First, I’m surprised that anyone (without an agenda) can look at this national map and essentially say “You know what? Some parts of this country are going to be alright.”
I mean, it looks like a scene from the “Floor Is Lava”
Second, many counties in the states he mentioned ***DO*** fall in the danger zones or are moving in that direction.
The eastern half of New Jersey, Suffolk County, Mass (home to Boston) and Milwaukee County, Wisc. are either under substantial or high risk.
Then you have Philadelphia; Hennepin, Minnesota (Minneapolis); Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit) and Franklin County, Ohio are either on the verge of being at substantial risk or moving in that direction.
Even Chittenden County, Vermont is trending in the wrong direction with 61% fully vaxxed.
That’s because 61% coverage isn’t enough against delta, despite being among the highest in country.
The U.S. had a shot to squash COVID this spring through vaccination, and we missed.
Meanwhile, Leonhardt fans (Leonhearts?) keep chirping nonsense at me about…
…how NYC isn’t in a danger zone (it is)
…or about how their kids shouldn’t need to wear masks because flu is worse than Covid (they should and that’s a sh*t take).
I know that @nytopinion tends to publish whatever lands in their inbox/can drive traffic, but maybe it’s time to fact check your dude?
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“One of the slides states that there is a higher risk among older age groups for hospitalization and death relative to younger people, regardless of vaccination status. Another estimates that there are 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans”
‘The slide references an outbreak in Barnstable County, Mass., where vaccinated and unvaccinated people shed nearly identical amounts of virus.” washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07…
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…
“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.."