News reports are suggesting that the J&J vaccine is less effective based off a new antibody study (preprint).
But the preprint’s results don’t match real-world findings.
And I would argue that these headlines don’t match the preprint’s results either...
I say that because:
1) The preprint didn't measure effectiveness but rather the antibodies’ abilities to neutralize variants
2) The preprint reported a reduction in J&J neutralization for all variants, not just delta and including the parental virus. 🧐 biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
Plus, there is real-world effectiveness data (aka measurements of protection against actual disease) showing that J&J ***IS***effective against the parental and alpha variants. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
That real-world effectiveness (77%) is less than Pfizer/Moderna’s (+90%), but we’ve known that pattern since the clinical trial data came out over the winter.
Something isn’t lining up with the takeaways/headlines around this new preprint.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
“The move will affect some 250,000 municipal retirees, hundreds of whom marched in protest against the changes in Manhattan last week in the midst of a heat wave.” gothamist.com/news/nyc-union…
Some critics are concerned that access to doctors will decrease and out-of-pocket costs will rise. Other city retirees lament that they haven’t been able to evaluate how the change will affect them because the deal has been made behind closed doors. gothamist.com/news/nyc-union…
“Half-truths and distorted information have obscured an accurate accounting of the lab's functions and activities, which were more routine than how they’ve been portrayed in the media, she said.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
“The concrete, bunker-style building has the highest biosafety designation, and requires air, water and waste to be filtered and sterilized before it leaves the facility.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
“There were strict protocols and requirements aimed at containing the pathogens being studied, Anderson said, and researchers underwent 45 hours of training to be certified to work independently in the lab.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
To gauge what might happen going forward with the delta variant, @WNYC / @Gothamist asked virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists to break down how the delta variant could affect New Yorkers based on their vaccine status. gothamist.com/news/why-the-d…
But just how bad could it be? I asked the folks @PHICORteam to sketch out an outbreak model
Imagine the Bronx had never experienced COVID. Ok, now what happens if you drop 10 people with alpha, delta or the original strain into that unacquainted community gothamist.com/news/why-the-d…
"This is about the bounds of what's worth following up as a possibility, which is different from a standard scientific debate. It's how to interpret the scantiness of the evidence, rather than how to interpret the evidence.” - @mlipsitchvice.com/en/article/n7b…
"The scientists interviewed for this story advocated for further research and investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, including the possibility of a lab leak, but all agreed that there is currently no solid evidence suggesting anything other than a natural spillover.."
About 12% of adults statewide aren’t getting enough to eat from week to week, according to the latest rolling survey from @nys_health. That’s only down slightly from a mid-pandemic peak of approximately 14%. gothamist.com/food/widesprea…
But Black and Hispanic New Yorkers continue to go hungry at dramatically higher rates than their white neighbors. gothamist.com/food/widesprea…
The WIV team safely brought SARS2 (or a close relative) back to their lab between 2010-2015 but then was experimenting with it in 2019. This is a long shot...