⚠️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.
📈Measles epidemic trajectory is worsening in the U.S.—it has NOT flattened as some claimed. The surge continues—comparison of newest versus recent outbreak graph. Majority are unvaccinated, but there’s enough unvaccinated in many clusters for outbreaks. cnn.com/health/measles…
2) here is another way to visualize the measles epidemic. Another annoying thing is that although 95% not double vaccinated, 5% of the previous 113 cases were vaccinated— which means that there is waning immunity or vaccine breakthrough with sufficiently big outbreak possible.
3) I specifically wanted about this issue that pockets of unvaccinated could still trigger outbreaks, and vaccine breakthroughs possible due to vaccine waning & if surrounded by pockets of low vaccinations. See my warning oped below. 👇
🐄—"Experts fear that H5N1 avian flu… may have been transmitted through a type of cattle feed called “poultry litter”—mix of poultry poop, spilled feed, feathers, and other waste scraped from the floors of industrial chicken and turkey production plants." telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
Europe does not allow cattle to be fed poultry feed. US does. This helps explain why US is seeing a cow outbreak of avian flu.
3) CDC warns against chicken and bird exposures and direct contact with poop. Yet why the hell are we feeding cattle poultry litter??? Corporate farms are so stupid and greedy.
Global CO2 levels and temperatures. But but but we scientists are merely “fear mongering” according to deniers. How about just facing reality? How about precautionary warnings to protect human lives?
@ed_hawkins @MrMatthewTodd #climatecrisis
Oh this seems totally fine.
I think we are screwed at this point on limiting temperature rise by 1.5 C. It’ll still take a miracle to avoid 2 C.
📍BIRD HUNTING AVIAN FLU DEATH—WHO reports that a 21 year old young man with no underlying conditions suddenly died of #avianflu in Vietnam. He started with a cough/fever, but died 12 days later with severe pneumonia and ARDS. ➡️He had only gone bird hunting recently. BE CAREFUL.
2) "From 2003 to 25 March 2024, a total of 888 worldwide human cases of influenza A(H5N1), 463 deaths (52% CFR), reported to WHO from 23 countries. Almost all cases of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N1) linked to close contact with infected live or dead birds, or contaminated environments." who.int/emergencies/di…
3) It is interesting that WHO had to point out he had no contact with any sick or dead birds. Only hunting. And he had gone bird hunting the prior month in Feb 2024. And no other contact with people since. The latency period seems rather long.
⚠️SPIKE IN MEASLES—113 cases of US measles in Q1 of 2024, double the total for all of 2023. 📍95% of the cases were in those without 2 full doses of MMR💉vaccine (83% cases without any confirmed shots). Across 18 states—top 2 states are Illinois & Florida. 58% of all cases got hospitalized🏥—66% of infected kids <5 years old hospitalized. 61% of adults 20+ hospitalized. Please take measles seriously. Don’t listen to RFK Jr. cdc.gov/measles/cases-…
2) Moreover, many of the nationwide cases had come from Florida— “Measles cases that turned up in at least three states this year were linked to visits to Florida, federal and state investigators concluded”. FL also doesn’t count non-residents as cases.🤦🏻♂️
3) I wrote a long WARNING last month about measles surging in the U.S. — we are not addressing the crisis. Florida measles crisis is just a bell weather. And now here we are.
📍CAUTIONARY CAT FOOD OUTBREAK—38 cats died eating #AvianFlu-tainted cat food in an 🇰🇷outbreak last year. Specifically—38 out of the 40 infected shelter cats died within a month—all were kept indoors. Investigators with South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) detected influenza A(#H5N1) virus in cat food. MAFRA officials then ordered the recall of all cat food batches considered at risk of harboring the virus. The bird flu virus entered the cat food stream during an outbreak of the virus on poultry🐓 farms. petfoodindustry.com/safety-quality…
2) Outbreak of avian flu in cats, and subsequent cat deaths has been common—another outbreak in Poland killed 25 cats 🐈⬛ in June 2023, reported by the WHO.
“On 27 June 2023, the IHR National Focal Point of Poland notified WHO of unusual deaths in cats across the country. As of 11 July, 47 samples have been tested from 46 cats and one captive caracal, of which 29 were found to be positive for influenza A (H5N1). Fourteen cats are reported to have been euthanized, and a further 11 died, with the last death reported on 30 June.”
3) cats and dogs have died eating infected birds. This has been well documented in the past. Lesson again is make sure food is cooked / sanitary. The cat food manufacturing error with the tainted cat food was hopefully one time thing — but it’s a lesson in the spread.