Dr Thomas Piggott (He/Him) MD PhD Profile picture
Medical Officer of Health & CEO @Ptbohealth | researcher @hei_mcmaster | dad who ❤️: 👶☮️💉🐈❄️ 🎿 🏔 🚴🏼‍♂️🏒🥕| prev @MSF @LSHTM @lghealthNL
Alex Kronstein Profile picture alisonwonderland Profile picture 2 subscribed
Mar 9, 2023 8 tweets 5 min read
🚨It's Time to Improve the Air We Breath 🫁: Peterborough Public Health @Ptbohealth advocates for improved indoor air quality where we live, learn, work, and play
peterboroughpublichealth.ca/its-time-to-im… Scientific thinking on airborne transmission of #COVID19 has heightened the importance of improving & assuring optimal indoor air quality, which also comes with other health benefits.
@Nature asks if countries will clean it up, and we advocate they must!
nature.com/articles/d4158…
Mar 8, 2023 6 tweets 4 min read
Did you know Canada is the ONLY country in the world that has universal health care, but🚫access to covered contraception⁉️
Contraception is a gender health equity issue & 1:5 have insufficient drug coverage.
#InternationalWomensDay @Ptbohealth actioncanadashr.org/resources/poli… BC recently announced that contraception would be free for everyone, and all provinces in 🇨🇦, including @ONThealth should follow suit.
cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
Nov 14, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
The immune system is a fascinating, complicated thing. Here's a story to show, but spoiler alert. You don't owe it any debts and preventing infection is always better than it learning "the hard way" through acquired immunity from infection. When I was on a 6 mo mission @MSF, the project where I was based was in the middle of a jungle. We had no reliable electricity, just intermittent generators therefore refrigeration.
Nov 14, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
I feel the concern healthcare providers, especially those helping kids are feeling right now. I feel it both as a previous ER physician and a father of two little kids. I can feel the fear of health care providers right now. I’ve also worked in healthcare in other countries where I had to triage for inadequate care; I’ve had children die on me, because their health system failed them. It’s not something you ever fully recover from, and it’s something we must do everything in our power to avoid here.
Nov 10, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
In public health training you learn about seat belts as the biggest prevention success story of the 21st century. The 3-point seatbelt began shipping as an option in cars in the late 1950s.
Decades of public health messaging to strongly advise seat belt use just didn't work.
People only started wearing when required.
Ontario was the first to require (1976) and Yukon the last (1991).
Nov 6, 2022 12 tweets 3 min read
I’m not saying there’s movement afoot to privatize Canada’s universal publicly funded healthcare system, but this is how you’d do it:
1️⃣ manufacture a crisis
2️⃣ obfuscate the blame
3️⃣ divide & conquer
4️⃣ provide knights in shining armour to save the day 1️⃣ cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…
Oct 19, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read
Folks, take note please. It's no time to panic, but it is time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work preventing COVID-19. Transmission risk in the @Ptbohealth region is VERY HIGH. It's not what any of us want, but we've had nearly 3 years of experience so we know what to do 1⃣ if you're one of the many people currently sick. PLEASE stay home & stop the spread. Going to school/work sick will continue to lead to exponentially increasing transmission. This isn't just on you, we need to ratchet up advocacy to province & employers for paid sick leave.
Aug 31, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
While the COVID-19 pandemic continues, it is yet to have hit our household to the best of our knowledge.
We have been privileged to be extra cautious, in part because our two little kids aren’t yet fully vaccinated, but we’re also living our best life.
Here’s how 👇 We’re following the evidence on what 2.5 yrs of science has told us works:
1 - we’re checking the @Ptbohealth COVID-19 risk index every Wednesday when it’s updated and adapting our schedule, activities and expectations accordingly. app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjo…
Aug 30, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
More than 6 drinks a week leads to major health risks - new Canadian @CCSACanada lower risk drinking guidelines cbc.ca/news/health/dr… @CCSACanada Here are the guidelines directly
ccsa.ca/sites/default/…
Jul 11, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Friendly reminder. The pandemic is not over. We’ve done great work responding but we haven’t won & there’s significant work to do in sustaining a response and scaling up effective interventions (use of masks, ventilation, vaccines & therapeutics) that will save disability and lives.
May 3, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
In terms of severe disease & death, strain on hospitals & exhausted health workers, & looming challenges of extensive Long COVID, a plateau of transmission this high can’t be acceptable. Image Two + years of science and we know what to do.
Apr 21, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read
@PublicHealthON has released📰their latest Long COVID (Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome)
Lots of research incorporated, evidence is still evolving.

Our pandemic response needs to be guided by concerns with Long COVID.
publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Docume…
Summarized systematic review evidence🧵 Neurological and mental health outcomes:
Apr 19, 2022 12 tweets 4 min read
COVID-19 has upended science, showing us we can accomplish great things by working together 💉💊🌎.

However... a thread 🧵 1/We've learned that despite global advancements in preventions & treatments, they're actively withheld from people living in lower-income settings, and lower income people living in high-income settings too.
COVID-19 has magnified, but followed the same injustices society does. Image
Apr 13, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read
With this sixth wave upon us, preventive measures should be returned & communication needs to be as strong as possible to help us all get through this.
Even the worst of the @COVIDSciOntario modelling projections was showing less cases & hospitalizations than we are seeing. We need improved pathways to treatment and I'm hopeful people that are at high risk of hospitalization, who will benefit from treatment get access through broader access.
Apr 8, 2022 9 tweets 4 min read
I'm concerned the discussion now in pandemic, & the 6th wave we are into in #Peterborough & #Ontario is just focused on preventing hospitalizations & death. Maintaining hospital capacity & preventing severe disease are important, but even 'mild' illness impacts are concerning. As the number of people infected increases, the number of people impacted by the effects of Long COVID is growing. This is a complex multisystem disease we are still learning the extent of...
Mar 29, 2022 11 tweets 6 min read
Ventilation is important to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but how can you tell how good your home's🏡air is?
@Ptbohealth has teamed up with @ptbolibrary & partners to launch the first CO2 Monitor lending program! #COVID19 #ventilationmatters #freshair
peterborough.ca/en/news/peterb… This is an exciting partnership & thanks 🙏 for the support @masks4canada @ncceh @deejcane @LadyScorcher @kdnyhan @Prescientx1 @co2check1 @comilla_s.
We hope other libraries will follow!
Mar 29, 2022 19 tweets 6 min read
A multilayer approach to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is still critical, but there's ONE intervention we all need to stick with for the time being: MASKING 😷
That's why I'm still strongly recommending for all
Here's a quick recap on the science of just how impactful it is. 🧵 Before we get started on the evidence. A quick recall, that in public health decisions, NET balance is critical. For the teeter totter of masks 😷 benefits vs harms: all the weight is on the benefits side & NO harms have been demonstrated.
Mar 12, 2022 7 tweets 1 min read
With provincial changes, and ongoing high levels of COVID transmission (though fortunately decreased from the omicron peak), I strongly recommend individuals who haven’t been vaccinated to do so as soon as possible, including their 3rd dose (or 4th if immunocompromised). I also strongly recommend individuals continue to wear their mask indoors around others beyond the 21st of March.
Feb 16, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
I’ve lived through SARS in 2003, we quickly forgot.
I’ve lived through H5N1 in 2005 & since, we quickly forgot.
I’ve lived through H1N1 in 2009, we quickly forgot.
I’ve lived through MERS in 2012, we quickly forgot.
I’ve lived through Ebola in 2014, we quickly forgot. I’ve lived through Zika in 2015, we quickly forgot.
I’ve lived through Ebola again in 2018, 2019, 2020, we quickly forgot.
I’ve lived & continue to live through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic & all of its new variant waves.
We can’t forget this one.
Feb 10, 2022 14 tweets 4 min read
Through incredible science & collaboration, our two year old pandemic toolbox is pretty impressive. We've learned so much about this virus & how to protect ourselves. Our task now is to pick the best tools going forward, using the most effective & least harmful strategically.🧵 Before we begin, a fundamental misunderstanding in medicine & public health is Hippocrates good ol' words: "First Do No Harm". As my mentor @schunemann_mac always says, in the teeter totter of interventions, we need to focus on the balance to get NET benefit & not NET harm.
Feb 2, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
We are beginning a game of strip poker with the COVID-19 pandemic. But instead of getting naked on the first hand, we need to strategically maintain all of the layers we can, for as long as we can, to save lives of those more vulnerable to the virus in our communities. With effective rollout of the vaccine & a more mild omicron, the pandemic now disproportionately impacts vulnerable Canadians: elderly, immunocompromised, medically-at-risk, unvaccinated. But omicron has also meant more transmission than ever before and its death toll is enormous