They’ve developed elaborate conspiracy theories about doctors and nurses in the process.

They believe ventilators and remdesivir are secretly drowning patients’ lungs, not COVID itself.

QAnon boards have begun calling hospitals to harass workers for not prescribing ivermectin. pic.twitter.com/LysnALGTsm

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 24, 2021

Here's the full story about "vigilante medicine" on ivermectin Facebook.

Antivaxxers are starting to wrap doctors and ICUs into their dark conspiracy theories, as they suffer at home with ad-hoc COVID treatments that don't work.

I hope you read it.https://t.co/pgghH6WrBu

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 24, 2021

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From a long, heavily annotated thread:

This is yet another game-changer in understanding origins of covid-19! https://t.co/DXhPae9Qhr

— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) September 18, 2021

Since the outbreak, & especially in the last few weeks/months after the @WHO origins report, there’s been a series of significant new papers/preprints/analyses supporting a “natural” origin of wildlife spillover, possibly via an intermediate mammalian host as per SARS. 3/

— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) September 18, 2021

2nd, new evidence that live animals of the type that carry CoVs were present in the Wuhan markets (including Huanan). Evidence not available at time of WHO report, but thankfully published here https://t.co/lFA3ueSjTr 5/

— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) September 18, 2021

….

In my opinion, the scientific evidence coming through is exactly what most of us in the field expected. We need to continue the hard work on all sides, but at the same time it should be “science not speculation” that leads us! https://t.co/Jw3aB4elcu 19/

— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) September 18, 2021

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my latest—this ain’t “vaccine hesitancy”; https://t.co/w8OZCTSlAM

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) September 22, 2021

… The number of Americans who are dying every 36 hours from Covid now surpasses the total number of U.S. soldiers who were killed during 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. It’s an entirely preventable crisis, yet it rages because we have people like the red state restaurant owner who is kicking out patrons if they refuse to take off their masks. It’s pure nihilism.

The mindless behavior is hard to describe, and the rest of the world must be looking on in slack-jawed astonishment as Trump voters lead a mad movement powered by Fox News. The network is doing what no other outlet has done in the history of television news — it’s deliberately getting people killed during a public health crisis by feeding eagerly gullible red state viewers a mountain of lies.

From PizzaGate, to QAnon, to the current anti-vaccine and anti-mask hysteria, the GOP has been brainwashed. It’s no secret — lots of victims openly admit it. Still, the press shies away, nervous about offending conservatives by portraying them as mindless zombies being easily duped about a miraculously safe and effective vaccine. (It’s the same reason news outlets refused to call Trump a “liar.”)

Instead of calling out the Covid zombies, the press coddles them, especially white, Southern ones, depicting them as merely “vaccine hesitant,” “vaccine-reluctant,” or “vaccine skeptics.”…

Within the media, there’s lots of tsk-tsking commentary about vaccine “misinformation.” But the press continues to look away from the consequences of mass brainwashing —millions of Americans believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus. And they’re lashing out in public, staging deranged acts of civil disobedience, often inside restaurants and at local school board meetings, where the white-rage screaming and name-calling commences…

Brainwashing itsn’t typically a topic that’s covered when dissecting mainstream American politics. Sadly, it needs to be. And fast.

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COVID Update: How big a problem will future variants be?

I got an update from several top scientists. 1/

— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) September 7, 2021

Quick review. Viruses continually mutate but can only mutate when they replicate. And so far we’re giving SARS-CoV-2 plenty of opportunities to replicate. 2/

Most mutations aren’t worth noting. They don’t increase hospitalizations. They don’t increase infectiousness. And they don’t cause problems for prior immunity. 3/

A fallacy pushed by anti-vaxxers is that vaccinations cause mutations.

It’s false. The more unvaccinated people, the more replication within cells as people mount a slow immune response— the more chances for the virus to mutate. 4/

So far the variants of concern that have taken hold in countries around the world have followed 1 of 2 paths for more cell replication— either evading vaccines or spreading more easily.

But so far none of these variants have combined both problems— evasiveness & contagiousness.5

Think of one path as going broad to more people (a more contagious variant is harder to catch) and another path as going deep (within a single individual to more cells).

One that had mutations to be the most rapidly growing & most evasive would be the most concerning. 6/

The vaccines that have caused the most trouble for vaccines in vitro & in reality (Beta, Iota, Delta+, Mu) have so far been outcompeted by the variants that spread more rapidly (Alpha and now Delta). 7/

Problematic variants that can’t grow as fast as Delta will be only a limited problem.

When we read about a Mu (0.1%) being a problem for vaccines, if it can’t outcompete Delta, it won’t take hold. 8/

So Delta, oddly, is defeating variants that would be more challenging for vaccines (and also monoclonals).

And until a variant that causes problems for the vaccine also spreads faster than Delta, it won’t become dominant. 9/

As an aside, Delta causes some problems for the vaccine but in a different way— because it replicates more virus so quickly that w/ lower antibody levels, immune response often isn’t fast enough to prevent symptoms. Cellular immunity does kick if to prevent hospitalizations. 10/

So why hasn’t a variant come along that has both negative characteristics? Will it?

The answer to the first question is largely randomness. There’s no reason why both types of mutations can’t exist in the same virus variant. 11/

The more opportunity, the more random things will happen. So it’s also the length of time of the pandemic, the spread & the too slow, too low vaccination rates that increases the odds. 12/

Will it happen?

We don’t know but we do know that vaccinating the globe and the US more quickly will reduce the odds.

In the scheme of viruses Delta already replicates very fast. Not close to measles, but arguably comparable to chicken pox. That’s a tall order for a mutant. 13/

So we could expect to see a lot of “problematic” mutations for the vaccines that never amount to much because Delta crushes them.

But what happens if we do see one that’s vaccine evasive that Delta doesn’t outcompete— or at least leaves room for it in some regions? 14/

There are a few key ingredients that must be ready: surveillance, vaccine development, regulatory & scaled manufacturing/distribution. 15/

We’ve taken a big step forward in surveillance with the CDC’s new forecasting center. Genetic sequencing need to occur however in many more regions of the US than it does now.

Countries around the world are also improving their ability to spot variants quickly. 16/

Once we identify a new variant, we can test its effectiveness against vaccines in the lab. If one is an evasive mutation, within 100 days we should have the capability to develop a new specialized booster.

By that time we should know if the variant is outcompeting Delta. 17/

Over the course of the year the Biden Admin has put together a pandemic resiliency plan that should allow for the rapid production & distribution of vaccines for new variants & new viruses.

The aim is 100 days for a vaccine & 100 days for full production. 19/

200 days sounds like a long time but if we have good surveillance & begin right away, remember how long it could be before a mutation is discovered & its proliferation depending on the origin. 20/

If the original COVID started circulating in China in the 4th quarter last year, it months before it started to spread significantly around the Earth globe asia-australia .

If we are developing vaccines at pace, it could end up being only a short spike in most countries before a vax is ready. 21/

This will undoubtedly mean suffering in the place of the variant’s origin. And a lot of logistics (imagine a whole new global rollout). We will need to get better & better at it.

And of course each time face anew the challenges of vaccine hesitancy. 22/

Along with the development of an oral anti-viral, we are building the arsenal as a globe & as individuals to manage new variants but we have to use them.

Right now Delta is the devil we know. And while not our friend, it is at least the enemy of our enemy.

If we don’t want to deal with worse variants we know how to reduce the odds. Slow the spread. Accelerate global vaccinations. Take its potential seriously. /end