IF the COVID vaccines cause ANY sudden deaths, they're FAR FEWER than the virus causes EVEN AMONG YOUNG MALES, who are the subgroup at highest risk of heart issues from the shots & are at low risk of death from COVID.
The vast majority of COVID deaths among young were unvaxxed.
Excellent new study from Oregon looks at every young person who died within 100 days of a COVID shot (because it's well known that basically all vaccine harms occur within about 40 days). Also they looked at all young who were reported to have died of COVID & linked vax data.
May 23, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
A friend asked me about a new video by one of the people behind this old video:
factcheck.org/2020/08/new-pl…
Until fairly recently I thought there was about a 90% chance the virus that causes COVID jumped species from some animal to some human OUTSIDE ANY LAB, and about a 10 percent chance it was a lab accident
May 20, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
I've just been accused of being a Pharma Shill, and told I should keep politics out of discussions of COVID-19.
This was in a thread about Dr. Scott Atlas, who was one of President Trump's advisors. I had pointed out data showing that in US Counties, vaccine percentages were much higher where Biden won in
1. How infections and reported cases have risen and fallen during this pandemic. In particular, from the Biobot site you can see that early in the pandemic only a tiny fraction of infections were detected because
Aug 19, 2022 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
From the questions people ask me, I know many are confused about the various types of COVID-19 testing that are available. So here's an explainer:
1. A PCR test is the most sensitive answer to the question "is there viral genetic material in my nose or throat right now?" It has two disadvantages:
Aug 10, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Very important study gives strong evidence that mask mandates slow down infections.
1. A number of districts simultaneously changed their policies while others in the same State did not, creating a natural experiment.
2. The authors used a "difference in differences" analysis so that confounding factors are irrelevant.
Aug 8, 2022 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
Since May 2020, I've taken part in weekly Zoom calls with a diverse group of experts to discuss the latest scientific news about COVID-19. This messages that I sent to the group after the most recent call might be of general interest;
Here are links for a few of the points we talked about today:
1. Talks by Trevor Bedford, who is one of the world's top experts on viral phylogenetics: bedford.io/talks/
Jun 17, 2022 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
We seem to be moving into a phase where immunity and its evasion by the virus is the biggest factor in determining infections and severity.
Booster shots are very important. As is our ability to UPDATE VACCINES.
Wearing a GOOD mask and paying close attention to its fit is really important. Cloth masks aren't enough now. See @masknerd for more about masks.
Jun 16, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Florida's Governor once again thinks he knows better than the medical experts who recommended COVID-19 vaccines for small children. He thinks it's too soon.
Every Infectious Disease expert I know thinks the exact opposite of what the Governor thinks. I know Pediatricians who will get their kids vaccinated as soon as possible.
The Governor is wrong. Very wrong.
Oct 6, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
South Africa study finds that issuing Pulse Oximeters to people with COVID-19 and calling them regularly to check on their O2 levels caused a HUGE decrease in mortality, by getting those who needed hospitalization into the clinic sooner.
And it's a cheap, safe, easily scalable intervention!
From FB's account of yesterday:
“We’ve done extensive work hardening our systems to prevent unauthorized access, and it was interesting to see how that hardening slowed us down as we tried to recover from an outage caused not by malicious activity but an error of our own making.”
In plain English: because their physical door locks depended on the network that their first mistake had taken down, it took them a while just to get into the building to start fixing their mess.
Sep 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Superb post by Jeffrey Morris on the nuances of analyzing vaccine data when all the variables are changing at once, AND there are many covariates that must be factored in for the conclusions to be valid.
Please read the whole thing carefully. It will reward close attention.
Sep 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A recent CDC study is the latest to find the mRNA vaccines have a huge lifesaving benefit even against the Delta Variant of SARS-CoV2.
If you have neither been vaccinated nor had a laboratory-confirmed infection with the SARS-CoV2 virus then you should get vaccinated ASAP.
Scobie HM, Johnson AG, Suthar AB, et al. Monitoring Incidence of COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths, by Vaccination Status — 13 U.S. Jurisdictions, April 4–July 17, 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 10 September 2021.
Sep 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I will probably get my third dose of an mRNA COVID shot this Fall, whenever that is offered to me. I think that's a good idea.
BUT IT'S NOT WHAT MATTERS MOST.
Getting first and second shots into people who haven't had two shots is extremely important.
If I thought going without my third shot would help somebody else get their first or second shot, then I would forgo my third shot.
Sep 11, 2021 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
To those who still question the safety and efficacy of these vaccines: you are trusting the wrong people. There are HUGE amounts of data from many countries now.
But if you distrust scientific experts, try a simple experiment: visit the websites of 20 FOX TV LOCAL AFFILIATE STATIONS AROUND THE U.S.
Sep 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Iowa Governor Reynolds says ‘Biden is taking dangerous and unprecedented steps.’
This lays bare not only her abject failure to protect the lives of Iowa residents but ALSO either that she is either ignorant or lying about US History.
George Washington probably WON THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR by his controversial decision to make his troops get inoculated for smallpox.
Huge news! Finally we have Randomized Trial Data showing that MASKING works. An Epidemiologist who wasn't involved in the study told the Washington Post this study was "incredibly challenging but important to pull off."
Another expert said this should end the "pernicious" idea that masking is an individual choice because this study gave very strong evidence that community-level support of masking had community-wide benefits.
Aug 12, 2021 • 38 tweets • 7 min read
Tragic as it is, the current US wave of COVID-19 cases, brought about by the combination of insufficient vaccination, premature openings, & more infectious Delta variant, would be far worse had we not vaccinated a substantial proportion of our population. Especially OLDER people.
As @_stah & @jonahfleish were among the first to notice (others are starting to notice it now), while US cases and hospitalizations are still rising, it looks like hospitalizations may peak before cases.
IF THIS HAPPENS, it will be good news among the ongoing tragedy.
Aug 10, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Iowa Department of Public Health tells the Des Moines Register they've had to throw away >80K doses of mRNA vaccine, and may need to throw away many more doses by the August unless demand picks up.
News reports about the ongoing surge have caused some increase in demand recently, but demand is still far below what it was in April.
Aug 10, 2021 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Messaging around "breakthrough" infections should be much more clear. Key points are:
1. If you're vaccinated, you may get infected
Aug 9, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Because Twitter doesn't allow fixing typos, I've deleted a thread and am retweeting a cleaned up version
1/n
I noticed a sudden change for Delaware in both @_stah's graphs of US States and the MIT DELPHI Group's epi model.
