Hey, #HoCoMD friends, be careful out there. This rain is crazy. Just got flash flood warning. Those of us who have lived here awhile know the history of this town, including the last tragic flash flood just 4y ago: apps.npr.org/ellicott-city/. #ECstrong
And now add a tornado warning to the flash flood warning, #HoCoMD. Done that before too in our own backyard (📸 2003). Careful out there, #EllicottCity neighbors.
🧵 A little vignette for #ASCO22 attendees & esp speakers/chairs. Today I spoke in an Ed session. E350 is small enough I could see faces. When we began, most were in 😷, but I counted 11 who weren’t. One had a drink. The rest didn’t appear to be eating/drinking. Importantly… 1/
a few people (not sure if in 😷 or not) were coughing. That’s something you always hear, but it takes on added significance in a #pandemic because #COVIDisAirborne & current #Covidvariants spread as easily as measles, the most contagious respiratory pathogen on earth. /2
Before I began my talk, I called attention to the fact that I would be continuing to #WearAMask while speaking. #Covid19 doesn’t care that I’m at the #ASCO22 podium. I said I was speaking masked to model the #OncTwitter behavior I hope to see. /3
🧵 My oncology colleagues know how often I say: #WordsMatter. So I’m thinking about words we use to talk about #RobbElementary & every other incident of #GunViolence in 🇺🇸. Part of why people can scroll past these things, why they may not even register as news to us... /1
Is that somewhere along the way, we had words like “school shooter” & “gunman” drilled into our consciousness as the usual terms. These things oddly sound more like jobs—‘school shooter’ sounds like school principal or school secretary & ‘gunman’ like fireman or repairman… /2
And hear me out on this because the same sentence lands very differently if you substitute, for example, mass murderer or elem school killer. Try it. Grab any article. Listen to any news story. Swap all the words. #Uvalde school shooting m becomes #RobbElemementaryMassacre. /3
Register to #Vote, confirm that you are registered, request a mail-in ballot, or find your polling place here: vote.org. Stop scrolling & act. Ask your friends & family too. Help them w/ the process if they need it. #RobbElementary#GunSafetyNow
And if you feel like your views & concerns are not well-represented by your elected officials, maybe it’s time for YOU or someone else in your life to @runforsomething. #GunSafetyNow#RobbElementary
So I wasn’t that worried a few hrs ago. This dials it up a little.
For anyone who has ever played the collaborative board game #Pandemic, you may know how it goes when there’s uncontrolled spread of one pathogen throughout 🌎 & then outbreak of a new one in mult countries. 😖
The current #monkeypox outbreak now includes cases in #UK, #Spain, #Portugal, #Canada, #US…from what I’m reading, this sounds like person-to-person transmission, which historically was thought to be rare, & evidence of community spread. Wow. #MedTwitter
Smallpox vaccination provides at least partial protection against #monkeypox, but routine smallpox vaccination in the 🇺🇸 stopped in 1972. Most Americans under age 50, including myself, are not #vaccinated.