Thread by @CherylRofer

I've been reading virologists' threads about the new Covid variant. A thread of thoughts, one over all:

The pandemic is far from over. We must accept that and act accordingly. Vaccinate, wear masks, social distance. We must keep doing these things until the incidence is down.

Wishing won't make it go away. Only vaccinate, wear masks, social distance will. We also need to think about the rest of the world outside the United States.

And the longer it stays, the more of this we will see.
nature.com/articles/d4158…

The new variant contains a large number of mutations. We don't know what they will do individually or together. We won't know until more people are infected. The effect on people can't be predicted from the RNA sequences.

The positions of the mutations could mean it's more or less infective. and nobody knows what some of the others will do.

The delta variant is predominant in most places, but apparently not so much in South Africa, where the new variant is spreading. It's possible that delta's high infectivity will drown this new one out.

Well-meaning people are tired of masks. Some with platforms have argued that now that numbers are going down, surely we can relax restrictions and go unmasked to a bar.

They've argued that several times now. It always leads to more infections.

Here's something I've tweeted before, but it's still true. It's what we keep doing.

Even though it seems like a great many people are getting sick and dying, every time I look at the numbers, we're nowhere near where we need to be in immunity. I should check that, haven't done it for a while.

The pandemic still rages.

We HAVE to take all the precautions.

We must get vaccines to the world.

/fin

Here's a good explainer on the new COVID variant.
apnews.com/article/corona…

Always worth reading @kakape

https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1464226057045876754