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David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
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13 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
"The first thing to know about the COVID-19 vaccines is that they’re doing exactly what they were designed and authorized to do." Great @KatherineJWu on the meaning of "breakthrough cases," most of which are not nearly as scary as they sound. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
"Since the shots first started their rollout late last year, rates of COVID-19 disease have taken an unprecedented plunge among the immunized."
"We are, as a nation, awash in a glut of spectacularly effective vaccines that can, across populations, geographies, and even SARS-CoV-2 variants, stamp out the most serious symptoms of disease."
"The second thing to know about the vaccines is that they’re flame retardants, not impenetrable firewalls. Some vaccinated people are still getting infected, and a small subset of these individuals is still getting sick—and this is completely expected."

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More from @dwallacewells

David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
13 Jul
Yesterday, I published a long piece on the still-under-appreciated age skew of COVID-19, which has helped vaccination already eliminate most of America's mortality risk. I didn't discuss detailed policy implications for kids and schools. A thread (1/x). nymag.com/intelligencer/…
To start: the age skew. The coronavirus is dramatically more deadly in the very old than the somewhat old, dramatically more deadly in the middle-aged than in young adults, for whom it is dramatically more deadly than in teenagers and children.
Even among those who are familiar with this pattern, the data is startling, since the risk divergence is so large. An 8-year-old, sick with COVID-19, has about one-ten-thousandth the risk of dying as an 88-year-old.
Read 25 tweets
David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
12 Jul
With 90% of American seniors now fully vaccinated, the overwhelming majority of the country's mortality risk has been, simply, eliminated. Even given Delta and flatlining vaccination rates, it is already a very different pandemic now. A thread (1/x). nymag.com/intelligencer/…
There will be new cases, some of them severe and some leading ultimately to death. And there of course complications beyond death—even beyond hospitalization and severe disease.
If vaccination rates got close to 100%, we might be able to bring those numbers, in the future, close to zero. But even now we have probably eliminated 90% of all potential mortality from COVID-19. This makes it a very different kind of disease than we encountered last year.
Read 68 tweets
David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
6 Jul
"In 1974, the CIA produced a study on 'climatological research as it pertains to intelligence problems.' It warned of a new era of weird weather, leading to political unrest and mass migration (which, in turn, would cause more unrest)." (1/x) theguardian.com/science/2021/j…
This week, the Guardian has published an excerpt from the great @alicebell's new climate book OUR GREATEST EXPERIMENT. A thread.
“'The climate change began in 1960,' the report’s first page informs us, 'but no one, including the climatologists, recognized it.'"
Read 12 tweets
David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
6 Jul
"One of the largest nodule deposits is the Clarion Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean 1,000 miles west of Mexico and roughly 500 miles south of Hawaii — well outside any country's territory." (1/x)
axios.com/undersea-minin…
"Exploration rights to the underwater field are controlled by the International Seabed Authority, created in 1982 by the United Nations to ensure mining in international waters benefits all countries, not just wealthy ones."
"Through sponsorship deals with three tiny Pacific island nations vulnerable to climate change — Nauru, Tonga and Kiribati — The Metals Company secured exploration rights to approximately 150,000 square kilometers of the ISA-licensed seabed."
Read 5 tweets
David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
5 Jul
“What this means, in practical terms, is that there are a lot of old buildings in Miami that might look good on the outside, but inside, they are barely standing. ‘It’s like cancer in the building, eating it from the inside,’ says one developer.” rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
“While renovating a South Beach hotel, one architect I know discovered the structural walls were so weak you could practically knock them down with a hammer.”
“A lawyer involved in redevelopment of an old structure on 5th Street told me the concrete wall was so soft that he could reach into it and grab a handful of sand.”
Read 4 tweets
David Wallace-Wells Profile picture
2 Jul
Yesterday, I published a long piece on the off-the-charts Pacific Northwest heat dome and what @GovInslee called "the beginning of a permanent emergency." But I left two big and important thoughts out. A thread (1/x). nymag.com/intelligencer/…
The first is well-captured in this bold Guardian front page. The newspaper has repurposed a comment by @Sir_David_King and stood behind it entirely, without quotes or attribution, as, effectively, a statement of fact.
To a certain degree, this probably overstates the near-term lesson of the heat dome, since even under present climate conditions this event appears to be shockingly unlikely. But precisely where it hit really does matter, and it is perhaps all the more terrifying as a result.
Read 15 tweets

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