This is part 2 in a series covering the story of the COVID vaccines in the US, looking back at how well they have worked and why the communication around them has been confusing. Read part 1 here. It was late November 2020, and we were just about to start
The COVID vaccines are undoubtedly among the most impressive medical feats in history. One model estimated they have saved millions of lives in the United States alone. As a physician-scientist, watching the scientific world come together to produce not one but multiple vaccines in a matter of months in the
While COVID cases are thankfully falling in the US, omicron, despite being “milder,” continues to kill more people per day in the US than the worst day of the delta surge. Why is this happening? Omicron is "milder" than delta, but that doesn't mean it'
Arguments about vaccines are often rife with logical fallacies. Many logical fallacies, at their root, are oversimplifications. They are appealing because they make something complex, like vaccine safety or the efficacy of vaccines, into something very simplistic that is easy to understand. However, that oversimplification often leaves out important details,
This morning I awoke to luciferase trending on twitter. Since the pandemic, I suppose I have grown to expect once niche molecular biology topics to become the focus of mainstream discourse, but it still is rather odd to me when it happens. When I was studying molecular biology, I never
Recently an article entitled “Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States” was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology. This article has been used to argue that higher levels of vaccination are not associated with lower levels of
With the introduction of the COVID vaccine mandates, one common question has arisen: if vaccination works, then why should the vaccinated care if others don’t get the vaccine? If I’m vaccinated, then aren’t I protected? Why do I need my neighbor to be vaccinated, too? This line
This week’s CDC announcement came with a new revelation about delta: it’s even more contagious than we previously realized. The Washington Post reported the details of an internal CDC document which included new data on the R0 estimate for delta. R0 is a measure of how contagious a
Today is ‘World Ivermectin Day,’ a day to celebrate one of the most important antiparasitic drugs used to treat neglected tropical diseases, and the controversial drug many claim is an effective treatment for COVID-19. So here is a crazy story for World Ivermectin Day: one of the largest randomized-controlled trials
COVID
Delta is here and headlines are reporting the rise in new cases and hospitalizations, including some who have been fully vaccinated. What does this mean? Does the fact that some vaccinated people are getting sick mean the vaccines aren’t working? Some breakthrough infections are expected Thankfully, no. Even if
COVID
One of the reasons false information and pandemic rumors can be so confusing and exhausting is the high degree of self-contradiction. Granted, not everyone believes every rumor simultaneously, but overall self-contradiction is often a hallmark of inaccurate information, and exposure to many different self-contradicting narratives (often with lots of emotion
Rumors have been circulating claiming that the COVID vaccines have killed thousands of people. These claims are often based on reports to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), a system designed to track ongoing safety of all vaccines and assess for side effects that were too rare to be