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Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
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3 Aug, 4 tweets, 5 min read
Sending students back to school in the midst of a growing delta variant outbreak is one of the worst things you can do.

Schools are a major driver of community transmission.
#COVID19NSW #COVID19Aus
Spacing students apart in the classroom helps, but isn’t sufficient because the virus that causes COVID-19 is airborne.

This means it spreads through the air like cigarette smoke, and can linger in a room long after an infectious person has left.
Making schools safe requires a comprehensive package of measures, including the use of face masks and improved ventilation.

Ideally, students & staff should also be vaccinated, but remember that people aren’t fully protected until after the second dose.
➡️thelancet.com/journals/lance…
Dear @unionsaustralia @AEUfederal @IEUofA @SSTUWA @NTEUNational @Unions_WA @VicUnions @TheQCU @cpsucsa @SAUnions @TeachersFed @unionsnsw @AGavrielatos, the information in this thread may be useful for you to help make our schools truly safe from COVID-19.

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More from @DrZoeHyde

Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
29 Jul
In this small study of 39 breakthrough cases, 7 of 36 (19%) followed for 6 weeks got long COVID.

⚠️This may be an overestimate as asymptomatic breakthrough infections were likely missed in the full sample of 11,453 people.

However, it shows vaccinated people can get long COVID.
It’s also important to remember that these people first had to get infected and become a breakthrough case before they were at risk of developing long COVID.

Developing long COVID after vaccination is probably uncommon (but not rare).
The risk of becoming infected after vaccination should decrease as more of the population is vaccinated. Even if herd immunity isn’t reached, there should be some herd protection.

But until transmission is brought to low levels, it would be a good idea to keep wearing a mask. 😷
Read 4 tweets
Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
28 Jul
You’ve probably seen reports suggesting effectiveness of the Pfizer-BNT vaccine has dropped markedly in Israel in recent weeks, possibly because of waning immunity.

That claim may be wrong.

I think effectiveness has been underestimated, and this thread appears to confirm it.
The issue is that vaccination levels aren’t uniform in Israel. There are areas with very high coverage, and pockets where coverage is much lower.

A problem then arises if the country-wide average is used.
Israel’s fourth wave, driven by the delta variant, is only just starting to reach the people in the less vaccinated areas.

So until now, it was mostly vaccinated people who were getting exposed.
Read 5 tweets
Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
25 Jul
You know what worries me a lot more than COVID-19? People. Particularly angry, fearful people.

Make no mistake; they are afraid. Denial of reality is a coping mechanism for many. But you can’t avoid reality forever, and eventually they’ll turn on the enablers of that delusion.
The current crop of politicians who’ve promised freedom won’t be able to deliver it.

We’ll inevitably have to live with some level of restrictions until we have more of the world vaccinated with better vaccines. Will these people accept that?
But there’s a bigger problem. Many countries could have eliminated COVID-19 in early 2020 had they chosen to. It would not be a stretch to say that it was to an ideological choice to have a pandemic, to some degree.
Read 7 tweets
Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
18 Jul
Two new pre-print studies from Israel suggest the Pfizer-BNT vaccine is 80% effective against infection & 88% effective against transmission to household contacts. This is very good, but a significant proportion of vaccinated people can still get infected.
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Researchers looked at the household contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

7.5% of vaccinated household contacts became infected compared to 37.5% of unvaccinated contacts.
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
These studies were conducted at a time when the alpha variant was dominant.

It’s likely that effectiveness of the Pfizer-BNT vaccine against transmission is slightly lower for the delta variant.
Read 5 tweets
Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
13 Jul
My latest piece for @ConversationEDU:

No, we can’t treat COVID-19 like the flu. We have to consider the lasting health problems it causes. #COVID19
theconversation.com/no-we-cant-tre…
No, we can’t treat COVID-19 like the flu. We have to consider the lasting health problems it causes.

Translations:

🇩🇪Deutsch: translate.google.com/translate?hl=d…

🇳🇱Nederlands:
translate.google.com/translate?hl=n…

🇫🇷Français : translate.google.com/translate?hl=f…
No, we can’t treat COVID-19 like the flu. We have to consider the lasting health problems it causes.

Translations:

🇯🇵日本語: translate.google.com/translate?hl=j…

🇵🇹🇧🇷Português: translate.google.com/translate?hl=p…

🇪🇸Español: translate.google.com/translate?hl=e…
Read 4 tweets
Dr Zoë Hyde Profile picture
26 Jun
I’m not confident the Sydney delta variant outbreak will be contained. This fundamentally changes the risk/benefit ratio of the AstraZeneca vaccine for those over 60.

Even a single dose provides >70% protection against hospitalisation & is worth the 0.00002% risk of blood clots.
A person aged over 60 years has at least a 7% chance of being hospitalised if they become infected with the original strain of the virus.

This rises to at least 10% with the alpha variant (B.1.1.7).

The risk likely exceeds 20% with the delta variant.
bmj.com/content/373/bm…
The risk of death from COVID-19 also rises steeply with age.

The figure below shows the estimated proportion of people who die after becoming infected with the original strain of the virus.

Remember the delta variant is associated with additional risk.
link.springer.com/article/10.100…
Read 5 tweets

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