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Zackary Berger Profile picture
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13 Oct, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Emily Oster is still making categorical judgments about how we should approach age differences in Covid risk -- even as we lack information about case transmission from schools to communities.
And all the Osterites saying "Covid risk is the same order of magnitude as other respiratory viruses, but we're treating it SO DIFFERENTLY" are the same people who go gaga over contextless p-values. Stats means nothing without a brain and a heart. Use them.
Not only *should* we care about child mortality out of proportion to the number, but we *do* evince such disproportionate care when kids die of other things, too. And we change society around to address it.
In every generation some economists have to be taught what empathy is.

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More from @DrZackaryBerger

Zackary Berger Profile picture
12 Oct
Food manufacturing workers are striking.

Media workers are negotiating better contracts.

And health care workers?

Told to live off resilience.
Part of the reason has to be doctors.

For too long now we've thought the world of ourselves. We're a guild!! We're autonomous!! We're independent!!

Except we haven't been that for a while. (Nor should we be.) We're health care workers getting a bit less shaft.
Can MDs stop being lackeys of medical centers and start working in solidarity with colleagues from other disciplines?
Read 6 tweets
Zackary Berger Profile picture
14 Oct 20
"I encourage everyone to continue to live the healthiest life they can. A balanced diet, fresh air, and vitamins really are vital to keep our bodies healthy" -- so about this/1
encouraging a "healthy lifestyle" is really a moral directive unless ppl in power address the things that make healthy living possible. a "balanced diet"-- for those without $ to shop?; "fresh air" except when people put incinerators in ppl's back yards?; "vitamins" -- are BS/2
this is a capsule of what it means to conceptualize health as wholly dependent on the self. her son is a "strong teenager" so did well; she "lives healthy" & took vitamins, so got better. no mention of the fact that they direct gobs of resources and have doctors down the hall/3
Read 4 tweets
Zackary Berger Profile picture
24 Aug 20
I have nothing against #PlasmaTherapy for Covid. I've looked at the data. It might be helpful. We need a trial.

Now, imagine if the attention paid to this *one potentially marginally helpful therapy*....

...was devoted, as well (not even "instead") to those sick with Covid. /1
What I mean is this. I'm a believer in biomedical interventions. Heck, I'm a board certified internist. Biomedicine is part of what I do.

But only a part.

So much of the help I try to give patients is not available./2
Not because "it's not my expertise" or any such Pinkerian BS. It's because our priorities are off.

Can we pay workers to stay home?

Can we cancel rent?

Can we give food to the hungry?

Can we make Covid care free?

Darn right we can. /3
Read 5 tweets
Zackary Berger Profile picture
2 Jun 20
Someone asked how I could go to a protest today. Wouldn't Rona be there? Thread:

In general -- in my practice as a physician and in my educational/research/books -- I have tried to be as comprehensive in my understanding the possible reasons that lead people to weigh risks. /1
Because the tricky part about epidemiology and public health is this. Risks are population-based. Decisions are individual. In time of Covid, I have tried not to wax snarky about people seeking haircuts. People have reasons, they always do, even if they are not your type./2
From a public health perspective, would there have been more careful ways, a priori, to organize a demonstration like that? Perhaps (I have seen pictures from Israel of a demonstration with people separated by 6 feet). /3
Read 5 tweets
Zackary Berger Profile picture
7 Feb 20
Something I wrote last night:

I should go to bed -- my wife and children are snug in their beds, our house is safe in a way that so many living places in the US are not. No one is coming to get us, right now. I should luxuriate in that. But I want to write about the day I had.
It was, of course, first of all, thanks to @baltimorebooks, who made dinner, drove the kids to school, worked a full day, put the youngest (who might be a little pissy on occasion!) to bed after supervising her homework, and welcomed me home. And thanks to my covering colleagues.
l spent the day with colleagues from @Doc4CampClosure- fulfilling the wise saying: "get in the way and stay in the way." I was just a small part of the group, but together we are a bone in the throat of the marauding beast, a thorn in its claw.
Read 12 tweets
Zackary Berger Profile picture
4 Aug 19
My institution has a dashboard to compare my opioid Rxs to colleagues. It shows me the # of pills and the # of Rx I write per X days compared to colleagues. We were asked to provide feedback. I pointed out the following was NOT on the dashboard:/thread
1. How many are diagnosed with chronic pain
2. With how many has tapering been discussed in clinic
3. How many have agreed to tapering
4. How many have cancer, sickle cell disease, or terminal illness diagnoses
5. How many have the possibility of a new-patient referral to Psychiatry or Psychology within JH
6. How many have seen physical therapy within the past X days
7. How many have codiagnosed psychiatric diagnoses
Read 6 tweets

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