zeynep tufekciVerified account

@zeynep

Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology and more. professor. Word in & . My newsletter is :

floating in a most peculiar way
theinsight.org
Joined August 2009
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  1. Pinned Tweet
    20 Oct 2020

    I'm launching a newsletter, called . I want to try to create a space for thinking deeply about complex, thorny but important puzzles, along with a community. Something between public writing and social media: some of both but neither. Sign up here:

    90 replies 505 retweets 3,103 likes
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  2. Retweeted
    5 hours ago

    In 2021 you can watch transnational repression play out in real time at the world's premier global sporting event

    The regime is now trying to put pressure on Krystina Tsimanouskaya by threatening her parents. Tsimanouskaya's grandmother says Lukashenka's siloviki are heading to athlete's parents to her hometown Klimavichy.
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    2 replies 106 retweets 190 likes
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  3. Retweeted
    Aug 1

    Waiting outside Tokyo Haneda airport international terminal for Krystsina Tsimanouskaya. She's a Belarusian sprinter, set to compete in 200m on Monday. She's asking IOC to stop her from being forcibly sent back to Belarus. She's seeking political asylum.

    50 replies 886 retweets 2,051 likes
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  4. Aug 1

    Not doing a vaccine efficacy calculation here. But there were more hospitalizations in *one* week (ending on January 09, 2021: 6679) in the US than *all* vaccine breakthrough hospitalizations combined since May. Deaths among hospitalized is lower, too.

    Replying to @zeynep
    Better to report last year's hospitalizations among the whole adult population. And then compare with 6,587 per ~163 million vaccinated. 0.004% here says nothing about vaccine effectiveness.
    9 replies 33 retweets 231 likes
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  5. Aug 1

    Fair part: Delta will continue to burn through the US (maybe about another month or two, judging from other countries?) and there will be more breakthroughs & some hospitalizations among the vaccinated. Same point though: massive risk to the unvaccinated.

    Replying to @zeynep
    But can we not use 163-million as a denominator when there have only EVER been 35-million confirmed infections in the USA, Delta only recently established itself, and majority of people have not even been exposed to it yet? This is very misleading. And leads to further distrust.
    20 replies 36 retweets 277 likes
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  6. Aug 1

    Me neither! Nobody wants to get sick, even if vaccinated. The point is vaccinating as many as possible, as fast as possible, is the clear way forward. Delta waves (around the world) are fast—on the way up and down—and do great damage to the unvaccinated.

    Replying to @zeynep
    Not being hospitalized certainly is paramount but one can still be without a sense of smell and w fever for days and long COVID is still uncharted territory. So I don't want to get COVID even if the symptoms fall short of hospitalization
    6 replies 39 retweets 379 likes
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  7. Aug 1

    Delta is continuing to take a terrible toll, around the world, on the unvaccinated—and billions still do not have access to any vaccine! Of course it would be better if it didn't cause breakthroughs either, but the way forward is clear and unchanged. Vaccinate before infection.

    14 replies 95 retweets 631 likes
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  8. Aug 1

    This isn't saying let's throw the elderly under the bus—the unvaccinated mortality was horrific and unacceptable. But a small amount of vaccine failure, mostly among the elderly, isn't COVID-specific. That's just age. All nursing home staff must be vaccinated against flu & COVID.

    10 replies 89 retweets 768 likes
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  9. Aug 1

    Every piece of data from real-life shows the vaccines work very, very well— yes, even against Delta. Just checked US vaccine breakthrough hospitalizations. It's 6,587 people among the ~163,000,000 vaccinated: or 0.004%. Three fourths are elderly— as happens with other diseases.

    235 replies 3,797 retweets 9,282 likes
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  10. Jul 31

    Yes. It’s clearly one of the worst-case scenarios we’ve encountered. And it showed how well the vaccines work. That’s why it’s so useful as long as we put it in the correct context.

    Replying to @ikuziemko @zeynep
    That's kind of the point. Provincetown is so atypical that it is your worst case scenario.
    15 replies 54 retweets 594 likes
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  11. Jul 31

    Provincetown was a worse case scenario from what I can tell—week of overcrowded, indoors and close-contact— and also really unlucky (remember how one South Korean infected maybe 5000+ in 2020?). But many were vaccinated. Result: it’s over. No deaths. Very very few severe illness.

    I know I sound like a broken record But here's the thing The vaccines are largely working as expected We had an outbreak in P-town with lots of vaccinated folks infected No one died. Very few got sick And things have returned to normal This is how vaccines work folks
    80 replies 716 retweets 3,146 likes
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  12. Retweeted
    Jul 30

    apropos of nothing, reupping this awesome figure made by

    10 replies 59 retweets 176 likes
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  13. Jul 29

    We’ve had suggested data on that, suggesting more severity, since May. Maybe. Definitely more transmissible—a lot more. Much much more. Shorter serial interval seems likely as well. That’s bad enough without extra severity. Vaccination is the answer.

    Replying to @zeynep
    Directly above your tweet on my home page is this report. I'm in the UK, this is the first time I've heard Delta is more severe than earlier variants. Is it true?
    7 replies 14 retweets 113 likes
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  14. Jul 29

    Best data is massive real life data.

    COVID vaccines are not perfect. But they are darn good, and keep you alive. Even with delta, alpha, gamma, kappa, lambda, etc. I'm following Malta (90% vaccinated) and the UK. Look how deaths have stayed low. Couple more weeks to be sure.
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    21 replies 131 retweets 660 likes
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  15. Retweeted
    Jul 29

    It’s critical public health agencies communicate what they know - and don’t know - in a timely way. In crisis, even partial information is better than absence of candid discussion. Decisions are made in real time. Policymakers deserve the best assessments.

    79 replies 144 retweets 633 likes
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  16. Retweeted
    Jul 28

    People are really arguing emoji mathematics in the comments 😂😭

    Mathematics be like : log(😅) =💧log(😄)
    2 replies 36 retweets 171 likes
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  17. Retweeted
    Jul 28

    Just published Soon (10-12 days) after 1st dose of an mRNA vaccine, fully functional CD8+ T cells kick in to provide some protection, well before neutralizing antibodies are barely detectable

    18 replies 218 retweets 700 likes
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  18. Retweeted
    Jul 28

    After two lab workers diagnosed with fatal brain disease, five public research institutions in France have imposed a 3-month moratorium on the study of prions.

    57 replies 534 retweets 1,061 likes
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  19. Retweeted
    Jul 26

    The delta variant is a problem We have all the tools needed to control it and get our lives back But our national dysfunction may be the biggest barrier Another terrific piece

    38 replies 208 retweets 779 likes
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  20. Jul 27

    Excellent pictorial explanation of what a "shorter serial interval" (almost certainly true for Delta in my view) means for delta from .

    Replying to @mrstevenjones1 @zeynep and 2 others
    think it's easiest with a picture: essentially, the hypothesis (with quite a lot of good evidence, imho) is that the time between infections is shorter & so outbreaks are "faster" in a sense.
    3 replies 20 retweets 74 likes
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  21. Jul 27

    An excellent thread on gain-of-function research. Highly recommend the linked interview with Ralph Baric. You don't have to agree with him—and note that he is defending his research, as is his right—but this is still a genuine conversation that's not avoiding the hard questions.

    16 retweets 65 likes
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