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Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
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5 Jan, 4 tweets, 2 min read
1. Cases are high due to holidays

2. A circuit breaker/delayed school start now means the millions of infectious people would become non-infectious before resuming normal life.

3. Breaking transmission now means fewer infections, disruptions & better vaccine protection later.
An extra few days vacation or remote learning could keep keep schools open.

But force everyone back into the buildings right now and... well... too many people out sick to have school.

How long will staff be out w isolation & lingering symptoms?

A small delay to break transmissions now could prevent a hell of a lot of disruption for the rest of the winter.

For all of the screaming about kids in-person education being so critical, returning to buildings immediately is the most painful & disruptive path forward.
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More from @Epi_D_Nique

Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
7 Jan
This chart is helpful for thinking about the relative differences in protection between different mask types.

The exact times posted? I wouldn't rely on those, especially since that was made pre-omicron.

The clear winner here is everyone with N95 or similar #BetterMask.
Going into a public indoor space without a mask right now... VERY NOT RECOMMENDED!
This thread also is helpful for illustrating how well the different masks filter out particles. And it's pretty entertaining.

Read 4 tweets
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
7 Jan
I love data.

I'm constantly assessing risks & benefits on data.

But here's a secret:

Data-driven approaches are only helpful when you have reasonable quality data.

Bad data = bad decisions.

In a pandemic, bad decisions = unimaginable damage.
stayathomemacro.substack.com/p/emily-oster-…
It's critical to adjust your assessments as the data change.

Schools may well have been safe enough in late August and managed ok through the fall given the case levels.

Even if high quality data were captured during the fall they tell us nothing about the safety NOW. Image
What we are facing now is nothing like what we have faced before in this pandemic.

I suspect even schools with very strong mitigation measures will struggle to stay open with omicron spreading this quickly and at such high levels.

nytimes.com/2022/01/06/opi… Image
Read 14 tweets
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
18 Aug 21
Make no mistake, this is a policy choice.

And no, it doesn’t matter if hospitalizations & kids in ICU are really there bc of RSV:

A full hospital is a full hospital.

A full hospital can’t care for kids who are sick or injured for *any* reason.

This is crucial…
As the linked article even very sick kids have high survival IF they can receive care.

But IF hospitals cannot take more patients, IF they run out if ventilators or staff, kids cannot get that life-saving care.

Sending kids to schools without adequate protections is dangerous.
There's not much excess capacity for children's hospitals in the US.

And remember, kids with cancer, major birth defects, genetic diseases need those ICU beds too. These kids are especially vulnerable to Covid-19 as well so a surge in cases risks their exposure in the hospital.
Read 40 tweets
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
17 Aug 21
Reports of mass quarantine or school closures due to Covid-19 often spark “but did they get it in school?” comments.

This is irrelevant.

Why?

All school transmissions will start w an infection from outside of school.

To *prevent* in-school spread quarantine is still needed.
Another thing worth noting:

High community transmission rates means it will be *very* difficult to track down where someone contracted the virus.

Tracing works great when cases are low & there are limited possible exposures. When anywhere is a possible exposure point…
So don’t expect much info on whether cases were from outside or inside of school to be reported, especially in places with large spikes.

Either way 100+ kids showing up to school w Covid is BAD NEWS.
Read 4 tweets
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
17 May 21
My fan-fiction CDC statement:

Dear America,

We now have enough data to say that the vaccines are highly effective at preventing transmission as well as severe outcomes. This is great news!

Most people who are fully vaccinated can feel confident their level of protection.

1/
This means that people with fully functioning immune systems who are not on immunosuppressant drugs have strong protection against getting Covid-19 in nearly all situations.

This includes when you are outdoors or indoors with unvaccinated people.

However...
Although infection rates are dropping quickly in many places, thanks to these wonderful vaccines, Covid is still spreading to too many people and we do not have enough people vaccinated to gain good control.

We also do not have a vaccine verification program.

Therefore...
Read 5 tweets
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something Profile picture
19 Mar 21
@CarolineSeydel @tarahaelle I'll see if I can explain this via tweet!

As adults are vaccinated, they will be less likely to be infected, even if exposed to covid. As more adults become immune, the population who is still susceptible to infection will be mostly kids.
@CarolineSeydel @tarahaelle So, for example, if only 10% of infections are in 5-14 range, as adults become vaccinated this group is more likely to make up an increasing proportion of cases.

This is true even if their infection rate was constant bc there'd be less infected adults.
@CarolineSeydel @tarahaelle But, as more schools go in-person kids will have more contact with each other, both in classrooms and in sports, play dates, etc. so the infection rate is also likely to increase in this group.

And again, even if the chance of each interaction still had the same transmission...
Read 12 tweets

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