📍687,000+ #COVID19 deceased and still counting. Those who say we should “learn to live with the virus” mean waving the white flag 🏳 to thousands more innocent lives lost. Let fight to save lives, prevent #LongCovid, and protect children. 🙏
3) the exhibit runs until October 3 at the Washington Monument
4) People can write personal messages for their lost friends and loved ones on the individual flags. Countless people have.
5) Dedications written on the flags become part of the exhibit. The artist @sbfirstenberg may donate it to the Smithsonian when the exhibit is over.
6) A small panorama of the 687k white flags 🏳
7) We need mask and vaccine mandates. Once upon a time, seat belt mandates were hated as “anti freedom”. But they save lives. And people eventually saw their value. But what was once unpopular can be considered the right thing to do over time… because it saves lives.
9) We don’t accept kids lead poisoning nor 8 infants who die from a pillow suffocation before we act. Why should we accept #COVID19 induced oxygen hypoxia?
MIXING SHOTS—The elephant in the room that FDA/CDC has completely failed to address is mixing boosters—especially for J&J & Moderna recipients who are still waiting—J&J most urgently. Angela Merkel 🇩🇪 had gotten AZ + Moderna. Canada allows mRNA mixing. 🧵 medpagetoday.com/special-report…
2) mixing and matching became something of a necessity in Europe, as vaccine hesitancy with AstraZeneca ran high there following reports of unusual blood clotting. Many European countries moved ahead with mixing and matching AstraZeneca with mRNA vaccines. medpagetoday.com/special-report…
3) Two trials from across the pond -- one in Spain (CombiVacs) and one in England (Com-COV) -- as well as smaller cohort studies, "consistently show that you get a stronger antibody response when you give AstraZeneca followed by one of the mRNA vaccines," Moore said.
DISINFECTION—Study found portable air cleaners are highly effective in clearing particles from the air & reducing spread to other areas. ➡️2 small air cleaners in one patient room clears 99% of potentially infectious aerosols within 5.5 minutes! #COVID19🧵 theconversation.com/we-studied-how…
2) “These air cleaners are relatively cheap and commercially available. We believe they could help reduce the risk of health-care workers and other patients acquiring COVID-19 in health care”
3) these portable HEPA filters are really good. But put them centrally in a room optimally.
DEVASTATING—life expectancy of 2019 to 2020 plummeted in women (red) & men (light blue). US young men lost the most—ONE FULL YEAR among age 0-59. Sweden🇸🇪 lost more than all its Scandinavian neighbors. And we haven’t added 2021 #DeltaVariant yet! #COVID19 academic.oup.com/ije/advance-ar…
2) It’s actually worse… “Males in the USA and Lithuania experienced the largest losses in life expectancy at birth during 2020 (2.2 and 1.7 years, respectively)” — the drop was so high that it was cut off in the graph!!
3) Life expectancy at birth declined from 2019 to 2020 in 27 out of 29 countriesaareductions of more than an entire year were documented in 11 countries for males & 8 among females. Reductions were mostly attributable to increased mortality in 60+ years and to official COVID-19.
ATROCIOUS—This Lab Charges $380 for a #COVID19 Test. Insurers say GS Lab is price-gouging, but Trump-era CARES Act of 2020 left an opening for labs to charge any price they wished—up $380 a test—as well as billing both antibody+rapid on same day (no sense) nytimes.com/2021/09/26/ups…
2) At the drugstore, a rapid Covid test usually costs less than $20.
Across the country, over a dozen testing sites owned by the start-up company GS Labs regularly bill $380.
3) There’s a reason they can. When Congress tried to ensure that Americans wouldn’t have to pay for coronavirus testing, it required insurers to pay certain laboratories whatever “cash price” they listed online for the tests, with no limit on what that might be.
MISCALCULATION BY GOP—As an epidemiologist, I think Republicans might be killing off their voter base faster than they think. The #COVID19 death rate since June 30 in counties where Trump got >90% of the vote are 9.5x higher than where he got <10%—pretty strong. HT @charles_gaba
2) To be clear, as an epidemiologist, I present this because I am worried for all public health. There are plenty of people of both political parties dying. But clearly there is a strong geographic political skew. People need to vaccinate and mask, or else it will hurt us all.
3) This mass death trend in areas voting for authoritarians like Trump is also true in parts of Brazil 🇧🇷 that voted more of Bolsonaro. Not a coincidence conservatives in both US and Brazil are more often anti mask and anti vax.
Poor school children in England🏴. The #DeltaVariant has roared back, now worse than the first summer Delta wave. Why? @BorisJohnson doesn’t impose mask mandates in schools, and his JCVI panel has withheld vaccines for kids 12-15 until recently—only releasing when 💩 hit the fan.
2) UK parents are “sick of the lies” from @BorisJohnson’s govt and @sajidjavid’s horrible leadership.