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Don't forget - vaccines don't help on their own. We need *vaccination*.
Bill Hanage @BillHanage.bsky.social
26.4K posts
Bill Hanage @BillHanage.bsky.social
@BillHanage
Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Gooner. Tweets are personal
- For some reason there seems to be a lot of talk about endemicity again. For the avoidance of doubt, omicron is not endemic right now in much the same way that the moon is not a hamster
- I want to be absolutely clear. I am a professor of epidemiology, and I have no idea what this means. It does not seem helpful and better options are available⬇️ THREAD ⬇️ To chart our progress and to avoid going back to square one, we are establishing a new COVID Alert System run by a new Joint Biosecurity Centre. That COVID Alert Level will be determined primarily by R and the number of coronavirus cases. #StayAlert
- I am not ‘afraid’ of the virus. I am vaccinated and boosted and young (ish). I am concerned about what unmitigated transmission does to our society, and the potential of Omicron to cause outbreaks in places we don't want them 1/n
- Where the ever-loving hell is @CDCgov on messaging? Omicron is real and here. Every grown-up epi knows that, and many of us have seen rapid local changes. The country needs a guide. The CDC is full of amazing people but the silence now is not just deafening, it's frightening
- I am no kind of specific expert in monkeypox (or orthopoxviruses). That being said, given what I know about disease transmission the clusters of monkeypox infections that are turning up should be treated with the utmost seriousness 1/n
- I do not say this lightly, but the delta variant is a seriously horrible development in terms of global health. More transmissible, more dangerous, but blunted and controlled by vaccines. We need to get those vaccines to where they are needed
- It is quite hard to grasp just how much SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing has happened in the UK, or how important that effort is right now. Whatever you might think about the country’s pandemic response the scientists deserve our admiration
- Some recent retrospectoscopes on the pandemic have dusted off the old idea that non-pharmaceutical-interventions in the early stages “only delayed” deaths. So I am forced to point out yet again that delaying deaths is basically what medicine is about
- The (non technical) definition of endemic that is currently going around is basically that it is the amount of disease from which people are willing to avert their eyes
- I just want to note. It is *incredibly* difficult watching a disaster that you and others foretold, unfold in real time
- Please people. It’s not a magic virus. Just do small stuff to cut risks of transmission and it will help both you and the folks you care about
- A little over a week since it was announced it is already clear that Omicron is really serious. Some important pieces of evidence have begun to coalesce. While the worst outcomes still seem unlikely, what we have is quite bad enough to be going on with, a thread, with nuance 1/n
- Aaaaaaaaand - ZERO covid deaths reported in Massachusetts today. First day that's been the case in a very very long time. #VaccinesWork
