@MariaGlymour @jimiadams Great question. We get lots of questions @DearPandemic that are VERY specific about somone's situation, so our challenge has been to convey that risk is a continuum & help people take more general principles & apply their own judgment. @lindsleininger has been great on this... @MariaGlymour @jimiadams @DearPandemic @lindsleininger "Risk is not an on or off switch. It's more like a dimmer, it's like a dial. If your risk budget is such that you want to spend all those chips on hugging somebody as safely as you possibly can, I think that, you know, the risk reward benefit might be worth it for you...

1/ My take on why COVID-19 cases are falling. As the wise @mtosterholm has said repeatedly, we need more humility in thinking we can easily explain the epidemic's every move. slate.com/technology/202… @FutureTenseNow @Slate @DearPandemic @OxfordDemSci 2/ Remember this? Modeling humans & viruses is...hard. vox.com/future-perfect…

1/ In this opinion for @guardian, I discuss exponential growth, natural herd immunity, and how to prioritize mitigation strategies going forward. A thread: theguardian.com/commentisfree/… @trishgreenhalgh @melindacmills @OxfordDemSci 2/ To borrow from fellow @DearPandemic Nerdy Girl @lindseyleninger, “Exponential growth sucks.” I used a different word in print but it seems a propos for twitter. This sharp upward trajectory means cases (and then hospitalizations & deaths) can quickly get out of hand.

1/ Did the Sturgis bike rally cause 266,796 new cases of COVID-19? Probably not. Lesson- Beware viral studies that confirm your pre-existing beliefs so satisfyingly. (Long) thread: slate.com/technology/202… @FutureTenseNow @EricTopol @slate @govkristinoem @DearPandemic #Sturgis 2/ Like most people working on COVID-19, I am of the strong belief that mass gatherings during a pandemic are a bad idea. When this paper came out, the huge figures immediately hit the "I Told you So!" button in my & many people’s brains. iza.org/publications/d…

1/ 👇What is the real #COVID19 death toll in England & Wales? In our new study led by @jm_aburto & @ridhikash07, we estimate 53,937 excess deaths in the first half of 2020, roughly 33% higher than officially reported COVID-19 deaths. bit.ly/30koOrx 2/ Excess deaths vary by age & sex, with males comprising 54% of excess deaths in despite being a smaller proportion of the population at the oldest ages (so males have a higher risk of dying at all ages).

Really interesting study showing T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 in some blood donors & exposed family members even in the absence of antibodies. I'm a bit concerned about the press release/media take that this means seroprevalence is significantly underestimated 1/

https://twitter.com/marcus_buggert/status/1277843327900057600

.@marcus_buggert, am I reading this figure right: 9/31 vs 4/31 blood donors had T cell but not antibody responses, & 26/28 vs 17/28 for exposed family members? How does this match claim that almost 2X as many exposed family members & donors generated T Cells but not antibodies?

Thanks to @crimmin @scurran_uw & @PopAssocAmerica for hosting an enlightening #Demography & #COVID19 webinar today. I wanted to follow-up with some links to people & resources, some of which I didn't have time to call out in the talk... First @ikashnitsky & @jm_aburto used beautiful #dataviz to map age structure & #COVID19 risk regionally in Europe:

https://twitter.com/ikashnitsky/status/1247795463169789952?s=20

Some thoughts on a new pre-print from @brunoarpinoFLR @ValeriaBordone @PasqualiniMarta on empirical evidence for intergenerational contact and #COVID19 osf.io/preprints/soca… …#poptwitter @oxfordemsci @melindacmills @rotondivale 1/ In our pre-print from mid-March, we hypothesized that close intergenerational ties may have helped accelerate spread of COVID-19 in Italy from Milan to the older, vulnerable population... 2/

1/4: "The 149 COVID-19-related deaths reported in Germany since 09/03/2020 concerned 97 men and 52 women. The median age was 83 years and the range 42 to 100 years. Of all deaths, 101 (68%) were in persons 80 years or older (but only 3% of all cases)." #COVID19 2/4: 3% of 31,325 cases is 940, a CFR of 10.7% for 80+. This is much lower than Spain & Italy right now, but on par with South Korea. This is still alarmingly high, and suggests focusing on a single CFR will be misleading & highly dependent on age distribution of early cases.

1/12 How does #Demography impact #COVID19 deaths? In new pre-print, we illustrate how older population age structure can interact with high mortality rates at older ages to produce a large # of fatalities, as in Italy. osf.io/se6wy/?view_on… #poptwitter #epitwitter 2/12 #COVID19 fatalities are hitting older age groups hard. Case fatality rates for 80-90 currently 17.5% in Italy. While these numbers will hopefully be overestimates, the burden on older ages groups is frighteningly high.