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Megan Ben Dor Ruthven Profile picture
Megan Ben Dor Ruthven
@_mbdr_
Just do things with AI. Senior Software Engineer @Google's Threat Analysis Group, previously @GoogleAI, #AndroidSecurity. Expressing own opinions. she/her/y'all
Jan 3, 2024 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Right before Christmas, my toddler tested positive for RSV. Oof. Being sick for Christmas is no fun.

What we really didn't want is for it to spread to our baby. It's their first RSV season, so they're in the risk group for RSV.

What did we do and how did we fare? 1/🧵 Image The odds weren't looking good. 24 out of 25 under 1s in this study tested positive for RSV after having someone in the household test positive for it within the past 10 days.

Were we going to be the lucky one in 25 that avoided it? 2/ academic.oup.com/aje/article/19…
Image
Feb 9, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
TIL maintaining good oral health is an additional way to reduce risk of fatal/severe COVID. 1/🧵 mcgill.ca/newsroom/chann… Good oral health reduces risk of fatal outcomes from COVID-1 This study saw that using special mouthwash 5x per day in COVID hospitalized patients reduced their viral load in their mouth and was associated with a reduction in hospital length of stay (median 4 vs 7 days). 2/ nature.com/articles/s4159… Beneficial effects of a mouthwash containing an antiviral ph
Jan 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Wow. Even McKinsey is catching on that mild acute COVID leads to productivity losses, and therefore, negatively affects the economy.

And of course, long COVID, severe COVID, and fatal COVID also negatively affect the economy (and people's health, QOL, finances, etc). McKinsey One billion days lost: How COVID-19 is hurting the McKinsey estimates the biggest burden on lost productivity due to COVID is time wasted during a mild or moderate COVID infection.

This means that COVID INFECTIONS are the driver of lost productivity, and should be prevented to improve the economy.
Nov 30, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
More people have been hospitalized for COVID in 2022 so far vs 2021 and 2020 in Switzerland.

The difference between years is starker when you look at under 10s COVID hospitalizations.

2022 didn't need to be this way. Covid hospitalizations Weekly labor confirmed hospitalizatio People are dying more often than expected in 2022 in Switzerland, too. So far, there have been almost twice the excess deaths in 2022 as in 2021. Horrible. High excess mortality for 65+ year olds also in the 3rd pand
Oct 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Swiss🇨🇭 public transport companies are very much against mask requirements there.

How do you think they'll react when a substantial percentage of their workforce is out sick with an airborne disease? Rising number of corona cases Public transport industry fear ICYMI some public transport lines were already temporarily cancelled in Zurich🇨🇭 due to too many workers out sick, and that was just at the beginning of the current wave.
Sep 24, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
It's been long enough since the business trip, where my husband caught COVID, to know who else caught it to figure out where he caught COVID.

He caught COVID in a taxi 🚕🚕🚕.

Here's how we figured that out and what we'd do differently next time. 🧵 Timeline: he flew to Oslo🇳🇴 on Sunday, started showing symptoms (in retrospect) on Wednesday.

2-5 days before symptom onset was Friday to Monday.

We didn't expose ourselves to COVID Friday to Sunday. That leaves his travel on Sunday and Monday meetings as possible candidates.
Sep 1, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Wait. What happened in the past year? How much did it deteriorate?

Let's look at the Swiss health insurer's, CSS', health study published today. 🧵 Yeah the health of the Swiss deteriorated a lot in 2.25 years.

March '20: 22% were not fully healthy/ (partly) sick
June '22: that number grew to 35%

13 percentage points more people are at least somewhat unhealthy now than at the beginning of the pandemic.
Alt text translation Your own health situation - before corona and today "Ho
Aug 30, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
We're still discovering the long term impacts of COVID and will for decades to come.

But, it's important to highlight that we know enough _today_ to know COVID is bad for you on average. 🧵 If there's even a 4% chance of recovering from a COVID infection on the timescale of months to never, that is orders of magnitude more risk than normal life in 2019, especially when factoring in the chance of catching COVID multiple times.
ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
Aug 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The CDC estimates 8% of US adults are experiencing long COVID as of early July.

👀Here's the estimate of % of adults with long COVID by state. cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/p… The survey the CDC uses, Household Pulse Survey from the Census Bureau, estimates:
➡️ 43% of 🇺🇸 adults have had COVID at least once
➡️ 8% of all adults currently having long COVID.

The CDC notes the HPS has a lower estimate of COVID infected than seroprevalence studies.
Aug 10, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
👀The Federal Reserve in the US is noticing the effect of long COVID on the labor market.

They're seeing an increase in the percentage of working-aged Americans reporting impairments associated with LC, especially difficulty remembering (+0.6pp), in IPUMS' Current Pop Survey. The Fed sees a stagnation in the % of non-participation in the workforce due to disability, etc, when it should have gone down in this time.

The non-participation rate is 0.6pp above expected, so far.
Jul 31, 2022 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
Trying to figure out how to not catch monkeypox? It's important to know if we're supposed to be personally responsible for our health. Survey below.

@WHO says nothing concrete about what the personally responsible should do. Focuses on gov response. Next!
who.int/news-room/fact… Image The @CDCgov on preventing monkeypox: focuses on fomite spread. Wash hands, don't touch people or things who were touched by people that (could) have monkeypox. Next! cdc.gov/poxvirus/monke… Image
Jul 28, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Malaria is endemic in many countries. It also can reinfect even months post last infection. Reinfections tend to be milder, but continues to be a persistent problem. Just like COVID.

Malaria has been a problem for longer and researched more. What is it's economic impact? Bad➡️🧵 Malaria can give us an insight into how an endemic disease that reinfects affects economies. Here are some differences from COVID:
➡️parasite, not virus
➡️transmitted by mosquitoes, not human to human
➡️requires different mitigation techniques

⬇️ malaria's economic impact. 2/
Jul 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Hath hell frozen over?

Swedish airports reinstated mask requirements for staff due to increased COVID rates.

What are airports outside of Sweden waiting for? Image HT @Teheimar @jorgenponder article in swedish. svd.se/a/x8Kdr8/flygp…
Jul 10, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Just wondering how much death and disability could be attributed to experts lying about the effectiveness of NPIs or the severity of COVID in the name of "preventing panic". Keep it simple: stick with the facts. Let adults figure out how to respond.
Jul 9, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The Swiss vaccine rec head falsely claims that long COVID is much rarer in vaccinated or previously infected people in this news article.

Who needs studies with "experts" like these. If anyone is interested in people undermining vaccine campaigns, over promising what vaccines can do will definitely lower vaccine trust for years to come.
Jul 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
What if some public health authorities are undermining their own messaging with their pandemic response? Public health
Polio: get your kids vaxxed to avoid 0.5% chance of paralysis post infection.

COVID: kids have a "low chance" of death and "only" 3% chance of long COVID. No rush to vax.
bag.admin.ch/dam/bag/en/dok… ImageImage
Jul 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Still confused if COVID is mainly transferred by air or by touch?

Remember how masks were mandated for a time? Was washing hands mandated at the same time?
I know the Swiss CDC, @BAG_OFSP_UFSP, didn't mandate it. Did your country's CDC? @BAG_OFSP_UFSP Sweden and the US didn't have country-wide mask mandates. But, they didn't have hand washing mandates either.
Apr 16, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
If "only" 5% of covid infections turn into long covid, what does that mean?

Will you get LC? IDK, but that would really suck.

What's worse and more certain: if 5% of everyone around you became chronically ill suddenly. This is why it's important to keep covid cases low. 5% comes from the @ONS bulletin on long covid in vaccinated folks.

5.5% of infected 2x vaxxed folks developed long covid that limited their day to day activities.

Note: not everyone is vaxxed. And, it doesn't account for vax waning or 3x vaxxed.
ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
Apr 14, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Anyone get the feeling that covid's like a big problem, bigger than what one person can solve?

We might need more coordination than personal responsibility if so. Estimated 20 million covid deaths around the world. The number continues to grow, despite vaccines available.

But, we all knew that. economist.com/graphic-detail…
Mar 24, 2022 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
No one has published % protection of a BA.1 infection against BA.2 infection.

Until then, I'll collect all of the reinfection within 3 month tweets I find.

2 infections 6 weeks apart in a kid. Reinfection within 7 weeks. Never saw her kids so sick. 😔 Get better soon.
Mar 21, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
When the covid vax was released, I looked up how long it took for polio to subside post-vax. Our lives can't have normal risk until covid subsides.

It took 5 years for US polio cases to reduce 10x.

I thought then, "surely covid won't take that long". Now, I'm not convinced. 1/ I thought the covid waves would go away in <5 years unlike polio bc it was half a century ago.

We've progressed. Now:
* easier to learn from int'l research
* we know more about viruses, spread, etc

We just need to find, implement, and iterate on solutions. That's all, right? 2/