Joan writes:
Dear Drs. Racaniello and Griffin,
Party girl that I am, I listen to the TWiV clinical update every Saturday night. I’m a retired immunologist and have been listening for years and have contributed to Microbe.TV via Parasites Without Borders.
I thought you’d appreciate this post:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDvG4VYyZoN/?igsh=d3gzeDdxYTg2Yzlr
I also wanted to thank Jolene for her helpful timestamps.
Thanks for your science advocacy and happy holidays or whatever
Joan Glick Bieler
Gordon writes:
Hello TWIV professors. I would just like you, and your listeners, to know that us folks in Canada would also like you to have a robust health system and research environment for health. I am sure all our health agencies are very appreciative of the work done by CDC and similar agencies. Keep up the great podcasts.
Gordon
Leigh writes:
Hi team TWIV,
I’ve been working on the Wellkiwis team in Wellington New Zealand since we went into lockdown April 2020.
And I have been listening to your podcast for about as long.
Wonderful to hear you talk about our work , it’s been really interesting.
We are actually an Influenza vaccine effectiveness study but of course things got sidetracked for a while.
If anyone comes to NZ you would be very welcome, come visit our lab and have a holiday at the bottom of the world .
Keep doing the good work in these hard times
Kia ora rawa atu
Leigh
Charles writes:
Hello TWiVers;
It has turned cold in Chapel Hill, NC, 52 F, 11 C and is going to start raining Thanksgiving morning. I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving and if you are traveling, you have my sympathies.
I consider Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of The Great Barrington Declaration infamy, to be the second most dangerous person to my health that Trump is trying to place in a position of power. I have been upset with Dr. Bhattacharya for a long time. I read his preprint: “COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California”, back in April of 2020, and that got me started looking at him with questing eyes. Yes, you have heard this from me before. I hope this version is clearer and has more links to support my view. All links are at the end of this email.
His paper used Facebook to recruit subjects and the subjects were going to be told their SARS-CoV-2 exposure status. That to me is a sample bias that cannot be overcome. Just too much of an incentive to find out if you are seropositive, if you have been sick or exposed, especially back in March of 2020.
The problem can be seen by comparing the results to another study that was done in New York City. Both studies came up with a seroprevalence of 2.8%. 2.8% was high for the end of March of 2020, when the studies were done. The death rate of Santa Clara County (San Jose and points south) on April 1, 2020 was between 2 and 3 a day. New York County (Manhattan) had a rate of 17. With the same seroprevalence at the same time, with about the same population (Santa Clara is a bit larger) and age (New York County’s median age is 0.8 years older), that is a big red flag for me that something is wrong. I think a big part of the problem is selection bias, others have additional concerns (see links).
Thanks,
Charles Fischer
Links:
Jay Bhattacharya paper:
COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v2.full-text
New York Seroconversion paper:
Seroconversion of a city: Longitudinal monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in New York City
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.28.20142190v1
Deaths per day.
Population:
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/santaclaracountycalifornia/PST045222
2020 1,936,279
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcountynewyork/PST040223
2020 1,674,250
Counter papers and comments:
I think the authors of the above-linked paper owe us all an apology. We wasted time and effort discussing this paper whose main selling point was some numbers that were essentially the product of a statistical error.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/24/scientists-wrong-covid-virus-experts
A case in point is Stanford professor John Ioannidis, who, in March 2020, argued that governments were overreacting to the threat of Covid. He mocked those who worried that the “68 deaths from Covid-19 in the US as of 16 March will increase exponentially to 680, 6,800, 68,000, 680,000”. He estimated that the US might suffer only 10,000 deaths.
How (Not) to Do an Antibody Survey for SARS-CoV-2
https://www.the-scientist.com/how-not-to-do-an-antibody-survey-for-sars-cov-2-67488
On Covid-19, a Respected Science Watchdog Raises Eyebrows https://undark.org/2020/04/24/john-ioannidis-covid-19-death-rate-critics/
“Still, if the results of the Santa Clara study were true, this would suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is considerably less deadly than once feared, and that lockdowns, perhaps, are necessary only for the most vulnerable populations — particularly elderly people.” Sounds like the groundwork for the Great Barrington Declaration.
Peter writes:
Gooday, swingers.
Local graffiti in Sydney. Among the teachers and “paynters”, some young Australian wants to be a scientist, so they can “do experiments”.
If only I could give them a link to twiv.
Pete, long time listener (even before the pandemic), Sydney
Vivian writes:
Dear Vincent,
Please consider mentioning Dr. Ricardo Nuila’s recently released book, “The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine” as a Listener Pick.
Dr. Nuila uses the stories of the patients he’s treated to tell a captivating story of the tremendous good that Houston’s county hospital (Ben Taub) has done for the uninsured and under-insured in Harris county. I’ve been working in health policy for 30 years, and we know that we could be doing so much better for Americans with the vast amounts of money we spend in U.S. healthcare. Ricardo Nuila’s book attaches real-life stories to that need in a way that statistics can’t, although the book does contain plenty of history and statistics as well. Plus, the book is a beautifully written page turner—not a single boring moment.
Thank you for all of your terrific work. I’m waiting in suspense for Episode 1000!
Vivian
Vivian Ho, Ph.D.
Baker Institute Chair in Health Economics
Professor, Baylor College of Medicine