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Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
@DrEricDing
Mar 8, 2022 • 17 tweets • 11 min read • Read on X
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⚠️UPDATE—#BA2 is now 11.6% in US, up from 8.3% last week. It’s definitely increasing, as warned. #COVID19 still dropping, but BA2 is growing in underbelly—it’s a matter of when (not ‘if’) case drop plateaus, then reverses. Likely late April, early May.🧵
covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra… ImageImage
2) Where is #BA2 highest? In New England (HHS region 1), where BA2 is already 24% of all cases. It’s definitely outcompeting the old original #Omicron which is fading away. Image
3) #BA2 is not mild among unvaccinated and under-vaccinated populations. In Hong Kong 🇭🇰 where BA2 is very dominant, hospitals and morgues are overflowing. Hong Kong has never had a surge of this kind before - not until BA2 showed up.
4) But some say HK hasn’t been hit hard by old Omicron, unlike US or UK. So what’s happening in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 then with its BA2 rise? Let’s check in— hospitalizations are rising in all age groups. Especially in kids 6-17, surging 26% in hospital admissions in one week. 👇
5) Some are asking how bad is #BA2 in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 anyway— their last variant update was FEB 25th, but it shows roughly ~1/4th BA2– it’s not even that high of a percentage. Maybe it’s closer to half now but not dominant—yet hospitalizations up already.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… Image
6) How fast is the relative rise of #BA2 versus the emergence of other variants? Early on, it matched the old #Omicron for a while… slower now but still faster than older variants. This is not a good sign. Image
7) HOW IT STARTED… HOW ITS GOING… by region in the US, compare one month ago on Feb 5th… versus now March 5th data see anything wrong with the pink pie charts? #BA2 is growing. I’ve seen this rodeo 4 times before. New variants displace old ones for a reason—it’s not good sign. ImageImage
8) Back to Hong Kong— just how bad is #COVID19 deaths in 🇭🇰 right now? It is almost “Holy Mary” bad. It’s higher than any record high that US or Europe has ever seen. When hospitals 🏥 & morgues overloaded, it’s not merely “with COVID”—it’s directly COVID. HK is undervaccinated. Image
9) If we just look at the recent (old) Omicron wave, HK’s surge makes the recent really bad Omicron wave look tepid (it’s not —it’s the second worst wave the US had). The new HK BA2 is that severe. Maybe the Us might fare better initially—but I worry about waning immunity by May. ImageImage
10) Meanwhile, The good news is that #Omicron responds to Boosters well — 90-95% protection against hospitalization. However, 2 shots “basic” vax isn’t enough anymore versus Omicron—protection now only 70-79% depending on agent group. ➡️Note—70% is 3x worse than 90% if inverted.
11) the secondary ATTACK RATES (infection in secondary household members and in workplaces) is also much higher with #Ba2 than other variants. 14.3% is quite high and about ~25% ⬆️ higher than BA1’s 11.4%. Basically it’ll cross infect more people. This is why it’s a bad sign. Image
12) Furthermore, in non-household settings, the secondary ATTACK RATE (cross infection to others) is 6.1% for #BA2. but that is 32.6% ⬆️ higher than BA1 (old Omicron). This again is not good. Image
13) REMINDER that #covidisairborne. Please try to mask - but if you don’t, please buy a HEPA filter or build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box 📦 filter. See thread 🧵 below 👇
14) #Ba2 is now ~1/4th of all cases in Ontario—even with incomplete sequencing data. This is a spike of 40% increase from last week alone.
15) Again, don’t be misled by falling cases. While total cases may be dropping (of the older variants), there can be an “under growth” in the underbelly, that when it becomes dominant, will crisscross and then cause a new surge. We have seen this before countless times.
16) Too many people are selfish and lacking in compassion during the pandemic. This is one of the fundamental reasons that #CovidIsNotOver. I explore many of the fallacies below 👇
17) The trends for #BA2 in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 are quite alarming. 👇

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More from @DrEricDing

Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Apr 3
Now economists know how scientists felt back when he pushed “hydroxychloroquine”
2) HCQ preventing COVID deaths has been debunked— and it’s now been linked with deaths.

@JoshuaPCohen1
forbes.com/sites/joshuaco…Image
@JoshuaPCohen1 3) JPMorgan on Trump Tariffs: “The largest tax increase since 1968” Image
Read 6 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 28
My god—Earthquake (a Richter ~7.7) causes a skyscraper to collapse in Bangkok. Hope all the construction workers made it out.
2) this skyscraper collapse was captured from a distant car’s dashcam while on a highway

3) another view of the collapse. For those who lived through 9/11, this collapse is a bit triggering.
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 27
Welp—kiss public health & medical research infrastructure in America goodbye for the next 4 years. RFK Jr plans to cut 10,000 jobs from Trump HHS. Image
2) this will not make America healthy again… not by a long shot. So dangerous and irresponsible.
3) “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more”.
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 15
SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown University Medical School—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, and has committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon** (one of the most difficult surgical fields in all of medicine!!!), she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants, which cannot be easily replaced. Her phone was seized at the border. A federal judge handed down an injunction against her deportation—but she was already deported on a plane en route to Paris. Brown’s kidney transplant clinic is now strained by her deportation.Image
Image
2) Full text:

PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island doctor who had traveled to Lebanon to see her parents was prevented from re-entering the United States at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, her lawyer and a colleague said.

Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, who lives in Providence, has been working at Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension since last July, and she [has] been part of the transplant service at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Dr. George Bayliss, the organ transplant division’s medical director. She has been studying and working in the United States for about six years, he said Friday.

The US consulate in Lebanon had issued her an H-1B visa, which is given to people in specialty occupations requiring expertise. The visa was valid through mid-2027, said Thomas S. Brown, an attorney representing her and Brown Medicine.

Alawieh was detained when she returned to Logan airport, and family members are afraid that she is about to be deported to Lebanon, he said.

“We are at a loss as to why this happened,” Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”

He said her phone has been seized and he has not been able to contact Alawieh.

Bayliss said a lawyer filed a petition with the US District Court in Massachusetts, and Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh should not be moved outside of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice. But he said that message apparently did not reach immigration officials in time, and a plane carrying Alawieh left for Paris.

“This is outrageous,” Bayliss said in an interview. “This is a person who is legally entitled to be in the U.S., who is stopped from re-entering the country for reasons no one knows. It’s depriving her patients of a good physician.”

A US Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, was not able to immediately answer questions about Alawieh on Friday evening.

Bayliss said Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut medical school and came to the United States for a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She then landed a transplant fellowship at University of Washington and had a residency in the Yale hospital system before starting at Brown Medicine last July, he said.

“She’s really a very humble and able person,” Bayliss said. “She takes care of her patients. She is talented and thoughtful and a great addition to our division.”

Bayliss said Alawieh went to Lebanon to visit parents and planned to be gone for two weeks. He said she texted a colleague at 6:30 p.m. Thursday saying she was back in Boston, but then her family heard from immigration officials.

Dr. Paul Morrissey, surgical director of the organ transplant division at Brown University Health, said Alawieh works on getting people in Rhode Island on the list for a kidney transplants, and that’s a crucial job at a time when there has been a lot of focus on the need for kidneys and their equitable distribution.

He said Alawieh should not have had any problem traveling out of the country with an H-1B visa.

“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances,” Morrissey said. “It’s putting a strain on our office. Her work has been exceptional.”

bostonglobe.com/2025/03/14/met…Image
3) There is a new Trump ban against many countries, including tourist visa bans against all countries in the red and orange lists. This list is still tentative. And it shouldn’t have affected people with existing visas, such and the Brown kidney transplant surgeon Image
Read 8 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 14
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… once upon a time, liberals did have our own “Leftist Joe Rogan”… his name was Joe Rogan…

Here he is advocating for socialized medicine, healthcare for all, and supporting labor unions to protect workers.
2) Recall, Rogan was once pro Obama and pro Bernie Sanders, and pro Yang Gang, and anti Trump. It’s sad he has since failed to the dark side. But like Vader… maybe he can be redeemed someday and come back to the light.
3) *Fallen, not failed (above).

Joe Rogan was also pro gay rights and pro DACA and pro helping inner city communities that suffer economic and social injustices. It’s sad what he has become. I feel we should try to pull & welcome him back someday. Everyone can be redeemed.
Read 4 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Feb 26
BREAKING—FDA suddenly cancels meeting to update next season’s flu vaccines, with zero explanations. Any delays will jeopardize next year’s vaccine supply chain. Image
2) Folks who follow me know that I’m no bullshitter. I criticized past pandemic response right and left, and have called balls and strikes without bias. And I often say things that doctors & epidemiologists are whispering among themselves but don’t say publicly. (Cough cough) ⬇️
3) While I don’t recommend hoarding… I think stocking up on flu antivirals, which you can obtain prophylactically (preventively) from doctors if you ask nicely why you’re high risk, can be a good idea. I know many doctors, epidemiologists and virologists who do for their family.
Read 6 tweets

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