Thread by @_Iaura_

I listened to Fauci, Stephane Bancel (Moderna), Annalies Wilder-Smith, and Richard Hatchett discuss the future of covid at Klaus Schwab's WEF yesterday. Here are my notes. 🧵1/
weforum.org/events/the-dav…

Bloomberg’s moderator, Francine Lacqua, says the public can submit questions to the panel using a QR code. “This is the beauty of 2022, we know how QR codes work.”

Now is the time to thank your higher power for gracing us with the beauty of QR codes. 2/

Fauci says we aren’t going to eradicate the virus and is will be like the flu, becoming endemic with seasonal pandemics. We will continue to get more variants, and we don’t know if they will elude the immune response. 3/

Wilder-Smith says it's likely future variants will be less dangerous, but we need to prepare for the worse-case scenario—a variant with high transmissibility and mortality. Hatchett says we should be concerned about future pandemics, even after it becomes endemic. 4/

Moderna is expecting a new omicron version of their vaccine to go to regulators for approval in March. Moderna is also working on the new version to be released in fall 2022. 5/

Let me emphasize that. In addition to the initial two-dose series plus booster, in 2022, you will be expected to be vaccinated again in the spring and in the fall. (No mention if these new formulations will be single shots or multidose series.) 6/

Moderna is focusing on how to make people want the vaccine. To overcome “compliance issues,” they will combine covid, flu, and RSV vaccines into a single shot for fall 2023. 7/

Fauci says herd immunity is elusive because this virus has an “extraordinary capability” to mutate, unlike viruses like the measles. Immunity from infection wanes “rather quickly.” Vaccines are “extraordinarily successful” but immunity can also wane. 8/

Moderator asks how to “bridge the divide between believers and nonbelievers.” (This is definitely not a cult, people.) Fauci, followed by the others, laughs and then launches into a tirade against nonbelievers. 9/

Fauci: "There are some inherent nonbelievers that no matter what you say, give you a real problem.” We should fight “the real enemy,” the virus, but instead have to fight “disinformation” on social media, which is destructive to their “comprehensive public health endeavor.” 10/

Moderna is likewise saddened by the “misinformation.” We have to “get people to believe in the vaccines.” “The enemy is not another company or another group; the enemy has only been the virus and is still the virus.” 11/

Hatchett discusses that they are seeking the “holy grail” of vaccines, which will protect against all possible variants instead of having to vaccinate every few months. Fauci adds that we still might need boosters even after this vaccine-to-end-all-vaccines is developed. 12/

Fauci discusses the situation in the US, blaming a “disturbing pushback” against “regular, normal, easy-to-understand” and “well-recognized” public health measures, like masks, vaccination, and other things. We give the virus an advantage when we don’t act in a unified way. 13/

Moderator asks if we should be implementing education campaigns in schools to push vaccines. Wilder-Smith sidesteps and says we need to educate the medical community, because they are a source of “conspiracy theories.” 14/

Bancel (Moderna) says that before the problem was vaccine supply, but now they have warehouses full of doses. The African Union said they don’t want the doses they had reserved. The problem is getting these doses into arms. 15/

Fauci defines “the new normal” as much greater attention to respiratory viruses in the future. We will not always mask. We need more global solidarity and corporate memory. 16/

Last question. With 20/20 hindsight, what should we have done differently? Fauci says we should have had a more coordinated global response because the virus circulating in any part of the world is a threat to everyone. 17/

I want to emphasize that answer. Fauci considered everything that has happened during this pandemic, and the only area that needed improvement was that other countries should have followed his lead more closely. This man truly has a god complex. 19/fin

I did not realize that the flue vaccine they hope to combine with covid next year is a new mRNA flu vaccine that does not exist yet. cnbc.com/2022/01/10/uni…

Here is the clip of the question and the start of Fauci’s response.

https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1483668876671918080