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Michael Mina Profile picture
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24 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
This is honestly some of the most idiotic messaging I’ve seen this entire pandemic.

Come on Ireland - seriously?

Surely, You can do better.
Have rapid tests ready at home

If wake up symptomatic, use a rapid test. If pos, you have COVID. Done

If neg and think you may have COVID, check again later that day with a rapid test, or go get a PCR.

But if you have symptoms w COVID, rapid tests will detect vast majority
What is Fianna Fáil?
I wrote a short thread to explain here:

It’s not just Ireland. But most countries are starting to recognize this error by now.

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More from @michaelmina_lab

Michael Mina Profile picture
24 Nov
🧵 When the goal is limiting transmission, timing of tests is everything

If you wait days for positive results before isolating, the time spent waiting must be factored in to the “effectiveness sensitivity” of a test.

Time is always ignored as a test metric. This is wrong

1/
If people are infectious for 6 days and you have to wait 2 days for results, then for every 3 positive people detected, you miss the equivalent of an entire infection Bc the sensitivity while waiting is 0%.

This means the “effective sensitivity” cannot break 67%. But worse…

2/
What’s particularly bad but also ignored is the **0% sensitivity** while awaiting a lab PCR result is for everyone - even people who are at absolute peak virus titers and immediate isolation is most important. For these people, rapid tests detect >95% - with immediate action

3/
Read 6 tweets
Michael Mina Profile picture
21 Nov
🧵 I want to comment on what I was referring to👇

When we say “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, it is stigmatizing & inaccurate - this is a pandemic of a virus that is disproportionately afflicting unvaccinated

I urge us to consider root causes of why so many are unvaccinated

1/
I have spent many years speaking w vaccine hesitant ppl and not once have I found someone choosing to not vaccinate out of spite

It is nearly always out of a combination of love and fear and confusion about who to trust.

In this pandemic, we have lost the trust of many…

2/
The US has bungled the response to this virus in nearly every way pre-vax.

There have been many times when the public health decisions have had to be walked back. “We” have made many mistakes.

Yet we assume that everyone should auto-trust public health decisions

3/
Read 9 tweets
Michael Mina Profile picture
20 Nov
🧵 When ppl give anecdotes about public health efforts not working - please proceed cautiously

It is rare that public health success makes headlines or goes viral Bc success in public health almost always represents the absence of anything interesting.

Bias is tough to spot

1/
Imagine for example if a vax failure in a single person was the only times vaccines made headlines. We’d think they didn’t work. But this is why we have trials - to ensure that we put any Vax failures into proper perspective and measure rates of success vs failure

2/
The same goes for anecdotes around tests, for example:

The White House Rose Garden outbreak made headlines and made everyone think that tests don’t work.

What was not discussed were the hundreds of WH events w no outbreaks owing exclusively in that WH to testing.

3/
Read 4 tweets
Michael Mina Profile picture
6 Nov
Confused about the new OSHA testing rules for unvaccinated?

Thread:

A few options but if using Rapid Tests, the tests must be:

- Observed by the employer OR

- via a Certified Telehealth Proctored session (There are a few companies enabling this)

1/
wsj.com/amp/articles/n…
The rule applies to any companies with 100 or more people…

In these companies, employees must be vaccinated or test weekly.

A hefty fine of $14,000 can be placed upon companies out of compliance

So here are the testing options and pros/cons

2/
First off, that $14k fine is PER individual out of compliance, and possibly per infraction (though Im not positive about the per infraction part).

3/
Read 15 tweets
Michael Mina Profile picture
1 Nov
I truly dislike the term "Natural Immunity"

There is no such thing as artificial immunity

A vaccine drives a NATURAL immune response

The question is simply "how do you want to start building that immunity?" Through a risky infection or via a safe vaccine

Me? I choose vaccine.
Vaccines are one of the most holistic interventions we have in medicine and public health.

Vaccines utilize our natural evolved processes to provide our immune system with an Education.

They aren't a pill that kills pathogens by distributing to all our tissues...

2/
Vaccines are perhaps the most natural thing we do in medicine to protect ppl from infections

Vaccines are small proteins that get taken up naturally by our immune cells.

The immune cells do exactly what they evolved to do naturally. Vaccines don't force anything.

3/
Read 7 tweets
Michael Mina Profile picture
1 Nov
“I will plan to return to work in person at the conclusion of the ten day quarantine following a negative rapid test..."

Great use of a rapid test!

Importantly she’s not using a PCR test bc she’d still remain PCR pos, potentially for weeks.

Thread
1/
thepostmillennial.com/breaking-jen-p…
Why is this important?

Bc imagine that she did not test early and isolate and got a PCR positive AFTER the day her isolation would have ended.

SHE would have to START an isolation that day, for ten days, even though she was NO LONGER INFECTIOUS

Furthermore…

2/
Let’s say in this scenario that @PressSec was not in contact w @POTUS when she was actually infectious bc Biden was in Europe.

But then they were in contact AFTER the infectious period, and just before she got the 1st (in this scenario) positive PCR test

3/
Read 7 tweets

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