My family is spread across the US - In past few weeks, every single house has had multiple people w COVID

It's a bumpy road and we're taking a particularly rough path with a lot of casualties

But we are building up the layers of immunity to grow out of this virus' grip on us.
Regarding building "Layers of Immunity"

Think about immunity like studying for a test

Read a textbook. Each time, you reinforce formed memory & you see something new too! Some small but useful detail

Immune memory can be considered simply - very much like regular memory
Even though the vaccines aren't stopping transmission (they were never meant to. Herd immunity shouldn't have been seen as an option) the vaccines ARE working to do EXACTLY what they were meant to do - stop disease

Details:
Just to be clear - I'm not saying get infected

I'm saying GET VACCINATED & BOOSTED

These are key chapters in the text book that layer on the immunity!

If you get Infected, its also building immunity. It's a dangerous way to build it but silver lining is it builds immunity too

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More from @michaelmina_lab

8 Jan
IMPORTANT - Please share

Many ppl are frustrated that the @US_FDA is telling people not to use a nasal swab as a throat swab

Don’t be! You should be thanking them.

Seriously, you should. Here’s why:

Short Thread

1/
Because in US, the @US_FDA is THE gatekeeper making sure the drugs we take & tests we use DO work & are safe

FDA makes decisions based on data PROVIDED TO THEM

As far as safety goes, FDA is the BEST DEFENSE the population has against dangerous biological products.

2/
There are a few things to consider:

If the FDA IS endorsing something w an EUA or an approval, you can be pretty darn sure it works AND is safe when used as intended.

FDA is THE REASON ppl in US can go to CVS, pick something up, read the label & safely use the product.

3/
Read 9 tweets
6 Jan
At what point was the message of risk reduction (not elimination) and need for serial testing if we want to catch ppl when infectious lost.

There’s a weird focus on first day of infectiousness - as though all tests are day 1

1:

@EmilyAnthes

nytimes.com/2022/01/05/hea…
Importantly, this NYT article didn’t highlight the right interpretation of that study IMO. The majority of difference isnt PCR vs antigen.

The difference was Saliva vs Nasal swab.

When comparing PCR vs Antigen in nasal swab vs nasal swab, the relationship was as expected

2/
The title of the paper should have been

Discordant results between Saliva and Nasal swab specimens

But we’ve actually seen or known this for other variants - saliva becomes positive sooner

3/
Read 4 tweets
5 Jan
THREAD:

This is an important study - supports anecdotes and other work by @awyllie13

Virus growing and detectable in saliva days earlier than the nose!

Both PCR & Ag in nose lag saliva 1-3 days

In Nose, PCR is 1 day faster than Ag (As Expected)

1/

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
@awyllie13 Numerous reports show saliva comes up earlier and w Omicron there have been MANY anecdotes that throat swabs (which interact with saliva!) are turning positive BEFORE nasal swabs

And this pre-print suggests people are infectious when saliva turns positive

2/
Importantly, people are becoming symptomatic really fast too! As this study suggests

So we can use this to our GREAT advantage...

If beginning to feel Symptomatic - ASSUME positive, ASSUME infectious

w/ limited tests, hold on testing!

3/

Read 9 tweets
5 Jan
This thread by is going around
The numbers are not correct

We do not care about sensitivity against PCR -> We care about Sens against culturable/infectious virus

For that, rapid antigen tests are >90%

And the % infectious at day 5 used is inaccurate.

Its a nonsensical 🧵
Here’s an ex of why we can’t just use FDA numbers vs PCR

If we only compare vs PCR, you get poor sensitivity (here: ~400/800 or ~50%).

But if you compare viral loads that matter (culture pos), you get very high sensitivity: 93% here.

From medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
This is most commonly seen in asymptomatics. Why?

Because if asymptomatic - don’t have a clue if you’re PCR swab is taken when you are shedding live virus or Post infectious

So your just comparing Ag against anytime PCR positivity, regardless of if infectious.

3/
Read 4 tweets
4 Jan
Should @CDCgov reconsider guidance on isolation & add a Neg test? Yes!

Why?

Bc relationship between symptom start & peak virus load has changed!

Guidance must keep up accordingly.

To explain: I made a (tough to read) chart based on real experience of Prof. Kato @neurotheory
@CDCgov @neurotheory Here is the original tweet by @neurotheory showing this TERRIFIC Time course of tests.

@CDCgov @neurotheory I've written a bit more about this in a similar thread on Omicron, testing and symptoms.

3/

Read 7 tweets
3 Jan
Its finally dawning on me that there is an endless supply of ppl - many in public health & medicine - who will not understand science of testing & how to interpret the sea of (poorly performed) studies (including by CDC)

This is a failure of messaging by Federal government

1/
Confusion around rapid tests is becoming immensely harmful at local levels as every small town and city has their own decision makers trying to wade through a mix of confusing and often conflicting messages, with no guidance and no idea who or what to trust.

2/
The frustrating thing is that this doesn’t need to be hard!

The science and biology of rapid Ag tests is extremely simple/straightforward if we allow their formal evaluation to be towards why we take the tests: answering “Am I infectious” or “Do I need to isolate still?”

3/
Read 4 tweets

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