paul Morrissey, surgical director of the organ transplant division at Brown University Health, said Alawieh works on getting people in Rhode Island on the list for a kidney transplants, and that’s a crucial job at a time when there has been a lot of focus on the need for kidneys and their equitable distribution.
He said Alawieh should not have had any problem traveling out of the country with an H-1B visa.
“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances,” Morrissey said. “It’s putting a strain on our office. Her work has been exceptional.”
3) There is a new Trump ban against many countries, including tourist visa bans against all countries in the red and orange lists. This list is still tentative. And it shouldn’t have affected people with existing visas, such and the Brown kidney transplant surgeon
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… once upon a time, liberals did have our own “Leftist Joe Rogan”… his name was Joe Rogan…
Here he is advocating for socialized medicine, healthcare for all, and supporting labor unions to protect workers.
2) Recall, Rogan was once pro Obama and pro Bernie Sanders, and pro Yang Gang, and anti Trump. It’s sad he has since failed to the dark side. But like Vader… maybe he can be redeemed someday and come back to the light.
Joe Rogan was also pro gay rights and pro DACA and pro helping inner city communities that suffer economic and social injustices. It’s sad what he has become. I feel we should try to pull & welcome him back someday. Everyone can be redeemed.
BREAKING—FDA suddenly cancels meeting to update next season’s flu vaccines, with zero explanations. Any delays will jeopardize next year’s vaccine supply chain.
2) Folks who follow me know that I’m no bullshitter. I criticized past pandemic response right and left, and have called balls and strikes without bias. And I often say things that doctors & epidemiologists are whispering among themselves but don’t say publicly. (Cough cough) ⬇️
3) While I don’t recommend hoarding… I think stocking up on flu antivirals, which you can obtain prophylactically (preventively) from doctors if you ask nicely why you’re high risk, can be a good idea. I know many doctors, epidemiologists and virologists who do for their family.