@deonandan@c.im
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deonandan

@deonandan@c.im

-Dr Raywat Deonandan: Epidemiologist & Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, LIFE Research Institute, Centre for Health Law Policy & Ethics, University of Ottawa.
-Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto.
-Research Chair in University Teaching (focus on applications of AI.)
-Good hair.
-Teller of stupid jokes.
-Servant of small child, smaller poodle, and unimpressed spouse.
-Scourge of the ignorant.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

deonandan, to random
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I've finally brought my podcast back to life. Latest episode is an interview of me by my student Satya Sarma on the role of social media in the transmission of misinformation:

https://deopodcast.wordpress.com/2023/12/11/social-media-the-transmission-of-misinformation/

deonandan, to random
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"purebloods"

deonandan, to random
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One of my favourite questions to ask virologists is, "Are viruses alive?" It's not as straightforward a question as you might think. Even so, my favourite answer was from a superstar virologist at UWO 20 years ago. He said, "Yes they are alive. We know this because we can kill them."

deonandan, to random
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Here's my bit on Ottawa CBC news last night, talking about H5N1. Gawd, I've aged so much these past 4 years....

https://youtu.be/qJrRMNwuEv8

deonandan, to random
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When I was a kid, I thought that "trying to make ends meet" as a euphemism for poverty was actually all about struggling to making low quality meats from the ends of things.

deonandan, to random
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Watching. Just watching.

deonandan, to random
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Bottom line: IMHO governments need to subsidize manufacturers to start producing existing H5N1 vaccine doses NOW. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/24/h5n1-bird-flu-vaccine-preparedness/

deonandan, to random
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How is the National Post still a thing?

deonandan, to random
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Uses a word in an atypical but nevertheless correct way.

Previous generations: "I didn't know that that word could be used that way. I guess I learned something. Thanks."

Current generation: "WHY DON'T YOU COMMUNICATE MORE CLEARLY?!!!"

deonandan, to random
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I'll be speaking at this even next week:
https://www.facebook.com/events/723804742958915

deonandan, to random
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People, people.... a vaccine for PANCREATIC CANCER:

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/mrna-vaccine-for-pancreatic-cancer-excellent-long-term-results/

deonandan, to random
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With the renewed lay interest in influenza tracking, here's my chance to re-up my online asynchronous course on "Epidemiology Without Math." I'm working on creating the full one, with math included. Stay tuned if interested.
https://www.udemy.com/course/epidemiology-without-math/?referralCode=8885CD3E45B9000DAC1F

deonandan, to random
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Well if Alex Jones likes you, you MUST be sane and credible. Right? RIGHT?

deonandan, to random
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Like most other kids, I went through my comic book loving phase. You know what? Silver Surfer was one of the dumbest characters ever. Yeah, I said it.

deonandan, to random
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As part of the celebration of the installation of the new rector, I will be speaking at St Paul University on the ethics of A.I. on April 17.
Details here:
https://ustpaul.ca/en/spu-talks-ethics-of-ai_7881_17.htm

deonandan, to random
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This post will trigger a troll feeding frenzy on Xitter. But I think it's necessary, and maybe people are saner here on Mastodon.

It's time to summarize a timeline of COVID vaccine statistics and what they say about whether the vaccines reduced transmission or not, and whether "experts" lied or not. Here goes...

[1]
To begin, let's remember that vaccines seek to do 4 things, in descending order of importance and likelihood:

  1. prevent death
  2. prevent hospitalization
  3. prevent symptomatic disease
  4. prevent infection & transmission

[2]
2020: COVID mRNA vaccines shown in RCTs to be ~95% effective in preventing symptomatic disease caused by original Wuhan variant.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577

[3]
To receive Emergency Use Authorization, vaccine did NOT need to stop transmission (though that would have been nice). Criterion was reduction in symptomatic disease by >50%, which was met and exceeded.
https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download

[4]
Even so, those original COVID vaccine formulations DID reduce transmission, as shown in multiple studies in early 2021.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736

[5]
Throughout 2021, evidence was mounting that COVID vaccines were indeed significantly curtailing transmission. Every sign pointed to the pandemic ending early if we could get enough people vaccinated quickly.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl4292

[6]
This was when some countries brought in vaccine passports, which made scientific sense. (You can debate the ethics elsewhere.) By slowing mixing of vaccinated & unvaccinated populations, risk of breakthrough infections was reduced.
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/194/16/e573

[7]
The emergence of Delta variant changed the math considerably. Two doses of vaccine were still ~70% effective at preventing Delta infection, which was pretty darned good! We could still tame the pandemic with vaccination if we did it fast enough...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10169571

[8]
Then the emergence of Omicron (noticeably in Canada in late 2021) changed everything by curtailing vaccine efficacy. This is when vax passports stopped making sense, as they were disproportionately exposing vaxxed people to the virus, though they had diminished protection.

[9]
By 2022, it was clear that vaccination was no longer able to subdue transmission significantly. But three doses of an mRNA vaccine gave substantial protection against death for both delta (80%) and omicron (78%), along with 61% protection against admission to hospital.
https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1111

[10]
Beware the narrative of the vaccine minimizers. The original vaccine could STILL reduce Omicron transmission somewhat.
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/new-research-proves-covid-19-vaccines-can-slow-spread-disease-even-omicron

[11]
A telling California prison study in 2023 found that one dose of any COVID vaccine reduced the probability of an infected inmate transmitting infection to his cellmate by 24%. Again, that's reduced TRANSMISSION.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02138-x

[12]
The bivalent booster came out in Sep/2022. It was able to prevent actual infection by ~54%, which means it was also significantly slowing transmission. Yet uptake was poor.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2814536
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7205e1.htm

[13]
The newest XBB1.5 booster came out in 2023. It has an efficacy against hospitalization of >70%. It also has an efficacy of ~54% against symptomatic infection. This is not as great as the 95% we saw in 2020, but it's pretty damned good! Yet currently only 16% of Canadians have received this vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7304a2.htm

[14]
A robust meta-study of secondary attack rates throughout the pandemic found that all the vaccines offered some degree of reduction in TRANSMISSION, regardless of the variant:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791601

[15]
What's the takeaway?

  1. COVID mRNA vaccines work.
  2. They have always worked.
  3. They work best when the vaccine is updated to match the current variant
  4. They have always reduced transmission
  5. They still reduce transmission
  6. Nobody lied to you.
deonandan,
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@Shanmonster "best" is a personal choice. All three major manufacturers (Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax) have an XBB1.5-tuned booster out. That's what you need. Historically, Moderna tends to make a more efficacious product with more side effects. Novavax tends to have least side effects.

deonandan, to random
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One of several studies showing that vaccination against the flu is associated with a REDUCED risk of Alzheimer's Disease.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35723106/

deonandan, to random
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In Mar/2020, the math was screaming at me: when this is over, everyone will have known at least one person killed by COVID. That's when I started taking it seriously. That inevitability was undercut by the early arrival of vaccines. But that was indeed the path we were on.

deonandan, to random
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It seems some corners of MedTwitter are arguing over what's worse, COVID or flu? IMHO it's a silly and not useful argument. Avoid them both if you can. I will say, though, that I live in abject terror of a global avian flu pandemic.

deonandan, to random
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I love it when "alpha" bros try to insult me by calling me a "beta." In Hindi, "beta" means "son." Calling me that will always remind me of my parents' love. So thank you.

deonandan, to random
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3 days after my cousin in Denmark got the vaccine, the price of wild salmon in BC went up 15%, my dog got diarrhea, and I got banned from Facebook. Coincidence? Of course not!

deonandan, to random
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So now we can't trust the vaccination stats. When the data have been compromised, much of public health planning goes out the window.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/01/17/long-island-midwife-fake-vaccination-records/

deonandan, to random
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The glaring omission from this op-ed is astounding. He argues that "natural infection" was preferred to vax because it's better immunity. That may indeed be true. But natural infection carried a substantial risk of DEATH (~1%). It's much much lower now because of... VACCINATION.

deonandan, to random
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I'm the guest on today's The Big Story podcast titled, "Measles are back. How worried should we be?"
https://thebigstorypodcast.ca/2024/03/21/measles-are-back-how-worried-should-we-be/

deonandan,
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@PieterPeach One measle came back, then invited some friends.

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