outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I've definitely seen right-wing anti-vaxx sources claiming that study shows mass infection is better than mass vaccination for protection. The logic of which is approximately like, "I'm going to burn down my house so that I can build a new one that's more fireproof."

The assumed goal here is to prevent infection, and if you do get infected, to prevent serious illness. So to say you should just go ahead and get infected to give you better protection against getting infected again is just ... cuckoo.

yep, exactly. it' meant to mean IF you get infected, maybe it gives you more durable protection, but you're not supposed to TRY to get infected

right. i assume all this will be more important as more strains come up and we realize everyone getting jabbed twice a year forever is probably not the best solution and probably something a lot of people are against

BREAKING Florida

Continued substantial improvements, albeit still at VERY high occupancy levels.

A LOT of hard work ahead, but thankful to see Florida coming down from previously unimaginable levels.

Please do your part: Mask, test, vaccinate, avoid high risk events. https://t.co/pqyomHAuOH pic.twitter.com/etoxmhLUVs

— (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) August 29, 2021

Hospital beds were over 17,100 just a few days ago. Some became ICU beds, and some ICU beds became deaths, but between this and a 3% drop in infection rate, FL does appear to be close to declining. I hope

OTM thread:

.@PatriciaMazzei @benjmueller @gebeloffnyt missed the big "tell" in @GovRonDeSantis' comments: "'...but we’re not building the herd immunity that people hoped,' Mr. DeSantis said." 1/ https://t.co/PThTCfyI8e

— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) August 28, 2021

there is also reason to believe immunity through natural infection may not last long or as long as through the vaccine because of the different numbers in the UK

i’m not following this - can you explain what you mean?

i posted this a couple days ago which suggests immunity conferred from infection may last for life:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01557-z

The article linked above references studies that only tracked immune response to viral infection. It appears that no similar studies are yet available for immune response to vaccines. The final paragraph is:

The good news is that the evidence thus far predicts that infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces long-term immunity in most individuals. This provides a welcome positive note as we wait for further data on memory responses to vaccination.

Having had chickenpox might have made me immune to getting chickenpox again, but it set me up for a lifetime risk of having shingles because that fucking virus hides in your spinal cord. It never is eradicated from the body it infected. Who knows what is coming for survivors of a COVID-19 infection. Sure go ahead and get your "natural" immunity and potentially play host to a ticking time bomb.

people who have had smallpox have better immunity to smallpox than people who have been immunized iirc. well jealous.

Easy to tell they had it too, no need for a card when you can just be disfigured.

ok guys jeez

No, some people around here need to read this shit.

Not you, Tracer.

Are we now just responding to what we think people are saying

Has this not always been the way?

*Cut to the landing crew of the Enterprise to refute this logic*

📍Breaking—Fears growing that a new #DeltaVariant subvariant has emerged after 5000 young people infected from attending a 53,000 music festival in Cornwall—linked genetically to a Delta subtype. The region now has the highest #COVID19 rate in England. 🧵https://t.co/if1YJ5cECS pic.twitter.com/dKeEfENXO2

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) August 29, 2021

"One of the key reasons that some people are engaging less with these basic protective behaviours is that the Government has basically said ‘it’s safe now, it’s fine, you’re not going to die’. We need to support new norms around safety at the festivals"

herd immunity update or how to make a “festival variant”.

kinda weird to have that be the start of the thread, then this one further down...

“It’s still the Delta variant but they can say it came from the festival, hence why it is being called the ‘festival variant’,” added the official.
The South-west peninsula now home to eight of the top ten areas in England with the highest rates of infection.

still not good. did they have no vaccination/negative testing requirements at all?

Feigl-Ding is an alarmist and his epidemiology degree is in nutrition and not infectious diseases. more than likely this variant...will be like Delta classic, as most variants that we never hear about are.

from what I heard, there were no vaccine requirements. definitely was a superspreader event, not clear if it was all outdoors or if there was any indoor component.

I usually think of “festival variant” as a personality type, but yeah it isn't a mutation.

Was just curious since (so far, knock wood), Lolla did not turn into the gigantic super spreader event I was fearing.

@DrEricDing, can you please keep to facts? At present, there is no evidence that C.1.2 is more transmissible than Delta. On neutralization, we are generating the results now and can work with international agencies & scientific groups that helped with previous variant, Beta. https://t.co/qg8Qmo3AYG

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) August 30, 2021

Unqualified folks like this (yes he’s an epidemiologist but nutritional one, a pro hockey player might not be that great at playing pro football) spouting nonstop doom are just the inverse of berenson, prasad, and battacharya. It’s not useful. https://t.co/aRSeMxV83i

— Tom Wallach, MD (@md_wallach) August 30, 2021

Tulio's was one of the authors of the pre-print that Eric sourced for his tweet-storm. Nice takedown

what the FUCK

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/30/ohio-judge-orders-hospital-treat-covid-patient-ivermectin/5648583001/

The lawsuit doesn’t mention whether Jeffrey Smith is vaccinated against COVID-19.

Hmm, let me guess. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

https://www.wowktv.com/news/u-s-world/education-department-opens-civil-rights-investigations-against-five-states-that-bar-mask-mandates-for-schools/

lol is that really a one-sentence news "article"?

since when can a judge order a doctor to treat a patient with a particular medication?

that's what i said!

really hoping there are appeal options or something, because this is an ugly precedent

In a previous case I saw, the hospital was ordered to give ivermectin but individual doctors didn’t have to. They had to bring in an outside doctor to administer it.

look if this idiot wants to shit out his intestines at Menards that's his god-given right

i just don't understand how a judge could say "you must administer this specific drug at this dosage" esp when I doubt the hospital would be absolved of malpractice if he died. I know they sometimes rule on removal of feeding tubes/taking off of life support and things like that, but that's kind of a different thing.

I order Extenz be used to treat the patient

look if this idiot wants to shit out his intestines at Menards that's his god-given right

E Pluribus Poopum

@DrEricDing, can you please keep to facts? At present, there is no evidence that C.1.2 is more transmissible than Delta. On neutralization, we are generating the results now and can work with international agencies & scientific groups that helped with previous variant, Beta. https://t.co/qg8Qmo3AYG
— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) August 30, 2021

Unqualified folks like this (yes he’s an epidemiologist but nutritional one, a pro hockey player might not be that great at playing pro football) spouting nonstop doom are just the inverse of berenson, prasad, and battacharya. It’s not useful. https://t.co/aRSeMxV83i
— Tom Wallach, MD (@md_wallach) August 30, 2021
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 30 August 2021 15:09 (two hours ago) link

Yes, Ding is notoriously unreliable and jumps at every chance to report doom. He's built his fame on it. It's probably worth noting that (something I only learned during this pandemic) it's not actually that hard to obtain the credentials to call oneself an "epidemiologist" -- it's basically a masters in public health, and the title does not magically confer any expertise in infectious viral pandemics. As with "MD" accounts, it's important to be cautious with epi twitter.

yes I deffo won't be posting any links to that fool again, apologies for that.

new variants and strains are constantly emerging, vast majority are not of any particular significance (which is why they sometimes use the term "Variant of Concern" to describe a new one that might be).

it's also just shitty and irresponsible for him to start the thread with a dire warning about a new variant, only to clarify 2 or 3 tweets later that it, uh, actually isn't.

Even the best, most sober, most highly reliable experts have been wrong enough times in this ever-evolving pandemic, so anyone wedded to one side of things is going to be wrong a lot.

xp calzino i would go one step further and figure out who was boosting Dr Ding on twitter. whoever it is isn't reliable

one by one we shall eliminate all sources of untruth, until we get to dr truth

And then just a bit further until we emerge out the other side at Dr. Teeth.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/2/26/Dr_Teeth_pink.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150625152503

Goddam it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHEiqhOUgAAe4jd?format=jpg&name=small

this is getting reposted all over my timeline (which has many covid survivors etc who are always posting about covid. covid. covid. covid!!!!!)

New CDC study finds that 36% of COVID patients *never seroconvert*, meaning they NEVER make antibodies! #LongCovid

This is a huge finding which we need to amplify broadly! Please retweet & send to providers, patients, support groups, #MedTwitter, etc.https://t.co/gEne4dE0TQ
1/

— Hannah Davis 🌈 (@ahandvanish) August 30, 2021

am i wrong in thinking that "New CDC study finds that 36% of COVID patients *never seroconvert*" is a very misleading/wrong way to interpret the research?

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article

"We studied 72 persons, all of whom had a previous positive RT-PCR test but were symptom-free for >3 weeks before blood was collected for testing (Table). Only 2 persons (3%) reported no symptoms, whereas 13 (18%) persons reported mild disease, 48 (67%) reported moderate disease, and 9 (12%) reported severe disease (Appendix Table 1).

We tested plasma samples (n = 144) collected at enrollment and follow-up visits for antibodies to the spike protein by using a validated ELISA (Appendix). Only 46 of the 72 participants had detectable IgG responses, IgA responses, or both (Table); reciprocal endpoint titers ranged from 182 to >312,500 (Appendix Table 2). Analysis of the same samples for receptor-binding domain (RBD) and nucleocapsid (N) antibodies yielded very similar results (Appendix Figure 1). All persons with spike protein antibodies also had detectable RBD (IgG, IgM, or both) or N (IgG) protein responses, except for 1 participant whose spike protein endpoint titers were very low (Appendix Table 2). In contrast, 26 participants remained seronegative, despite the testing of up to 3 samples per person for IgA, IgM, and IgG against multiple antigens as well as neutralizing antibodies. Thus, 36% of our cohort represented serologic nonresponders."

that's where she got it from.

I would not put a lot of stock in that person's interpretation of the research - they have no apparent background in immunology (at least not in their twitter bio), the study sounds small, she is insisting on drawing certain conclusions even where she *admits* that certain findings are statistically insignificant, and she seems mission-driven (i.e. to get recognition of long covid in people who lack a positive COVID test or antibody test).

also, it's not a "CDC" study. it was published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, and none of the authors have appear to be affiliated with CDC. I mean, maybe CDC funded it or something, but. there's just way too many warning signs like that.

but it's a long-ass tweet thread! and it gets shared hundreds and hundreds of times, by all these people i know.

let me be the millionth person to be annoyed by the growing trend of people being experts on everything all of the time

btw, sorry if this was already posted but another right-wing disinformation host died

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/30/covid-delta-variant-live-updates/#link-6374MPAX5VBAPKFIRI6GJIY52E

Conservative radio host who compared vaccination push to Nazism dies of covid-19

Marc Bernier’s last tweet, on July 30, derided his state’s agriculture commissioner’s call for people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“The greatest generation had to defeat the Nazis to preserve our way of life,” the Florida commissioner had tweeted. “[Y]ou’re only being asked to get a shot. So be a patriot.”

“Should say, ‘Now the US Government is acting like Nazi’s. Get the shot!’ ” responded Bernier, a longtime talk radio host at WNDB in Daytona Beach.

This weekend, the station where Bernier worked for decades announced that he had died of covid-19. It was the latest instance of the virus striking conservative media figures who once broadcast doubt about the vaccines to their audience.