💡BREAKING—CDC study confirms the NIH-Moderna #COVID19 vaccine is more effective against #DeltaVariant hospitalizations than Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson. Vaccine efficacy for Delta🏥—Moderna 95%, Pfizer 80%, J&J 60%. VE also higher in age <74!🧵 cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
2) “Overall, VE against COVID-19 hospital- ization was 86%. VE was significantly lower among adults aged ≥75 years (76%) than among those aged 18–74 years (89%) (Table). The difference in VE point estimates between age groups was similar for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines”
3) “Across all ages, VE was significantly higher among Moderna vaccine recipients (95%) than among Pfizer-BioNTech (80%) or Janssen (60%) vaccine recipients.”
4) Is this difference also true for ER visits too? Yes. For ER—“VE was highest among Moderna vaccine recipients (92%), followed by Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine recipients (77%), and was lowest (65%) for Janssen vaccine recipients (Table).”
5) What about all breakthrough infections? Well, CDC itself doesn’t track all cases nationwide. But luckily, Oklahoma tracks breakthroughs by vaccine type - and in this other report, Moderna also had the lowest vaccine breakthrough rates for total infections!
6) Show more proof? Moderna also produced 2.6x more antibodies against the #SARSCoV2 virus than Pfizer in another Belgian study! We think this is because Moderna’s standard dose is 100 microgram while Pfizer’s is 30 mcg. Many scientists acknowledge this + Moderna longer time gap.
7) Another study from Minnesota found an even bigger difference between Moderna and Pfizer… for breakthroughs, ➡️ Moderna had HALF as many breakthrough infections as Pfizer! Look at the graph!
8) Let’s still remember unvaccinated are still 11x more likely to die of #COVID19. Thus, any vaccine is still leaps and bounds better than no vaccine. washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09…
9) Moderna is also developing 4 variant adapted variant-specific spike vaccines! One for #DeltaVariant, one for #BetaVariant, one for Beta+Delta, and one for Beta+original!
10) Where else have we seen fewer breakthroughs with Moderna? DC health department also noticed it a month ago… much much lower than J&J, and somewhat lower than Pfizer.
It’s been an active debate for a while—but the clue were all there for us epidemiologists watching closely.
11) Moderna 3rd shot booster’s EUA is obviously coming soon. But there is a bug debate whether to EUA authorize it as a full standard 100 mcg dose or to cut it to 50 mcg dose for the booster. I hope 100 mcg! google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.…
12) excited for the new booster data from Israel. See thread 🧵 below 👇
It’s a trap: CATCH 22—if you register, ICE will deport you. If you don’t register, you’ve now committed a crime for the first time, and ICE will deport you. Trump doesn’t care if you’ve paid all taxes and followed all laws—ICE will deport you.
2) The Department of Homeland Security announced that it was mandating that all people in the United States illegally register with the federal government, and said those who didn’t self-report could face fines or prosecution. ***Failure to register is considered a crime***
3) Registration will be mandatory for everyone 14 and older without legal status. People registering have to provide their fingerprints and address, and parents and guardians of anyone under age 14 must ensure they registered. The registration process also applies to Canadians who are in the U.S. for more than 30 days, such as so-called snowbirds who spend winter months in places like Florida.
3) “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more”.
SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown University Medical School—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, and has committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon** (one of the most difficult surgical fields in all of medicine!!!), she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants, which cannot be easily replaced. Her phone was seized at the border. A federal judge handed down an injunction against her deportation—but she was already deported on a plane en route to Paris. Brown’s kidney transplant clinic is now strained by her deportation.
2) Full text:
PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island doctor who had traveled to Lebanon to see her parents was prevented from re-entering the United States at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, her lawyer and a colleague said.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, who lives in Providence, has been working at Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension since last July, and she [has] been part of the transplant service at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Dr. George Bayliss, the organ transplant division’s medical director. She has been studying and working in the United States for about six years, he said Friday.
The US consulate in Lebanon had issued her an H-1B visa, which is given to people in specialty occupations requiring expertise. The visa was valid through mid-2027, said Thomas S. Brown, an attorney representing her and Brown Medicine.
Alawieh was detained when she returned to Logan airport, and family members are afraid that she is about to be deported to Lebanon, he said.
“We are at a loss as to why this happened,” Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”
He said her phone has been seized and he has not been able to contact Alawieh.
Bayliss said a lawyer filed a petition with the US District Court in Massachusetts, and Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh should not be moved outside of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice. But he said that message apparently did not reach immigration officials in time, and a plane carrying Alawieh left for Paris.
“This is outrageous,” Bayliss said in an interview. “This is a person who is legally entitled to be in the U.S., who is stopped from re-entering the country for reasons no one knows. It’s depriving her patients of a good physician.”
A US Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, was not able to immediately answer questions about Alawieh on Friday evening.
Bayliss said Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut medical school and came to the United States for a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She then landed a transplant fellowship at University of Washington and had a residency in the Yale hospital system before starting at Brown Medicine last July, he said.
“She’s really a very humble and able person,” Bayliss said. “She takes care of her patients. She is talented and thoughtful and a great addition to our division.”
Bayliss said Alawieh went to Lebanon to visit parents and planned to be gone for two weeks. He said she texted a colleague at 6:30 p.m. Thursday saying she was back in Boston, but then her family heard from immigration officials.
Dr. Paul Morrissey, surgical director of the organ transplant division at Brown University Health, said Alawieh works on getting people in Rhode Island on the list for a kidney transplants, and that’s a crucial job at a time when there has been a lot of focus on the need for kidneys and their equitable distribution.
He said Alawieh should not have had any problem traveling out of the country with an H-1B visa.
“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances,” Morrissey said. “It’s putting a strain on our office. Her work has been exceptional.”
3) There is a new Trump ban against many countries, including tourist visa bans against all countries in the red and orange lists. This list is still tentative. And it shouldn’t have affected people with existing visas, such and the Brown kidney transplant surgeon
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… once upon a time, liberals did have our own “Leftist Joe Rogan”… his name was Joe Rogan…
Here he is advocating for socialized medicine, healthcare for all, and supporting labor unions to protect workers.
2) Recall, Rogan was once pro Obama and pro Bernie Sanders, and pro Yang Gang, and anti Trump. It’s sad he has since failed to the dark side. But like Vader… maybe he can be redeemed someday and come back to the light.
Joe Rogan was also pro gay rights and pro DACA and pro helping inner city communities that suffer economic and social injustices. It’s sad what he has become. I feel we should try to pull & welcome him back someday. Everyone can be redeemed.