Read on Twitter
Interrupting your doomscrolling with more good news. As most had expected, the vaccines continue to work well against the new variants. Our problem remains producing enough of these amazing vaccines and getting them out there in arm. They are so good that we have a lot of buffer. https://twitter.com/KizzyPhD/status/1353703580679761922
Plus, mRNA vaccines have a really fast turnaround time—if and when we need to update. I'm seeing so many people with high anxiety over things that are not really happening or are not our actual problems. Our bottleneck is logistics and justice: producing enough for the world.
There is a concept in sociology about institutional inertia: as things get better, it's really hard for people whose job was to work on making it better to adjust to the improvement. That's very human, and also not a bad thing: their job is to worry on our behalf. And be ready.
For most of us, the best thing is to stop doomscrolling over detailed discussions about what drops in neutralizing antibody titers etc. mean from Twitter threads. We gotta get through the grim winter—up your cautions— but the news about the future has been really good for months.
Seriously. Don't do this to yourself. The news, as it pertains to the future, has been *excellent* for months now. Up your cautions *now* to get through the worst of it—the winter—and let's work on increasing production and distribution of the vaccines. https://twitter.com/robo_tabby/status/1353714525309198336
I'm seeing *a lot* of this doom interpretation. Really, stop it. Sterilizing immunity is not something we absolutely need from our vaccines and it's something that's not that clear cut and this interpretation (that we know there's none) isn't even true. https://twitter.com/HabberleySteve/status/1353721920362074115
I know people are tired but needless anxiety isn't helping us. Let's focus on getting through these months—better masks if indoors with others, more strict attention to our precautions—and the real problem: making more of thee amazing vaccines quickly & getting them out there!
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of when Dr. Corbett got the plasmids! Just two weeks after Chinese scientist Yong-Zhen Zhang defied authorities and posted the genome in an open depository! Amidst the tragedy, a lot to be amazed at and grateful for. https://twitter.com/BarneyGrahamMD/status/1353462892301934592
Yep, that misunderstanding/messaging distortion has been unfortunate and is tragically contributing to vaccine hesitancy (already a problem and will be more acute issue as supply catches up). These vaccines are *amazing* and the news continues to be great. https://twitter.com/elianileh/status/1353728871145873420
I get it, we want to understand but not how it works. Stop worrying about Nab titers. That does NOT mean the vaccine is six times less effective. People whose job it is to worry about it are on it & we just got confirmation: it works against the variants. https://twitter.com/this_awful_mess/status/1353732634644512772
Plea to media: this isn't a good headline. It makes people think the vaccine is six times less effective against the new variants (FALSE!) when the news today is *excellent*: The vaccine continues to work well against the new variants. That's the headline. https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1353713545402327040
Groan. Also, it's the one year anniversary of this tweet of mine. Wondering about a SARS redux but... "This epidemic will take under conditions of widespread mistrust and well-oiled misinformation channels. What a challenge." ::lolsob:: https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1221113440556724224
What on earth is this headline? We had great news today. The Moderna vaccine continues to work well against the new variants. Could we not do this? There are actual things to worry about: producing more of these amazing vaccines and getting them out there. https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1353759421973753857
Yes, understandably, people are exhausted. The vaccine efficacy continues to bring excellent news, including against these variants. Getting through the winter surge remains ahead of us, as does increasing vaccine production. But things will get better. https://twitter.com/adribbleofink/status/1353824661461639168
First tweet in thread, with 4000+ retweets and quote tweets. "Good and bad news." (What bad news? It was all-around excellent news). Finally, 22nd tweet with a clarification. Only 37 retweets and quote tweets. Don't do this people. Also don't get your information this way.
Are folks seeing a lot of these stories? "Warns" of "antibodies waning" despite a zillion scientists explaining that? "We don't know if vaccines curb transmission", with weak qualifiers, as a big deal? Misinterpreting yesterday's good news from Moderna? https://twitter.com/francois20009/status/1354096377505193984
Try this. In the Moderna trial, NOT ONE VACCINATED PERSON GOT SEVERE COVID. In Pfizer, A SINGLE PERSON did, and it was "93% oxygen sat" but did not need hospitalization or any more medical care. That's on top of 95% efficacy in preventing *any* illness. Good place to start from!
Top of thread: "REPLAPSE". Gets ~4000 retweets. Thirteen tweets later... "To be clear." "In mice." WebMD. 15 Retweets. Copy-paste from researcher—and even that's cherry-picked—not contextualization of findings or independent evaluation. No way to present a study or be informed.
