Arijit Chakravarty
@arijitchakrav
Followers
10,787
Following
1,404
Media
330
Statuses
12,447
Biologist who knows some math, working in biotech. Publishing on COVID since 2020.
Lexington MA/ Bethesda MD
Joined January 2011
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Dortmund
• 517895 Tweets
Apple
• 428439 Tweets
iPad Pro
• 117784 Tweets
Grok
• 108876 Tweets
YAIBA
• 81524 Tweets
Adani
• 68505 Tweets
어버이날
• 48345 Tweets
生田斗真
• 47302 Tweets
ホビーショー
• 40148 Tweets
無痛分娩
• 37969 Tweets
Le 8
• 37167 Tweets
backnumber
• 36358 Tweets
新シーズン
• 25377 Tweets
#MAESTRO1stWin
• 24998 Tweets
エンプレス杯
• 24965 Tweets
NCT DREAM MOONLIGHT OUT NOW
• 24012 Tweets
PRABOWOsiapkan DgnFOKUS
• 23883 Tweets
敷島製パン
• 23683 Tweets
UntukNEGARA UntukRAKYAT
• 23079 Tweets
プレス機
• 22088 Tweets
#裏toHEROes
• 21554 Tweets
リュウケンドー
• 20267 Tweets
ゼウスシルエット
• 20024 Tweets
#SEVENTEEN64thWin
• 19930 Tweets
C-Pher
• 18547 Tweets
アップル
• 15291 Tweets
川崎競馬
• 13952 Tweets
ゴーヤー
• 11508 Tweets
味園ビル
• 10655 Tweets
Mentana
• 10491 Tweets
ストロベリーフラペチーノ
• 10418 Tweets
オルター
• 10250 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
It’s eerie to think about how much of where we are today was so easy to predict. We and others, working from deductive reasoning, called it point for point (ht
@fitterhappierAJ
, eg). This is a talk I gave over two years ago, based on our work then: 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
13
127
433
Took me a long time to realize there is a group of people out there that stands to profit from more covid. It just wasn’t on my bingo card when the pandemic started. Once you realize that, though, everything makes sense. (1/)
96
681
4K
Can’t be Covid, because Covid doesn’t cause immunosuppression, because if it did, tuberculosis and fungal diseases would be on the rise. Those diseases are on the rise, but no one knows why.
So it can’t be Covid. ⭕️
/s
Public health officials Tuesday reported a 17% increase in active tuberculosis cases in San Diego County over the previous year.
24
100
159
32
1K
4K
@BCChildrensHosp
Do you have a minute to spare? Maybe you could reflect on why your organization exists.
10
64
3K
Chairman Powell at the
@federalreserve
puts his finger on one of the root causes of inflation at present- labor shortages resulting from covid infections in the ongoing pandemic. Our research suggests a very high ongoing burden of covid infections under the current strategy. (1/)
82
894
3K
Okay, let’s talk about “learning loss”. (H/t
@McKinsey
)
US high school test scores (ACT) are out - they’ve fallen steeply for the 4th year in a row. Now at their lowest level in 30yrs.
Let’s look at the data & the media narrative and weigh potential explanations, shall we? (1/)
86
904
2K
F**k. This is what I was worried about.
The sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 from the both lung samples doesn’t match the sequence found in the brain.🧠 This suggests viral replication and viral evolution. Listen to Daniel Chertow MD discuss 👇🧵
128
639
2K
97
593
2K
“It I s difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair. (2/2)
7
223
2K
Shocking study about neurological impact of SC2 infection in dogs. Published in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal..
If you own a dog - or a brain- this study is worth taking a look at. (H/t
@outbreakupdates
)
#maskup
#itsnotjustacold
64
695
2K
@wendyisacsson
Every time someone asks me “how much longer are you planning on masking”, I reply with “how many more times are you planning on getting covid?”.
Stay strong 💪
#CovidIsNotOver
#MaskUp
#todavialuchando
73
287
2K
I mean, it’s 7000 papers and counting, but who’s counting, right? ;>
(H/t
@BiffAndFinn
)
15
619
2K
Thought I’d never live to see the day when a US public health agency showed a graphic with a fitted respirator. Maybe something to pick up on,
@cdcgov
?
👏👏👏👏
Flu, COVID-19 and RSV are all currently spreading in NYC. Wearing a mask in public indoor spaces and crowded places can help protect you and also protect others if you’re sick. High-quality masks, such as N95s, KN95s and KF94s provide the best protection:
493
2K
4K
21
333
2K
🤣💀💀💀
Make plan. Get votes. Forget about plan.
None of this was implemented.
hilarious to look back at bidens covid plan and read page after page of stuff he didnt even try to do
80
3K
10K
14
453
1K
Three years since we put our preprint out making exactly this prediction, and governments worldwide are still all in on “vax &relax”
Singapore: very highly vaccinated, with 92% up to date with boosters. Massive rise in cases, up 154% in 2 weeks, worse for hospitalisations, up 159%.
This is shocking. Compelling evidence that reliance on a vaccine only strategy will not work. New strategy urgently needed.
213
2K
4K
32
483
1K
Unidentified flu-like illness... they’re rolling out the deep cleaning, so that should take care of it!
39
364
1K
Viral evolution is not our friend: a🧵 about the future of covid-19.
What does the future hold for us with COVID-19?
In a recent preprint (h/t
@madistod
), we continue to explore a question that's concerned us since the beginning of the pandemic: (1)
43
593
1K
Look at the date on this tweet.
Top German scientists:
1. Herd immunity not possible bc immunity too short.
2. Not feasible to go 'shield vulnerable' approach bc impossible to fully identify & isolate them.
3. Potential serious, long-term damage to young/healthy also from this virus.
325
7K
13K
22
374
1K
Hey,
@BrownUniversity
, time to ask your Dean of Public Health to delete his Twitter account?
This is disinformation bordering on propaganda. Not his only tweet like this.
He makes several errors of fact in this tweet. Compare the 1st sentence to the Merck Manual, for example:
30
409
1K
At what point does it make sense to hold
@CDCDirector
accountable for misinformation? Those of us who voted for
@POTUS
because he promised to “follow the science” are curious about that.
63
213
1K
🤣🤣🤣
“Six weeks of lockdowns from three years ago are causing brain damage that a neurotropic virus couldn’t possibly be responsible for”.
Can’t. Make. This. Shit. Up.
Holy Shit! “In the U.S., young people are experiencing persistent problems that were aggravated by lockdowns including increased deaths, mental illness, drug overdoses and a detachment from the workforce. Call the phenomenon
"long Covid lockdowns."
47
12
44
23
280
1K
This point has been before, but if you want to know what the future holds for long Covid, look to high-contact-rate professions.
In the UK, the Guardian noted the shortage of workers specifically in this category (1/)
Gosh, it feels like they're so close to understanding it and saying it in this editorial.
🚨"These days, staff shortages are causing problems across public services, above all in careers demanding high levels of personal interaction" 🚨
26
234
931
18
432
1K
@PauloEastvan
@Itisallacademic
He is wrong. A pandemic is not a feeling. If you vaccinate once a year and take no other precautions, you will get covid 1-2x/yr. Each infection brings a 10-20% chance of long covid, and massive increases in the risk of other bad outcomes (heart attacks, stroke, embolisms) (1/)
12
314
1K
Precisely. The failed public health response to covid hasn’t just killed millions- it’s also unraveling the very notion of public health. The pseudo-libertarian argument that externalities generated by me are your problem is a recipe for societal collapse.
is there a bookie who’ll take my bet on when we see the first seatbelt law repealed
13
54
297
18
340
1K
Wow, this is next-level. Man infected elderly, high-risk father and then figures out that covid is not going anywhere. (1/)
42
238
1K
Hard-hitting reporting by Forbes! The new
@CDCDirector
is off to a flying start, protecting the interests of hospital administrators at the expense of the public.
This is the kind of public accountability we need!
H/t
@organicbotanic
15
435
1K
Beyond falling ACT scores, the impact of repeated Covid infections on cognitive ability in kids needs more study. The folks who were handwringing about learning loss seem pretty chill about cognitive damage in kids, though. (25/25)
@dgurdasani1
@lfwhite14
@EpiEllie
@DrZoeHyde
35
216
1K
Nature microbiology paper showing that SC2 infection alters host cell DNA epigenetically.
In plain English- there could be *very* long term consequences to covid infections, ones that might take years to figure out.
It’s. Not. Just. A. Cold.
"Such changes were not found following common-cold-virus HCoV-OC43 infection."
5
48
190
20
416
1K
So what are these long term effects, and how could they possibly lead to falling test scores, you may ask?
The thing is, Covid is not just a cold. The virus can reach the brain even after a mild infection, and is capable of causing brain damage (21/):
3
250
1K
@nailatrahman
Basically. The rhetoric of free market solutions to societal problems falls apart very quickly if the free market finds greater profit margins in perpetuating the problem. Covid was never going to be solved by the free market alone- governments worldwide should’ve known this.
18
160
1K
What a profoundly ridiculous take. We have no “ecological relationship” worth preserving with pathogenic respiratory viruses. They are parasites, not symbionts. This deadly theater of the absurd requires ever-increasing levels of suspension of disbelief.
46
253
1K
@NatanMitch
@jvipondmd
At some point it dawned on me- pro-covid “experts” whose predictions constantly fail to come true aren’t platformed despite their poor track record, but *because* of it. (1/)
26
337
1K
And hey- who woulda thunk it?- ACT performance correlates quite a bit with general cognitive ability. It’s not factual recall- based.
Maybe a virus that causes brain damage is a more reasonable explanation for falling ACT scores than “lockdowns” or Zoom? (24/)
9
215
1K
Unbelievable. Physical distancing. For an aerosol, indoors. 🤦♂️
If it spreads like cigarette smoke, what will 6ft of distance do? We are in year 4 of this thing & the back of the class still hasn’t figured it out.
And it’s the back of the class that’s in charge .
Top Canadian WHO adviser under fire after downplaying airborne threat of COVID-19
Dr. John Conly says N95 masks cause 'harms,' focus should be on physical distancing
45
138
366
27
207
992
Let's not keep doing this: a Groundhog Day 🧵 about how to get past the COVID-19 pandemic.
"COVID is never going away, so we should just learn to live with it". No, we can do better!
There may still be much that can be done, e.g with vaccines (1/):
21
292
979
This is misinformation. “Transient lymphocytopenia” is the best case scenario. Immune dysregulation lasting months, for an infection that most people will get one or two times a year, has significant practical consequences.
There's a lot of bad information out there about how covid damages the immune system
It really doesn’t
But you know what does?
Measles
And thanks to the antivaxers
We are seeing measles outbreaks again
Encourage people to get their kids vaccinated
It’s really important
845
213
1K
13
243
971
The T cell cavalry ain't coming: a 🧵 on the lack of evidence for a protective role for T cell immunity for SARS-CoV-2. (Summary of this longer 'mini-review' with refs: ) (1/)
15
338
939
In point of fact, there are ~12k peer-reviewed papers at this point on long covid/ covid sequelae.
More papers than have *ever* been published on chickenpox. In the same ballpark as Lyme disease, bubonic plague & mumps.
Bizarre that the media still paints it as controversial.
@miladypresident
Covid.
Long-term brain damage and disabling of millions, ignored by all governments, mainstream media complicit.
It’s crazy that anyone who points this out sounds like a conspiracy theorist.
13
50
332
18
348
940
Hybrid immunity is the talk of the town these days! Get infected to top up your immunity & avoid the worst. That's the theory, at least. What could possibly go wrong, right? We take a closer look at that question (of course) in our latest preprint: (1)
30
379
935
Let 'er rip leads to rapid SARS-CoV-2 evolution. How bad could things get, really?
We take a closer look at that question in our latest review (preprint below).
(h/t
@lfwhite14
,
@ManishSagar_MD
,
@madistod
,
@debravanegeren
)
15
351
928
Most kids have been infected.
Most infections originate in the school setting- in fact, as we predicted, schools are a major driver of Covid spread (🧵 coming soon).
Each infection brings with it an almost constant risk of long term health effects.
These are the facts. (20/)
10
217
930
Covid-19 Patients Flung Out Hospital Windows As Public Emergency Ends
26
224
909
This is criminal negligence.
I've no reason to doubt the provenance of this note from a Shropshire NHS Trust, but I genuinely wish it was fake.
Short-sighted doesn't even begin to describe my outrage at this callous approach to staff and patient safety.
Have we learned nothing?
I only hope it's not UK wide💔
686
2K
7K
32
217
892
Very interesting! What happens when people keep saying “it’s just a cold”. Viral load for recent variants apparently peaks later than it used to. Implies symptom screening may be more useful than before (assuming same %asym).
31
289
892
The idea that two months of extended summer vacation in 2020 is the explanation for this is just silly.
The idea that ACT scores continue to fall in ‘23 because a minority of kids were remote in ‘20/‘21 is equally silly. (17/)
6
124
848
This was the one thing I took away. A million+ dead in this country over 3 years, millions more disabled, and we are still worried about fearmongering. For all the 💩💩 that
@DrEricDing
took for it, go back and look at his “holy mother of God” post and tell me he was wrong.
In retrospect, not nearly enough fear was mongered
31
589
4K
21
178
815
There’s literally dozens of papers documenting this. (Google “Covid” and “cognitive damage”).
Cognitive damage after Covid can happen to anyone, and is equivalent to about ten points off an IQ score for severe cases (22): .
11
143
814
Cool. Took the
@WHO
a year to do essentially the same back-of-the envelope math that I laid out in Fortune last spring. This stuff isn’t rocket science, really:
23
237
807
@mildanalyst
We are witnessing the disintegration of the concept of public health before our eyes.
15
86
769
If you let the pandemic run indefinitely, the number of disabled will rise over time. If you change the definition of disabled, that’s a *one-time* fix.
I just don’t get what the endgame is here. This “green-mapping” mentality cannot lead to a solution to the ongoing problem.
Rather than address the growing crisis of an ongoing pandemic, not to mention those already disabled, the US Census is responding by changing the definition of disability.
And if they do so, the rate of disability as identified by the Census is slated to drop to 8%. (2/7)
34
830
2K
23
232
779
Hundreds of millions of people will be infected/yr in the US. As some proportion of them get long covid, and those with long covid drop out of the economy ("early retirement"), the labor shortages will worsen over time (2/).
9
128
755
We hear a lot about public health being a personal thing these days. “If you’re vulnerable, shield and stay up to date on your vaccines” is what PH advocates for now. So, how well will this work? Our latest preprint explores this question ( 🧵 follows, details 👇👇) (1/:)
“Shielding under endemic SARS-CoV-2 conditions is easier said than done: a model-based analysis”
3
240
569
19
298
750
This is the funniest!
Does anyone know who made it? Interested in using it for a blog post.
16
190
755
So what could possibly explain this (mysterious) ongoing learning loss?
We knew in the fall of ‘20 that reopening schools without robust mitigations would lead to widespread Covid. Sure enough, most kids have had Covid by now, many more than 1x. (19/):
5
149
742
@kprather88
@WHO
🙄 🙄🙄 “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” -Upton Sinclair
2
91
723
So, once in-person learning resumed -by that definition- learning loss should have ended.
Only it didn’t. Many different datasets from middle and high schoolers worldwide have shown that the rate at which children are falling behind is the same. (13/)
2
114
715
We have been talking about this. It’s super plausible, and also very scary.
Theory: the 'waves' of covid are changing in a specific pattern. The peaks are getting lower, but the troughs are getting higher. If this continues we get a very scary form of 'endemicity' where we just have constant linear growth
77
388
2K
21
185
703
There have always been pandemics, this is true.
History tells us they wiped out 90% of the population in pre-Columbian North America, over 50% of Europe during the Black Death. And those are just the ones we know about.
So yeah, roll the dice on that, see how it goes.
"There have always been infectious diseases" as a minimizing argument about the current pandemic is exactly the same false logic as "climate change has happened many times in Earth history" or "there have been multiple mass extinctions before".
No.
Not. Like. This.
12
203
962
14
179
709
Regardless, the important point is this- *there is nothing in the concept of learning loss that can explain continued learning loss once in-person learning resumes*.
Learning loss is measured against what students would have learned if they were in person. (12/)
4
104
702
Well, this is a surprise. I was curious about who first coined the term “pandemic fatigue”. It turns out it was the same people who invented “economic endemicity”. Wow, it sure seems like they’re adding a lot to the English language these days!
45
178
696
A key piece of context is that the promise that vaccines would bring about a return to normalcy was known to be false at the time (Mar ‘21& later) that it was being made. (1/)
12
154
693
Thorough dissection of the flawed Cochrane Review on masking.
Turns out, in addition to the design flaws pointed out by others, the underlying math is also incorrect. (Kudos to the authors for their keen eye!)
@cochranecollab
, time to consider a retraction?
New paper on Masks:
Some claim scientific studies show masks don’t work, or that surgical masks are as good as N95s. Just released paper shows this claim is false. Masks work, and N95 respirators give a much higher benefit than surgical masks.1/
292
3K
7K
10
229
690
Not only are kids not catching up on their “learning loss”, *they’re moving in the wrong direction*. As the ACT test scores show, it’s not that it’s taking time for things to get better with children’s learning.
Things are getting worse. (14/)
5
91
683
Retraction-worthy irregularities in the Cochrane study, it seems. If he’s right, we’re looking at scientific fraud.
16
146
668
@PauloEastvan
@Itisallacademic
I’ve never heard anyone say- ever- “you can’t eradicate rabies, so we should just let it spread freely”, or “we should learn to live with polio” or “how much longer can we keep taking precautions against syphilis”. Have you? (5/)
2
187
668
Now of course, severe Covid is rare in kids. But Covid in kids has been documented to impact cognitive ability, memory and concentration, sleep and anxiety. Here’s an example, many more can be found on this topic (23/)
5
112
668
The only “endgame” that doesn’t end badly is the one that involves being cautious at this point.
Even if we can’t see a way out right now, it doesn’t mean that one won’t exist in the future. It may look like a losing fight now, but to surrender to the virus is to accept defeat.
Someone posted recently that they're giving up on masking & protections because they can't see a Covid 'end game'.
It's as if to suggest that being infected & then reinfected perhaps even several times a year is seen as a way out.
It may result in an 'end game' of sorts I guess.
173
235
2K
23
154
661
Chair Powell's speech clearly identifies the pandemic as the reason for labor market tightness ("a significant and persistent labor supply shortfall opened up during the pandemic") & mentions long covid and covid-related health issues directly. (4/)
3
119
654
@PauloEastvan
@Itisallacademic
in the one year following each infection (remember, the average person will get it 1-2x/yr going forward). So yeah, life has not gone back to normal. This was not normal. People have just chosen to drop precautions for now. They will figure out soon enough that it’s not (2/)
3
62
652
Another nail in the coffin for the “t cells will save us” hypothesis. Vaccinal immunity from severe disease wanes sharply by 120 days. It’s restored partially by boosters. T-cell response? Declines slowly, not enhanced by boosting. T-cells are a sideshow for covid protection.
Just published
@SciImmunology
The immune response gained from booster shots is largely confined to neutralizing antibodies (nAbs), not
T-cells
by
@LabWalz
@YMaringer
and colleagues
Which links the importance of nAbs to protection vs severe Covid
36
261
788
13
225
649
No one worried about smoker's feelings when those warnings were put on cigarette boxes. At least tell the truth about what covid will do to you & give people the information they need to avoid those outcomes for themselves. (22/)
7
163
649
Having failed to achieve herd immunity, Sweden is looking like it’s well on its way to herd disability instead.
@CDCDirector
,
@AshishKJha46
,
@POTUS
- letting covid infect Americans over & over again will leave a trail of broken lives. It’s not too late to choose a different legacy
NEW: Swedish research company Novus estimates that 1.1 million Swedes, or 14 PERCENT of the country's adult population, are suffering long COVID ().
For comparison, U.S. Census Bureau data suggests that 7.5 percent of our adult population has long COVID.
85
821
2K
12
278
648
Here's the thing: under the current public health 'strategy', these underlying reasons for labor market tightness will not resolve. Increasing immigration is a short-term fix- immigrants get covid too & re-engineering US demographics at scale will require massive immigration (5/)
2
81
638
Oof! This is big, if it holds up.
Predictors for dying from covid are weak/broad (despite what you may have read).
This paper suggests fatal covid outcomes are mediated by continued viral evolution inside the body- ie dying from covid has a *Russian roulette* component to it.
Some common deleterious mutations are shared in SARSCoV2 genomes from deceased COVID19 across continents; ‘G’ clade was dominant in SARSCoV2 genomes of Asian, African, N.American regions. ‘GRY’ clade prevailed in Europe.
1
41
131
25
212
637
Attempting a 'return to normal' by normalizing high levels of covid infection is bad for the economy! (Screenshots from Chair Powell's speech () follow) (9/9)
7
128
631
Note that the inequity argument was already weaponized as early as June ‘20 by the good folks at McKinsey (all of whom, presumably, have good health insurance) to push the children of people without good health insurance back into high-exposure in-person learning (9/)
2
72
619
In sum-
@potus
,
@federalreserve
,
@cdcgov
- the chain of infection ->death & disability -> labor supply tightness -> inflation will lead to chronic inflationary pressures. No amount of monetary policy bandaid can fix that. (8/)
4
114
609
Many schools reopened for in-person learning in poorly ventilated buildings,albeit often with mask mandates in place. (The Urgency of Brunch crowd would deal with that problem later, of course, once again weaponizing inequity in service of inequity) (10/):
4
69
612
Masks are not drugs (neither are seatbelts, parachutes and fire extinguishers). They are subject to the laws of physics, not biology. They have no side-effects (comically spurious, retracted publications about carbon dioxide poisoning notwithstanding). You don’t need a trial (2/)
7
147
609
This is exactly not the point of guidelines. Guidelines are supposed to reflect science, not popular opinion. A set of guidelines that endorses the wrong behaviors- especially if those behaviors are common- is far worse than no guidelines at all.
I'm sure there will be protest about this, but these revised guidelines seem to track with how people are actually living in the face of a virus that 1) is not disappearing and 2) seems to be finding even the most cautious among us.
251
52
364
16
125
605
This part really amazes me. Really extraordinary lack of logic (2/2):
31
58
597
The funniest part about the minimizer agenda is that they talked themselves into irrelevance. Monica Gandhi, Vinay Prasad & all the other frauds who spilled ink trying to convince us covid was over. Well, they got what they wanted- and lost their platform in the bargain.
19
85
602
It bears repeating- there were *published papers* in the spring & summer of ‘21 (and preprints 6+ months prior to that) that clearly spelled out that vaccines alone were not capable of ending the pandemic & that viral evo would be a problem (1/)
Doctors who were *certain* vaccines would end the pandemic in 2021 are now saying this was the “worst misinformation.”
I remember what they want you to forget.
16
122
507
12
165
596
Last week, the FDA advisory panel met to discuss a simplified COVID vaccine strategy going forward. The plan is to offer updated boosters to the general population 1x/yr.
Was this the right choice? A preprint posted by us today explores that question. A (long) 🧵follows (1/):
14
168
589
So, first, the data. (H/t
@wabbit011235813
)
The little red mark on the graph is 2020. As you can see, for 25 yrs (1995-2029), scores were stable, bouncing around the 21 mark.
There was a slight dip in 2019, and then Covid hit. Since then, scores have been in free fall. (2/)
10
118
588
@NatanMitch
@jvipondmd
We’re approaching the fourth year of a pandemic where the public health strategy is to do pretty much nothing and wait for “thin out the herd” immunity. The notion is that if you wait long enough, the virus will no longer be a threat.(2/)
10
121
588
@NatanMitch
@jvipondmd
Labor shortages, falling test scores, ‘mysterious’ illnesses spreading through the population, falling life expectancies.
These are *precisely* the consequences you’d expect from the untrammeled spread of a highly contagious virus with acute, delayed-onset & long-term harms.(7/)
6
174
587
@NatanMitch
@jvipondmd
Failing that, maybe the public can be made to accept a reduced lifespan and worse personal health outcomes as being “inevitable”.
So yeah, we’re a couple of years into this plan, and the facts show that it’s all going pretty poorly. (3/)
2
99
580
So, just to be clear. We’re talking two months of (at worst) no school in the ‘19-‘20 academic year for the average student, followed by one year of remote learning for 40% of students in the ‘20-‘21 academic year. (7/)
1
70
573
“Covid-19 caused substantially more death in (under-18s) than major vaccine-preventable diseases did historically in the period before vaccines became available.”. If you’ve ever been to an old cemetery, it’s worth checking out the children’s graves (often separated). (1/)
6
159
558
If you abandon all other preventive measures and rely solely on antibody prophylaxis, that antibody will be useful for only a few months.
We spelled out why this happens in a paper from 3 1/2 yrs ago. There is no learning curve.
🤦♂️ (1/):
And there it is!
The new COVID policy for the White House / government VIPs makes a lot more sense now.
44
486
2K
7
153
569
And here we have
@CDCDirector
, with the most accurate messaging on avoiding respiratory infection that we’ve seen from
@cdcgov
in years! 👏👏
Wear masks, ventilate, stay home if sick.
Baby steps in the right direction.
Thank you
@CDCDirector
@CDCgov
for this invaluable message that included ventilation and masking.
86
120
374
32
171
563
@ABC
Did you fact check this statement: “It's a nationwide phenomenon where, since the pandemic, there has been a notable increase in alcohol use”? Where is this statistic coming from? Trends point to alcohol consumption being down since 2019. (1/)
13
81
560
Just for laughs, take a peek at the handwaving & charlatanry accompanying yet another year of falling ACT scores. Expect to hear a lot in the coming days about the “pandemic accelerating trends of inequity”.
Inequity is real & it sucks. The explanation is bullsh*t though. (15/)
1
63
561
To spell that out- we can expect ~300m+ infections/yr under the current strategy (). Of those, 200m will be working-age. Say 1.5% of the infected get long covid &retire early. That's 3m new immigrants/yr , requiring ~4x pre-pandemic immigration levels. (6/)
4
112
549
“What most surprised experts about the Covid pandemic”- evolution, reinfection and that vaccinal protection would wane quickly.
Gee, maybe y’all just needed better experts. These things were predictable- and predicted- in 2020. 🙄🙄 (1/)
24
125
543
“Our modeling suggests that between 12 and 25% of the population (depending on up-to-date vaccination status) - 32 to 66 million adults-will have long COVID at any given time.”
Living with covid isn’t sustainable, and may end up breaking us, as individuals & as a society. (5/)
4
189
546
@wabbit011235813
These are historic declines. Multiple consecutive years of falling scores, with big drops every year.
Important point- the pandemic *didn’t* accelerate a downward trend. Here’s the graph again, to make this clear.
Scores were stable from ‘95-‘20, then plunged after that. (3/)
9
86
548
That's not counting the dead, either. Covid has killed about 0.5m working-age Americans so far. As our paper (above) spells out, a sudden increase in death tolls due to viral evolution cannot be ruled out as the pandemic continues unabated (7/)
5
62
542
Arguing that we might get lucky when it comes to viral evolution has been a hallmark of the public health response to the ongoing pandemic- it's the reason we've done so poorly. Anticipating what could go wrong is much more useful than anticipating what could go right.(7)
4
135
544
The fact that we are here today, arguing over whether infection control is a worthwhile objective for covid, is deeply concerning. You can extend this kind of medieval thinking to many other aspects of public health (5/)
2
114
542
It’s worth noting that the “learning loss” concept invented by McKinsey had a specific meaning. It counted days that schools were closed as lost learning (no debate there) and days that students were learning remotely as a fraction of days of in-person learning (debatable) (11/)
1
71
540