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Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
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12 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
I hope that the fourth time is the charm.
This time around a lot more people have immunity than in previous waves. So there is more reason to hope.

>215 million have received one dose of vaccine. >400 million doses administered. Probably a third to half the country has had COVID.
Worries that threaten hope: First worry is that 60-80 million are still very susceptible. A second worry is duration of immunity; but this should be quite good and long lived at least in terms of protection against severe disease. A third worry is potential rise of a new mutant.
Because of these worries, this time I'm hopeful but more subdued than I was Feb-June when cases really plummeted. Fingers crossed.

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More from @VincentRK

Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
12 Oct
What about natural immunity? A thread.

I'm not a virologist or vaccinologist. I'm addressing this issue as someone whose career has been focused on plasma cells, the cells that make antibodies, for over 20 years. 👇
1) When first exposed to an antigen, virus or vaccine, the immune system produces a primary immune response. On exposure to same antigen again, it produces a better, bigger, and more durable secondary response. Basic immunology. microbiologynotes.com/differences-be…
Sometimes the first infection gives a long enough exposure to the antigen to stimulate the secondary response. Sometimes it's not. Depends on the virus and duration of infection.
Read 11 tweets
Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
11 Oct
The US had crossed over 400 million doses of COVID vaccine administered.
We have get the rate higher. But this is a great accomplishment. Under 10 months. ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinat…
This has been accomplished even though I think the extent of anti vaccine misinformation has been the highest in the US. Public health leaders have tried their best to convince the hesitant.

We have 70 million eligible people left to reach.
Read 4 tweets
Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
9 Oct
What proportion of the US has some immunity to COVID— where the immune system is not totally caught by surprise?

215 million have received at least 1 dose of vaccine.

40-60 million of the rest likely have had COVID.

That still leaves 60-80 million who are very susceptible.
The true number at risk of severe COVID is hard to estimate because some people who have been vaccinated or have had COVID may not have adequate protective immunity due to underlying comorbidities like cancer or other immunosuppressive disorder.
The unvaccinated include 50 million not yet eligible for vaccination. If a vaccine approval comes, this number will come down.
Read 4 tweets
Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
4 Oct
Study of 3.4 million people @aboutKP @TheLancet

Vaccine efficacy against infections:
- First month post: 88%
- 5 months post: 47%

But vaccine efficacy against hospitalization (Figure):
- First month post: 87%
- 5 months post: 88 %

thelancet.com/journals/lance…
No significant difference in rate of decline in vaccine effectiveness between delta and other variants.

Vaccine efficacy against hospitalizations 93% for delta and 95% for other variants.

thelancet.com/journals/lance…
Bottomline is that some drop in efficacy against infections is seen over time, but protection against severe illness remains constant. Vaccines are working great in this study as in multiple others which have demonstrated the same thing.

#GetVaccinated
Read 7 tweets
Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
4 Oct
Top 10 drugs for Medicare Part D spending in 2019. The list and the $ amounts are worrisome:

1 is used for a cancer that's 1% of all cancers.
2 are expensive blood thinners more convenient, but only marginally better than older drugs.
4 are diabetes drugs.
Insulins should not be on that list. It's 2021.

A drug that's a cousin I thalidomide, that has been used for over 15 years to treat a cancer that's only 1% of all cancers should not be on the list.

I don't think new oral blood thinners should be so highly priced.
Medicare does get back some money back for these drugs as rebates so we don't know the exact dollar amount which Medicare actually spends. But the spending is high regardless.
Read 4 tweets
Vincent Rajkumar Profile picture
4 Oct
We have 280 million people eligible for COVID vaccines in the US.

The first 140 million got fully vaccinated ASAP. The final stretch will be the hardest.

See the rocket take off and then slow to a crawl.
I thought some people may be reluctant. But not this much: 95 million eligible but not yet fully vaccinated.

30 million of these have had one dose. So I am hopeful they will get fully vaccinated soon.

That leave 65 million eligible people who have not had even one dose yet.
Out of these even if one third has some degree of immunity from prior COVID, it still leaves 40 million eligible people completely susceptible. That is a lot of people.

Which is why we cannot relax yet. What we can do below:
Read 6 tweets

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