These things are tough! Understandable that some expressed reservations about this while other leading scientists supported the dose-sparing strategy. But holding off on declaring such disagreements to be “not following the science” might help. Dose sparing was not unprecedented.
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There are, of course, also other things going on that make these country comparisons difficult. But that’s the whole point, these things are tough! There is a lot of things for which there is no single, clear right answer and disagreement is normal. But we gotta act.
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People do not have to agree on dose-sparing as the best strategy and analysis of UK’s dramatic divergence from rest of Europe. But UK’s own scientific committee and a lot of leading scientists who advocated for it, nor those who disagreed, were “not following the science”.
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted Notresposibleatall4rt
Yes, not really relevant in the US right now, but the discussion happened in December/January when thousands were dying per day. Anyway, “follow the science” or “science is clear” gets thrown around a lot—ignoring there were leading, highly-credentialed scientists on both sides.https://twitter.com/garpproton1/status/1384161258228776972 …
zeynep tufekci added,
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted Gledster - stuck on corrupt plague island.
I get this, and I also still think that reasonable people can disagree about dose-sparing as a strategy. But “Boris sucks” (or a version of it) is a bad heuristic for evaluating such decisions/topics, even if “Boris” [insert politician] may well suck. (See Florida in US).https://twitter.com/Gledster/status/1384159506473504780 …
zeynep tufekci added,
Gledster - stuck on corrupt plague island. @GledsterReplying to @zeynepGiven how the UK government has acted throughout the pandemic; alongside how Johnson allegedly "fought experts to save Christmas" and helped dramatically increase the January death-toll; the claim wasn't completely without merit.5 replies 8 retweets 140 likesShow this thread -
As disclosure: I co-advocated for a *trial* (preferrably an adaptive one) on dose sparing/delaying early December (with
@michaelmina_lab) because I think it’s best to bolster our decisions with data as best we can, and as soon as we can, even if we have to decide quickly.7 replies 11 retweets 140 likesShow this thread -
(Note: all the people telling me the UK situation is multi-causal and comparisons are difficult. Well, yeah, see above tweet. If the adaptive trial we advocated for had been launched in December, we’d have clearer answers now. The point remains: it was not an unscientific step).
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(Folks yes I know, weekend stats. I put the seven-day rolling average on screenshot for a reason.). Forget the edit button I want to put footnotes to my tweets
. On that note, back to the piece I’m actually writing.pic.twitter.com/SS6FB0gMwB3 replies 2 retweets 136 likesShow this thread -
zeynep tufekci Retweeted zeynep tufekci
I thought the below wouldn’t need to be said after a whole year of explainers on herd immunity but please do note simultaneous vaccines vs lockdowns isn’t analytically that separable. (Sensible to accelerate both to get stronger exponential decay!) (Adding due to many comments.)https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1384203573068591112 …
zeynep tufekci added,
zeynep tufekciVerified account @zeynepProgramming note. Remember all those explainers on how herd immunity works? Such interactions happens before herd immunity is reached as well: vaccination and lockdown effects, of course interact so can't be neatly separated. Vaccination helps protect the unvaccinated as well. https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1384192761251827718 …5 replies 10 retweets 71 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @zeynep
You have probably forgotten the most important and powerful factor that made it possible decrease death and case numbers: long and strict lockdown for weeks. A bit like in Israel. The combination works. Lockdown brings down cases and vaccines prevent resurgence.
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My working guess is that I probably have not forgotten it, especially since it is explicitly referred to in the tweet you are replying to. The point here was dose-sparing may be a thorny decision, but being too quick to claim science on one's side isn't the flex many think it is.
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