BREAKING—With #COVID19 cases and hospitalizations surging, Los Angeles will now *require* indoor mask again, **regardless of vaccination status**. @CountyofLA’s mandate is what needs to be done to slow #DeltaVariant—where is our @CDCgov? @CDCDirector—please rules update ASAP.
2) Los Angeles County's been posting more than 1,000 new cases a day for nearly a week now.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers transmission in LA and in Riverside and San Diego counties as "substantial." audacy.com/knx1070/news/l…
3) Statewide in CA, the average percentage of people testing positive has tripled in a little more than three weeks. And increases are speeding up. In LA County, about 61 % of residents 16 and older are fully vaccinated, but millions more have yet to get jabbed.
4) CDC knows how bad #DeltaVariant is becoming. Just 6 weeks ago it was just a trickled in the US. Now it’s a torrential downpour of Delta nationwide.
6) Not just mask & vax, but we also urgently need to shield the elderly and immunocompromised and chronic illness patients— even if they are vaccinated. We have seen too many breakthrough cases in the elderly in UK (the #DeltaVariant 2-dose vaxxed hospitalizations in 🇬🇧 are real)
7) Let’s travel back in time to early June when I was warning #DeltaVariant is going to takeover the US and become dominant. @WHO warned Delta was a VOC in early May! CDC didn’t declare #Delta a ‘variant of concern’ VOC until June 15th—a full week after my US Delta warning.
10) Businesses and local govts need to take action into their own hands if CDC refuses to act in the face of #DeltaVariant surging nationwide (and worldwide). Part 3 of my interview from back in May 2021 when CDC first announce its ghastly “no mask needed” rule.
11) L.A. County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis is solid! Worthy to be a CDC Director someday:
“We’re not where we need to be for the millions at risk of infection here in LA County, and waiting to do something will be too late, given what we’re seeing” ktla.com/news/local-new…
12) The county recorded 1,537 new coronavirus cases Thursday — a 83% increase over the last week.
“Masking indoors must again become a normal practice by all, regardless of vaccination status, so they can stop the trends and level of transmission we’re currently seeing,”
13) It’s unclear how long the new mask requirements will remain in effect. “We expect to keep this order in place until we begin to see improvements,” Davis said.
15) folks, even a small India news outlet knew and warned in June that the #DeltaVariant was going to cause a surge in the US July - let that sink in. But here, people acted like no pandemic. google.com/amp/s/odishatv…
16) Dear @lapublichealth - mad respect to your team for your leadership to protect vulnerable people during the #DeltaVariant pandemic surge.
17) Heads up… #DeltaVariant spreading even in states with high vaccination rates - not because vaccines don’t protect, they do— but that Delta is so contagious it will keep spreading through unvaccinated (and some vaccinated) until double vaccinations much much higher. See 🧵
Woke or biology? There are actually more than the basic “male” XY & “female” XX sexes. Why? Because biology also creates people with single X chromosomes, or extra chromosomes like XXX, XXY, XYY, or XXX+, plus many 🧬genes. 👉All I’m asking is— please be kind to others. Thanks🙏
2) “The most frequent SCAs include Turner syndrome (45,X), Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY), Trisomy X syndrome (47,XXX), and Double Y syndrome (47,XYY).”
3) “The phenotype seen in SCAs is highly variable and may not merely be due to the direct genomic imbalance from altered sex chromosome gene dosage but also due to additive alterations in gene networks and regulatory pathways across the genome as well as individual genetic modifiers.”
I'm shocked a lot of doctors don't know about this newer flu antiviral drug called Baloxavir (XOFLUZA)... that shortens your flu illness by 33%, and reduces your viral load by day 2, versus what a placebo takes 5-6 days to achieve. Baloxavir also seems superior to TAMIFLU (oseltamivir) for smashing your viral load on 2 day, achieving what takes Tamiflu 3-4 days. CDC even lists Baloxavir on their website as one of the top 4 drugs that it tracks whether it works against new flu strains (it works)
2) "Baloxavir was associated with significantly more rapid declines in infectious viral load than placebo or oseltamivir (Figure 3A and 3B)." nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
3) Adverse events for baloxavir were no different than placebo. in fact theres even hints that it could be lower than Tamiflu.
"Adverse events that were considered to be related to the trial regimen were more common in oseltamivir recipients (8.4%) than in baloxavir recipients (4.4%, P=0.009)"
⚠️WORST FLU SEASON ever since 2002-2003 when we began to track flu (red, first graph). Worst hit this year are children ages 0-4 and 5-17. ▶️We also have significantly LOWER flu vaccine uptake this year, one of the lowest flu vaccine coverages (red 3rd graph). Indisputable facts.
2) I don't need to tell you that certain US states have vastly lower vaccination rates than others. See map (lighter green, less flu vaccination coverage), and which have higher (darker green)...
If you want to see details and demographics on which state has the LOWEST flu vaccine coverage rates... the data is here. cdc.gov/fluvaxview/das…
3) It’s not just the flu that is going around… Gaines County, TX, where the epicenter of the measles outbreak is, has one of the lowest measles vaccination rates too.
INFLUENZA REACHES EPIDEMIC THRESHOLD in New York—Influenza A (Unknown variety) positivity soars (yellow), while hospitalizations stand higher than past 3 years. The rise of unknown subtyping Flu A has led NY to issue new alert to subtype all Flu A immediately for bird flu.
2) This was the reason for the urgency in NY issuing an alert to subtype all hospitalized cases for bird flu if Flu A. See thread below 👇
BREAKING—22 States sue to block Trump WH cuts to NIH research grants.
2) Attorneys general representing 22 states sued the Trump administration on Monday, asking a federal judge to temporarily block a major policy change by the National Institutes of Health that would substantially limit payments for research overhead
3) In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of MA, the AGs argued that NIH’s abrupt decision to set a 15% cap on payments for indirect costs would cause major harm to institution budgets, jeopardizing basic operations and medical research.
💣TORPEDOING MEDICAL RESEARCH—NIH indirect grant funding just got slashed by Trump to 15%. What does this mean for you? Colleges and universities won’t be able to support students, tuition will increase, especially graduate students & researchers who find cures/preventions for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and more. This will not only raise tuition and hurt pipeline of future scientists/doctors, but COMPLETELY DECIMATE MEDICAL & PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH. It will also give more power to big pharma to manipulate research agendas and buy out ideas that should remain in the public domain. Ie THE RICH BIOTECH TYCOONS (eg Vivek Ramaswamy) WILL GET RICHER. The lay public will someday only see future drug/tech prices soar as biotech and big pharma control more science and make more money.
Also, Trump’s NIH posted this graphic - but it ignores that most public universities also heavily rely on indirect to subsidize tuition, and train next generation of scientists and medical doctors doing research. (Public colleges can’t compete with wealthier schools who do have endowments, and hence will fall further behind). Public colleges that do medical research will literally fall apart without this mechanism.
2) People don’t seem to get 2 things:
📌Indirect funds college administration and facilities and support services. Academic advising, building operations, new labs and classrooms for students— where does that money come from? If not indirect grants, then it’ll have to come more from ⬆️student tuition.
3) Most universities don’t have billion+ endowments. Most have almost none — so when you slash NIH indirect grant funding to just 15%… it hurts small schools and public colleges the most—smaller places might even go under. Rich school survive, public schools do not.