Derrell Cox II

Medical Anthropologist, studying health disparities, sexuality, aging and food within minority populations. @dwcox2 on IG and @[email protected]

[Derrell Cox II @dwcox2]

@RussellShaw_MLS Thank you for sharing this info!

[Derrell Cox II @dwcox2]

@FeixiongCheng @DrJeffCummings @NIHAging @TheADDF https://t.co/bD64K6wDQc

Article link:

[Carolyn Barber, MD @cbarbermd]

🚨 NEW: One of the largest COVID-19 vaccine studies ever (28 MILLION people in France) just dropped.

Results?
• 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19
• 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality
• No increase in 4-year mortality
• Vaccinated people had lower risk of death from any cause.
In short: mRNA vaccines weren’t just safe — they were protective across the board. 🔥📉

[Vipin M. Vashishtha @vipintukur]

A recent discovery could transform our understanding of how cancers develop.

The classical theory that attempts to explain why normal cells become cancer cells, posits that DNA mutations are the primary cause of cancers. 1/

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

PMC COVID-19 Forecast, May 24, 2024 (U.S.)

Expect transmission to hover around 400,000-450,000 infections/day for the next month.

Think of that smooth red line (forecast) as the gentle base of a tall playground slide we will try to scale starting in August.

Some longer-term updates:

The PMC Forecasting Model will continue long-term. We have historically relied on Biobot wastewater data. As you may have noticed, they are undergoing major changes. These changes are perfectly reasonable for a private company, but they are not ideal for PMC purposes. Several PMC changes are on the way.

Likely in July, expect a new PMC Forecasting Model that will incorporate multiple data sources. The update will include several planned improvements, as well as several unanticipated changes in light of the Biobot-related issues. The model will largely switch to focusing on the CDC NWSS data (https://t.co/HmuYLFSPyG). If you have not viewed it lately, give it a chance. It may have some of the features you liked about Biobot. In addition to those data, we will use historical Biobot data to document levels in 2020-21 (earlier than the CDC dashboard linked above). Those CDC data correlate r=.90 with the Biobot data, and the discrepancies are likely attributable to variation in geographic regions covered. For example, the CDC data presently have better geographic coverage, and the effect of that is that some of the surges seem a little wider rather than spiky (they are more platykurtic). We have an initial version of the new model running privately at the moment, and we are testing out whether we can incorporate data from WastewaterSCAN (https://t.co/mC2CXjCt51). They do not have a strong centralized data normalization process like Biobot and the CDC NWSS, so the data are not very useful for year-over-year comparisons or forecasting as a sole data source; however, they update extremely frequently, so we are evaluating the stability of their updates to determine whether they can provide a few additional days of lead time in modeling changes in transmission. We believe they can add value to the model but want to evaluate their real-time data more closely first to determine whether it is worth the trouble.

Finally, we will add several features. We plan to add regional forecasts to the dashboard. Last winter, we offered some very cursory regional forecasts, primarily to help west coast folks dealing with poor mitigation in schools. Although they were limited, people found them helpful. The regional forecasts we are planning will be of much higher quality, similar to the overall models. Expect minor updates to the calibrations for case estimates and long-COVID estimates. We also hope to add some cost and mortality data, though these may not be ready in July. We are exploring methods of helping people to better track local data too. Expect a paper evaluating the accuracy of the PMC Biobot-era model. Since we will be switching to a CDC-based framework, that evaluation of accuracy will build trust and inform qualitative interpretation of forecasting, even if it cannot directly inform formal confidence intervals as we had originally hoped.

Thanks for your support.

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

An authoritative, comprehensive 5★ review on masks for reducing respiratory infections, by @trishgreenhalgh @Globalbiosec and colleagues @ASMicrobiology
https://t.co/XP5EoZM6A0
+ a great explainer thread on the findings
https://t.co/1pbYRE0nIT

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

A year ago, we set out to translate #wastewater data into helpful metrics people could use to guide real-world decision making.

What a difference a year makes! Thanks for all of your feedback and encouragement. We added case estimates, percent infectious estimates, risk tables, Long COVID estimates, and the forecasting models.

More to come. Just think of how great the dashboard will look by 2030! 🤣

[Michael Mina @michaelmina_lab]

A lot of questions still on:

How long should I isolate?

Do I need to isolate?

When can I go back to work?

Is 5 days enough?

What if I’m still positive?

Why am I not positive when I first get symptoms?

This thread below (and the embedded thread) goes through many of these questions

[George Monks, M.D. @GeorgeMonks11]

🔴“I’ll just use plain English and say that Oklahoma is full of shallow graves and clandestine burn pits full of human remains, and our anthropologists cannot keep up." - Chief Medical Examiner Eric Pfeifer
🔴Oklahoma ranks #2 in the US for most missing persons per capita (Alaska #1).
🔴There are 695 open missing persons cases in Oklahoma.
🔴OKC is the 20th most populated city in the US but ranks #9 on most missing by city in the US with 155 missing.

https://t.co/2PtuW3NRo4

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

Characterizing the immune system dysregulation and systemic inflammation that occurs in people with #LongCovid compared with controls, 8 months post-infection
https://t.co/alysmZtQNU @GladstoneInst @NatImmunol @MichaelPelusoMD

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

New @LancetRespirMed
Substantial (~40%) reduction of #LongCovid via Covid vaccines in 4 large multinational cohorts, and ~15% greater with mRNA than AZ vaccine https://t.co/al3ZoEF4mW

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

Nice profile of @PeterHotez and his work in this week's @TheLancet
https://t.co/IpVTl0vyNn

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

This isn't good, folks.
Especially with not knowing why.
https://t.co/H8Fh5mM9YQ
@Brabbott42

[Ryan Hisner @LongDesertTrain]

Quick 🧵on a JN.1 sublineage w/an unusual mutation, now designated JN.1.5 by the indefatigable @CorneliusRoemer. It seems to be the only large JN.1 sublineage that enjoys a slight growth advantage over the OG JN.1, though @siamosolocani may correct me on that. 1/27

[Marc Johnson @SolidEvidence]

It’s pretty clear the most sweeping SARS-CoV-2 lineages to date have been Delta, BA.1, and now JN.1.

Fun fact: as far as I am aware, our laboratory (with our collaborators) was the first to detect all three of these lineages from US wastewater.

Why were we always first?

1/

[Dr. Nicole LePera @Theholisticpsyc]

No one talks about how hard it is to change your life and watch other people stay stuck.

You can't take everyone with you.

Here's Why:

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

"The single most dangerous statement by a government health agency official since the start of the pandemic, if not for all time." —@hiltzikm
https://t.co/UCfo4yXXaA

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

Important for promoting health.
"Regular exercise is associated with a plethora of benefits throughout the whole body, including improved cardiorespiratory fitness, physical function, and glycemic control."
https://t.co/AEKsPBX7GV @Cell_Metabolism
@JuleenRZierath @Metabolcenter

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

The state of the pandemic, now in its 2nd biggest wave of infections since it began
In the new Ground Truths (link in profile)
Thanks @luckytran @JPWeiland @dfocosi @LongDesertTrain for their great work incorporated in the summary

[Virginia Buysse, PhD 💙 @VirginiaBuysse]

Paul Sax: “So one thing that has obviously changed is that Covid infection has become much more common. Virtually everyone in the United States has either had it once or even more than once. Studies now indicate it’s north of 90%.” 🧵 1/