Here is a checklist you can show your local school administrators on protecting kids <12 before school starts. Will post supporting documents and explainers later this week, but we have no time to waste... we have a month to get this right.
The stakes are high. As @DanielGriffinMD likes to say, kids are at low risk, but they are not at no risk. Perhaps 1/25 will get long-term symptoms, 1/140 may need to be hospitalized, 1/3000 may develop MIS-C.
Here is a collection of research articles and explanations backing up points mentioned on the checklist. Please feel free to share widely, and suggest other articles in the replies below: docs.google.com/document/d/1I4…
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If I had to summarize what I think are the most basic things to keep everyone safe and the economy humming, it boils down to these elements:
1) Keep public masking 2) Push vaccination rates higher 3) Vaccine requirements in sensitive areas like borders, hospitals, schools
Basic measures have kept us safe so far, and the results are dramatic; we are performing much better than many of our closest, and less careful, neighbours and allies. More can be done, but we should be proud of what we've accomplished.
And it builds on another idea, that we are very close to herd immunity, that we can eliminate circulation of this virus when enough are vaccinated. We have to hold the line until younger kids can get the vaccine this fall
Some startling articles indicating that India's true Covid death toll is undercounted by 6-10X. Perhaps 2-3 million have died already. This squares with anecdotal reports from friends of the truly devastating impact so far on every family in the country economist.com/asia/2021/06/1…
Key questions we need to know the answers to asap: 1) Do fully vaccinated people get #LongCovid? 2) We know severe illness is less likely in kids, but how likely is it they get Long Covid? #longcovidkids
I’m going to try to dig through some studies in this 🧵
It seems getting long Covid post vaccination is possible if there is breakthrough symptomatic infection. It’s important to collect data on this because we’ve seen similar post-viral symptoms cause a lifetime of disability in many patients businessinsider.com/nurse-coronavi…
Interesting study out of the UK that's collecting data from >4m contributors using an app called Zoe (@Join_ZOE). With that country facing a massive surge in cases, they are estimating 50k cases a day, and with that, 1k cases of Long Covid a day.
There is a divide now in the vaccinated world; governments and experts (mostly conservative leaning) who want to 'let it rip' through the population, and those who are more cautious and want to keep case counts low. It's so secret that I favour keeping the lid on infections...
...Given how close to zero cases we are, and given how little we know of long term effects. If any government wants to run a population-wide experiment, it behooves them to have a public debate about the issue at least cbc.ca/news/politics/…
We are spitting distance to herd immunity in Canada, the level where most activities will be extremely safe. We have the highest vax rates in the world. In a few weeks, 75% of adults will be fully vaccinated. There's no need to run crazy experiments here.
Watching the UK, BC and elsewhere give up on containing Covid is frankly depressing. There is another way, herd immunity is achievable in most of Canada once kids <12 get their shots in Sept/Oct. We need to hold the line on masking, testing, tracing and isolating until then.
Why is it important to do this? Yes, vaccines likely lead to a mild illness in most vaccinated people, kids mostly get mild illness also, but just by the law of large numbers, many will still get seriously ill. Long Covid is also another big wildcard. scientificamerican.com/article/a-tsun…
The mathematics behind the herd immunity calculation by @dfisman is here:
I outline here why BC and Alberta lifting mask mandates is reckless:
- Only 35% are fully vaxxed
- Kids <12 are unprotected
- Indoor spaces are dangerous without masks with an airborne virus
- Places that lifted mandates are backtracking ...
- It places the onus on small business owners to enforce mandates which will lead to conflict
- leaders really want to show that somehow its over, when it clearly is not, and is worsening in large parts of the world
Fully vaccinated people can transmit the virus to unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people, including children. Masks can help prevent this. This is from Singapore: