"Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic -- Things I've Learned (So Far) - 2024 Edition"
It's for my students but great for anyone who wants to better understand the state of the pandemic in the U.S. in Jan 2024.
40 mins total across 7 chapters:
Ch 1 - Intro on the Winter 2023-24 Surge and a bit on my background
Ch 2 - The public health significance of COVID-19 at present, especially focused on Long COVID
Ch 3 - SARS-CoV-2 is Airborne, and we need multi-layered mitigation
Ch 4 - Quarantine, testing, and isolation overview
Ch 5 - Masking tips
Ch 6 - Air cleaning fundamentals
Ch 7 - Vulnerability and inclusivity
VIDEO THREAD 🧵 - Clip 2 of 7
Chapter 2: COVID is NOT “A Cold or the Flu”
#LongCOVID #LongCovidKids
"Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic -- Things I've Learned (So Far) - 2024 Edition"
I have no financial Conflicts of Interest (COIs) for any of the products or industries mentioned in passing. I intentionally do not receive ad revenue on these videos, as that could create the appearance of a potential bias.
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You might not have heard, but the northeastern U.S. is in a COVlD surge.
We use wastewater levels to derive estimates of the proportion of people actively infectious in each state (prevalence), e.g., 1 in 24 people in Connecticut.
We told you that 109,000-175,000 Americans would died of COVID (excess deaths) in 2025.
Today, the CDC estimates 101,000 deaths/year (flat from Oct 2022 to Sep 2024), and likely higher when considering more nebulous non-acute excess deaths (heart attack 6 months later). 1/5
The CDC estimates are actually higher than I would have guessed, given their methodology, which models estimates based on easily countable factors in healthcare and expert input on multiplier values. It lends credence to the PMC upper bound of excess deaths of 175,000/yr.
2/5
What's troubling is the CDC has annual mortality flat. My expectation based on mortality displacement and Swiss Re data is that it should be declining. If is stays flat, we're running on something like breast+prostate cancer or lung cancer deaths per year in perpetuity.
3/5
Based on today's CDC data, we estimate 1 in 51 Americans are actively infectious with COVlD. That's nearly 1 million new daily infections.
Be wise. Vax up, mask up. #oneofthetwo
🧵2/10
Many states are surging presently. True levels are higher than shown in most places due to state-level reporting lags.
🧵3/10
Although many states are surging, do not feel false security in "low" level states. For example, NY has terrible reporting quality with the CDC currently.
In the latest CDC data, 15 states have moderate to very high transmission.
🔹1 in 63 estimated actively infectious nationally, rising fastest in the Midwest & Northeast
🔹Very High: Indiana
🔹High: Nebraska, Vermont, Connecticut
🧵1/9
PMC estimates 1 in 26 people in Indiana are infectious and 1 in 39 in Connecticut.
MI, MS, and AR may have higher levels than shown due to poor reporting.
States AL to MS shown.
🧵2/9
PMC estimates 1 in 39 are infectious in both Nebraska and Vermont (coincidence, not typo).
Very few NY sites are reporting to the CDC, so use the NYS website there instead.