Big thanks to everyone involved!! , , , , , Luke Mullany, Will Probert, , , Cecile Viboud and Kat Shea
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Justin Lessler
@JustinLessler
Justin Lessler is a Professor of Epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
Joined February 2015
Justin Lessler’s Tweets
Congratulations to and co-authors on her excellent new paper in Interface.
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Targeted travel restrictions are often popular as a ‘seen to be doing something’ measure, but they will have limited effect on a domestic epidemic unless very specific criteria are met… 1/
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Our new Fluscape work is out . We reported long term intrinsic cycles in individual antibody responses against 21 A(H3N2) strains that were isolated between 1968 and 2014.
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Building public confidence in vaccines is important before, during, and after outbreaks. Always, all the time! Come chat with about confidence in oral cholera vaccines in DRC at poster LB-5485 and she’ll make sure you know why. #Tropmed22
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Updated cholera situation in #Haiti -very concerning. Children are disproportionately affected in this outbreak - perhaps because they were born after the peak of incidence in prior epidemic and also were not vaccinated. Still no sign of Haiti formally requesting cholera vaccine?
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Cholera epidemic expanding -2 departments in #Haiti. Very concerning as presumably immunity is low & WASH access is v poor.
Eye witness reports diarrheal deaths in national prison (I can't confirm but know desperate sanitation situation there).
Cholera as a weapon of war. 1/3 twitter.com/MCHaiti/status…
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Massive news: eLife to abolish accept/reject decisions: papers will just be “peer reviewed”. Others can argue about this, but lots of interesting consequences. 1/9
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A repeat of the 2010 #cholera epidemic in #Haiti could be on the horizon. Wider availability of choler vaccine could really change the game this time around. It is freely available, it just needs to be used. #vaccineswork
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Now 17 days after #Haiti confirmed first cholera cases since 2019. Really hard situation in the country with limited water supply, health care etc. It's also still hurricane season! Despite having free access to #cholera vaccines, the country has yet to plan for any use.
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The excuse in 2010 was that there was no supply and vaccines hadn't been well used throughout the world. Since then the situation has changed. The ICG has emergency stockpile ($ from ) to provide vaccines rapidly and usually operational funds.
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A great honor to be inducted into National Academy of Medicine in DC today with the class of 2019 (after delay due to Covid)! fabulous scientists!
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Haiti had a comprehensive, national plan for cholera control (and elimination). It was regularly updated and partners asked to support and act on it.
It was 18.92% funded.
paho.org/hq/dmdocuments
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Haiti has been made vulnerable to diarrheal disease outbreaks, not due to lack of hard work and expertise amongst Haitian health and public health workers, but despite knowing what to do, it has not been done 2/
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Our free course will help you become a more informed consumer of infectious disease transmission models. It describes how models work, their promise for public health decision making, and the potential pitfalls to avoid. No equations included!
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Another paper on preprint today! What proportion of clinically suspected #cholera represents true Vibrio cholerae infection? We conducted a systematic review to address this question: doi.org/10.1101/2022.1
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While the future is highly uncertain for this flu season after 3 years of COVID-19, 1 thing is clear: Vaccines saves lives! a🧵
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WHO says Ebola outbreak in Uganda poses ‘high’ risk, international spread 'cannot be ruled out'
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I received the highest honor in epidemic modeling - the rat city glass! What a pleasure last week to see everyone from the scenario modeling hub in person in Baltimore. and many more
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Thanks to all involved in the #ScenarioModelingHub for a fantastic in-person meeting at . It's been almost 2 yrs of amazing dedication from researchers and public health experts from 20+ institutions. It's an honor to be working with such a brilliant group.
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Thanks for supporting this work and all the academic and public health institutions who have supported and contributed to covid19scenariomodelinghub.org.
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So excited to give my doctoral proposal seminar today. Big thank you to and
for advising this work!
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TODAY! @clairesmith247 discusses contact, immunological interactions and the epidemiology of respiratory pathogens in her proposal seminar.
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Exciting day. After more than 20 months, and 15 rounds of projections and analysis, the Scenario Modeling Hub is meeting in person to discuss and evaluate the results of the Hub. A lot of science and PH insight to unpack.
covid19scenariomodelinghub.org/index.html
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The greatest trophy one could hope for! Thanks , and the scenario Hub coordination team!
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Looking for a postdoc to work on projects w/ direct public health impact with and myself. Come join an exciting collaboration in infectious disease dynamics.
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Postdoc (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA)
Modeling of Infectious Disease Dynamics: COVID-19, Influenza, and Emerging Infections
with @JustinLessler @lindsay_keegan
at @UNCPopCenter
More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/postdocto
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I am beyond fortunate to be mentored by one of the best epidemiologists (and humans) out there. Dr. Ron Gray has taught me many things, but most importantly to ask research questions that matter and to share/present my work in a way that people can understand.
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The next person in our "Bright Lights" series is Dr. Ronald Gray. 1/13
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Looking for a postdoc to work on projects w/ direct public health impact with and myself. Come join an exciting collaboration in infectious disease dynamics.
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Postdoc (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA)
Modeling of Infectious Disease Dynamics: COVID-19, Influenza, and Emerging Infections
with @JustinLessler @lindsay_keegan
at @UNCPopCenter
More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/postdocto
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Infectious disease transmission models are increasingly used for public health. However, using them wisely requires a basic understanding of how they work and the common pitfalls to avoid.
Our new course can help! It's *free* and covers the basics without the use of equations.
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Today, @JohnsHopkinsSPH launched a free course on infectious disease transmission for public health practitioners. This course, taught by @EmilyGurley3 and @apwez, focuses on transmission models and decision-making. publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/johns-hop
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This is really shocking. Many African scientists denied visas for attendance at international AIDS 2022 conference by Canada. Flights cancelled. Meetings cancelled. Inequities increased. Total fail.
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Exclusive: IAS President ‘very upset’ over AIDS 2022 visa denials | Devex devex.com/news/exclusive
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Rigorous policy analyses indicate mask mandates are associated with reduced COVID transmission
We are counting the dead in over 1 million
To do better we need facts:
- COVID continues and remains harmful
- Mask mandates reduce spread
- Need multiple layers of mitigation
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However, to claim mask mandates do not work is not supported by the evidence and risk hampering the response should we face a new, deadlier, SARS-CoV-2 variant. Mask mandates work, and are an important part of the toolkit for fighting #COVID19. (14/14)
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I don't disagree with everything says. Mask mandates have a smaller impact than we might expect based on the individual impact. Other interventions may be more effective and sustainable. #COVID19 control conversations too often begin and end with masks (13/14)
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These are very crude analyses, but the statement that we "struggle" see any patterns just is not true. More detailed analyses are needed to see if there is support for a causal link, but an association clearly does exist. (12/14)
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Likewise, if we look at the number of days counties spent under mandates over the period covered by a CDC data set (April 2020-Aug 2021), you see a less pronounced, but statistically significant, reduction of 1.3 deaths per 100,000 for every 10 days a mandate was in place.(11/14)
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He also states that "when you look at the data on mask-wearing...you struggle to see any patterns". However, a crude look at county deaths per 100k from Jan 2021 to March 2022 shows a reduction of 19 deaths per 100,000 (95% CI 23,16) per 10% increase in reported masking (10/14)
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He also argues that high levels of masking in Hong Kong had little effect, but overall per capita #COVID19 deaths in Hong Kong are 124 per 100,000, compared to 302 per 100,000 in the US. (ourworldindata.org) This may or may not be masks, but something had an impact (9/14).
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Even the specific statements makes in "The Evidence" section of this article do not hold up to scrutiny. First, our work above contradicts his contention that "Mask mandates in schools...have done little to reduce the spread". (8/14)
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Clearly the above methodology is suspect as I did no evaluation of quality or any meta-analysis. Peer reviewed systematic reviews on this topic are sorely needed. Still, this quick and dirty search shows many are finding support for an effect of mask mandates (7/14)
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Pummed IDs for the papers that came up:
34161332, 34429625, PMC8223099, 33571176,
34480194, 33705364, 33577824, 33483277, 34908595, 33596446 (6/14)
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But you don't have to take my word for it. In crude literature review of the first 10 papers that come up in pubmed.gov for a search on "COVID-19" and "mask mandates" and report original analysis/data on how well they work, 9/10 report an impact. (5/14)
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