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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Verified account
@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      Since everyone's talking about herd immunity in the United States at the moment, I thought I'd quickly run some rough calculations of the number of deaths required to get to the herd immunity threshold for COVID-19 in the U.S.

      60 replies 421 retweets 839 likes
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    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      The age-stratified IFRs that I'll use are from my and co-authors paper available here:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v4 …

      3 replies 16 retweets 100 likes
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    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      Taking the ages/population figures from the US census, and the midpoint of the age brackets as the mean IFR for that group, you get this breakdownpic.twitter.com/CZS0k0dXCB

      3 replies 22 retweets 119 likes
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    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      Using our bog-standard Herd Immunity Threshold calculation, which requires 70% of people to become infected, we get just over 3 million deaths required to reach herd immunitypic.twitter.com/UgiZSL8SYO

      10 replies 104 retweets 219 likes
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    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      Now, this requires something that we actually don't see - for the older age group to be infected as often as the young This isn't very common for COVID-19

      4 replies 15 retweets 102 likes
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    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      If we instead assume that people >65 are infected a bit less, and those >80 are infected a LOT less (in line with current trends), we get a perhaps more realistic figure of 1.76 million deaths in the U.S. before herd immunitypic.twitter.com/tSpxwwko4X

      6 replies 37 retweets 153 likes
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    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      "But wait!", I hear some people cry, "The herd immunity threshold is lower than 70%!" Well, maybe. If we reduce the threshold to 20%, which is one of the lowest figures proposed, we see either 880,000 or 504,000 deaths depending on who gets infectedpic.twitter.com/uciCBcJUiL

      9 replies 28 retweets 130 likes
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    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      What this means is that even in a 'best case' scenario, where elderly people are protected AND only a small fraction of people need to be infected to reach herd immunity, the U.S. would still be facing 100,000 more deaths Pretty scary stuff

      9 replies 50 retweets 182 likes
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    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      With a more realistic situation, where elderly people are protected a bit but you still need 40-50% of individuals to be infected, the U.S. would be facing well in excess of 1 million MORE deaths than it already haspic.twitter.com/9mNlNROgI0

      4 replies 70 retweets 200 likes
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      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 31 Aug 2020

      As I said, these are very back-of-the-envelope calculations, so they're certainly not exact predictions, but it gives you some idea of what we would expect to see if the U.S. does try for herd immunity in terms of deaths

      8:59 PM - 31 Aug 2020
      • 16 Retweets
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      12 replies 16 retweets 146 likes
        1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 1 Sep 2020

          This is, of course, assuming that it is possible to reach herd immunity at all. It is still entirely possible that the immunity to COVID-19 does not last long enough for herd immunity to be a realistic possibility

          24 replies 42 retweets 246 likes
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        2. Julia L Bach‏ @JuliaLBach8 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          When the alternative is for young people to stay indoors forever and never meet anyone or get married...

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        3. Abigail Brown‏ @Twittter2XS 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @JuliaLBach8 @GidMK

          Not close to the actual alternative. What if older kids were sent to holiday camps where the intention was to catch the virus, and those sick were sent for medical attention, the remainder returned home when tested negative? It would create some immunity + family protection.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        4. Show replies
        1. LB person of interest‏ @lb_412 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          Honestly outside of the usual election year BS this is a non story here. Testing capacity continues to ramp, vaccines on pace for early next year, etc. Logically why would the strategy change now?

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. M  🩸 B‏ @mattjbrunner 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          What if T cells are made of magic and we already reached herd immunity? We were all immune the whole time and it’s just a bad dream?

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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        1. Dien Drmwansa‏ @fmdien 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          This is notwithstanding the chaos that led to early deaths: lockdowns, ventilators, etc.

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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        1. Federico Andres Lois‏ @federicolois 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          How does the estimated IFR for Stockholm for age 70+ at 4.29 stack up with the rest? To me, it looks like a bit too much in the low end, but it would change a bit these calculations. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/53c0dc391be54f5d959ead9131edb771/infection-fatality-rate-covid-19-stockholm-technical-report.pdf …

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Δημήτρης Δαλαγιώργος‏ @Dalagiorgos 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          Could you please make a Google Sheet with these calculations?

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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        1. The Masked Crone  💙‏ @LadyBrienne1 31 Aug 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          But people don’t care. They assume they won’t be affected and deaths will happen to ‘someone else’ and they’re happy with that because all they care about is themselves. The ‘others’ will always be people they don’t care about, ethnic minorities, disabled, old, anyone but them.

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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        1. Freedomma‏ @RuthannNinaj 1 Sep 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          Stop protecting us. Stay out of our business

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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