Many thanks @Finneganporter while i predicted some of this, a part that caught me off guard in the pandemic was the rise of contrarian intellectuals from conservative think tanks or even Harvard Stanford so desperate for relevance they aligned themselves with far right extremists
And then you begin to see how authoritarian or totalitarian regimes unfold. A common thread from my read of political thought leaders in this space like @anneapplebaum @ruthbenghiat is how authoritarianism relies in part on intellectual cover and Stanford Harvard others delivered
As a professor who trained or taught at similar great universities I’m interested in understanding how professors or even whole institutions lost their moral compass during the pandemic and were so eager to align with authoritarian leaders new outlets podcasters
Maybe this always happens in times of great instability? Or maybe it reflects misplaced values of university administrators/boards? Where building endowments is all? Where many College Presidents are no longer scholars/thinkers but selected to keep Universities off the headlines?
Worth exploring I believe

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More from @PeterHotez

16 Dec
Covid expert doctor calls out airline CEOs dismissing masks | The Independent independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…
Read 5 tweets
16 Dec
Many thanks ⁦@AnaCabrera⁩ for hosting me ⁦@CNNnewsroom⁩ as we face yet another wave due to the omicron variant, unfortunately arriving in time to disrupt the holidays when many of use had hoped we might have more time to prepare. The most important thing you can do… Image
Is to max out on getting vaccinated particularly booster doses to produce a big increase in virus neutralizing antibodies that will “spillover” (Dr Fauci’s term, which I think works) vs omicron, but even then…
The UK Health Security Agency says 70-75% protection vs omicron in terms of symptomatic illness and maybe even less a few months after the booster. This could be a problem keeping our HCWs in the workforce
Read 4 tweets
16 Dec
Many thanks ⁦@SRuhle⁩ ⁦@RuhleOnMSNBC⁩ for hosting me as omicron accelerates in NY NJ ahead of schedule. My worries specific to omicron are as follows:
1. Boosting is essential, 2 doses of mRNA offer inadequate protection
2. But even with 3rd immunization… Image
…protection vs symptomatic omicron infection is 70-75% less than >90% vs previous variants. This is according to UK Health Security Agency findings released last week
3. And remember once you get out a couple months after the booster, protection is not as durable as other VOCs
4. So we should expect a fair number of breakthrough symptomatic infections, although it the serious cases are among the unvaccinated.
5. I worry about breakthrough symptomatic infection among our health care providers, depleting further our already weakened health system
Read 5 tweets
16 Dec
Actually I’m an enthusiastic supporter of the Biden Admin @POTUS @WhiteHouse covid response. They inherited a mess and created a federal initiative that saved thousands of American 🇺🇸 lives and stabilized the nation. History will record their successes. But they must fix 2 things
1. They refused to counter antivaccine aggression from the far right causing tens of thousands of unvaccinated Americans to needlessly lose their lives. Deaths by antiscience. Instead they kicked the can down the road by focusing on social media, ignoring those generating content
2. They never shaped a plan to vaccinate the world, refusing leadership to provide 9 billion doses of vaccines. By next week if all goes well our @TexasChildrens vaccine center will provide more vaccines to LMICs than the entirety of the US Government and almost as much as the G7
Read 4 tweets
15 Dec
Many thanks @AlisynCamerota @VictorBlackwell for hosting me today, some key points
1. Vaccine protection vs symptomatic omicron infection after 2 doses is very poor
2. Boosting with 3rd dose Pfizer looks like 70-75% protection vs symptomatic omicron according to UK 🇬🇧 Govt
3. But
3. But some preliminary data from Germany that virus neutralizing antibodies from booster may not stay up very long, so those 3-4 months from their booster may have lower protection
4. I’m concerned about healthcare workers who are in that position and what happens if they…
4. Get symptomatic Covid and are knocked out of the workforce for a couple of weeks. That would put a strain on the health care system. Should we give them a 4th immunization to get them through this surge?
Read 4 tweets
15 Dec
To understand how the antivaccine movement in the 2010s became a well funded political enterprise linked to fake “health freedom” far right extremism starting here in Texas before spreading across North America and Europe: my article in @jclinicalinvest jci.org/articles/view/…
No question the antivaccine movement is now aligned with aggression against climate scientists to become an antiscience political movement. In my @nature essay I argue that this now requires a political solution nature.com/articles/d4158…
A decade ago we had the opportunity to stop this from happening but there was a failure by the leadership of health agencies (including our own CDC) to understand the depth and breadth of this movement.
Read 5 tweets

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