I took a month off Twitter. Figured the Covid debate had died down. Maybe it is time to close my account. Job done.
But no! There are still people on Twitter pushing Covid fears.
I guess I'll keep sharing our Scandinavian experience for a while longer.
Update from Denmark. Two weeks into fall. Fully open society. Open schools. No masks.
Cases/hospitalizations/deaths are down again this week. Almost all BA5.2. Still not a single child dead from any Omicron variant.
Maybe we are doing something right after all?
@ShiraDoronMD
Hello from Denmark. I can't believe you Americans are truly considering masking kids.
Now? When all kids have had Covid already?
We never masked our kids in Scandinavia. ECDC and WHO recommend against masking little kids.
@gregggonsalves
@DLeonhardt
I'm a Danish ID doctor.
For reference, we have not had a single pediatric death from Omicron in Denmark. In 500K infected kids.
Only on Twitter is the <5 vaccine an urgency. Certainly not in real life, for real doctors.
You should vaccinate your elderly. That's urgent.
Weekly update from Denmark. Despite what some Twitter Covid influencers will tell you, we have done great without masks. Society has been fully open since February this year. Still no wave.
This study confirms what many MDs have been thinking: that "Long Covid" defined as a vague constellation of symptoms is very common and usually has nothing to do with a Covid infection.
Dear USA. Hello from Denmark. This is how you beat Covid, like us:
Universal health care.
Paid sick time - keep sick people home.
Vaccinate your old people!
Masks are all politics - drop them.
Vaccinate high risk young people - don't start political crusade to vaccinate kids.
@Michigan_Noah
I am a Danish infectious disease doctor. Yes, many kids don't need the vaccine.
The great, great majority of kids will be fine. Out of 1 million infected kids in Denmark, not one has died of Omicron. Zero.
We, just like most countries, will not be vaccinating young kids.
One of the big mysteries to me is that left wing USA states had the longest school closures.
How did closing schools become a left wing issue in USA? The most left wing countries in the world were the quickest to open schools.
What caused these "opposite politics" in USA?
San Francisco’s public schools were among the very last to re-open in the entire world. They were closed for 1.5 years.
Here is my son “meeting” his kindergarten teacher on his first-ever day of “school.”
He was 5.
My family and I left California for good a few months later.
@TracyBethHoeg
@urgencyofnormal
Hej fra Danmark, Tracy.
If this is true, I am shocked that kids are still wearing masks in America. Who are the doctors advising this? Politicians will do whatever may bring them votes, but why would doctors allow this to happen?
This is the state of scientific understanding in the USA.
All our kids in Scandinavia have had Covid and no, there is no "brain fog" signal. Sounds crazy to me, honestly.
But do I think closing schools caused learning loss? Um, yes I do.
Read this article on brain fog, then wonder why none of the learning loss data accounts for long COVID symptoms (especially brain fog) in kids? We accept that 75% or more kids have had COVID, then just blame learning loss on virtual school 🙄
Why are American parents not vaccinating their kids? We do not have this problem in Scandinavia.
This is a USA public health failure. Stop your stupid focus on Covid vax in children. The benefit is minimal/nil and it's promoting vaccine hesitancy.
@KelleyKga
"Covid vaccines for all ages remains critically important". No, no, no.
Covid vaccination in the elderly is critically important. Kids don't need it. Our country (Denmark) and many others do not even offer the vaccine to healthy kids.
What are you doing, America?
This is just ridiculous. They included Covid patients in the ER/hospital and ignored asymptomatic/mild cases.
Almost everyone in Denmark had Covid already. 20% of us should be chronically ill by now?
No wonder you have 1 million+ dead, USA! You have made your CDC political.
This is perhaps the world's most successful Covid influencer. Almost a million followers now. Have followed him since he started attacking Denmark for opening schools. Predicted our kids would die. Instead, we have had zero pediatric deaths from Omicron.
1/
📍THE PANDEMIC CONTINUES—research is now showing that the virus can spread throughout the body and remain lodged in organs. This might offer one clue about the lingering phenomenon of “
#LongCovid
” and suggest why it will remain a serious problem for
Does a single doctor in the field believe that 36% of healthy young people get Long Covid?
Study included mostly PCR+ cases (sicker) and ignored asymptomatic cases. As always, look at the denominator.
For reference, we found 0.8% Long Covid in Denmark:
A new prospective Covid study from George Washington University indicated 36% of students, faculty and staff developed
#LongCovid
, with risk factors identified (no controls)
This is USA madness in a nutshell.
Most of the world has stopped vaccinating children against Covid. But this politician "stood his ground" in forcing kids to get vaccinated.
As a doctor, he must know the benefit is minimal/nil, but maybe it got him some extra votes?
How did masking become a left wing issue in USA?
Scandinavia is arguably the most left wing region in the world, and our masking was very limited.
Asian dictatorships mandated masks.
But in USA, masking became a darling of the left. Why?!?
How can you call yourself a leftist if you’re not masking? How can you claim to care about the most vulnerable if you refuse to acknowledge the ongoing pandemic? High risk people have been isolated for four years. If you’re not taking action, your words are meaningless.
For all the mask apologists who say stuff like: "who cares if there were mask mandates two years ago".
It's still happening. Despite all the evidence, it's still happening!
Reasonable doctors need to speak out against this.
I can’t believe this is still happening. Vashon High School in WA state *just* announced a mask mandate for the next two weeks. This decision seems more like the district is punishing students for enjoying the normalcy of a school dance.
No compelling reason to force masks!
@gregggonsalves
@urgencyofnormal
I am a Danish infectious disease doctor. I don't know about urgency of normal, but we are not vaccinating most school age kids in Scandinavia. Makes sense to me.
Omicron is so mild in kids that the benefit of a vaccine in a healthy child is minimal/nil.
Not recommending a Covid booster to a healthy child/youth is the standard recommendation in most countries.
Yet, on Twitter it is viewed as a controversial view and will get you attacked by (sometimes well-meaning) folks.
It is an interesting phenomenon.
@MSmelkinsonPhD
Dr. Smelkinson, we opened schools very quickly in Scandinavia. In Denmark, we have had a total of four pediatric deaths (none from Omicron). My guess: USA media exaggerated the risk in children (made a great story) and underestimated the risk to older adults.
Americans, is this really happening? It seems so crazy. I challenge any USA doctor to come up with good evidence that masks prevent Covid.
Your daily reminder that we kept schools mostly open, mostly unmasked since spring of 2020. Zero kids have died of Omicron.
"They can go to our school that's online. They can opt not to return to the regular school, but to go to the school where they don't have to go to school at all other than via Zoom."
-
@sdschools
President Whitehurst-Payne on those who don't want to mask.
Medicine has a long history of interventions that we "knew" were going to work. But when a clinical trial was done, results were disappointing.
If you take USA domestic politics out of it, masks are a great example of this. Just because it "should" work, doesn't mean it does.
We now have 3 RCTs and a Cochrane review showing that masking does not work... on a societal level.
But masking works on an individual level. For some patients, postponing Covid can be very important.
This is a surprisingly difficult concept for many to understand.
Serious question:
Has there ever been a case in modern medicine where the sceptics were as correct as with Covid mitigations?
In 2020 you were a racist, nazi trumper if you opposed school closures and masks.
In 2023 you are just right.
Germany is now having a healthy political debate about school closures and there is now, at least in retrospect, an emerging consensus that they were a major mistake. Impressive! The United States is not anywhere close to this point.
This surgeon
@gorskon
who has found fame as a Covid influencer thinks RCTs of masking are impossible due to lack of clinical equipoise. Wait until he learns that three RCTs were already done - and that they were largely negative.
This anti-science movement is hard to watch!
No, crazy person.
Opening schools was not "using the kids as guinea pigs". We opened schools quickly in Scandinavia and we did fine.
This anti-science movement in USA is incredible.
"the focus was mostly about using the kids as guinea pigs (ie subjecting them to a new virus) to achieve herd immunity"
@JeromeAdamsMD
speaking truth to power
A burger restaurant follows common sense. Knowing what we know now, obviously a healthy person should not wear a mask in July of 2023.
Nevertheless, a Covid influencer has to fan the flames. Remember that the Covid influencers will keep this going as long as they can.
I don't even know where to start with this,
@TRyanGregory
.
Tubercolosis IS endemic and we HAVE been living with it for 100s of years.
Maybe stop posting about infectious diseases, Ryan...
This should never have happened. Dr. Kulldorf has been a reasonable voice throughout this pandemic.
The USA anti-science movement has been hard to watch. All due to your idiotic politicization of Covid.
Why are Americans still talking about masks?
I understand they are a very obvious political gesture in USA, but PLEASE move on, USA!
Masks should be a curious footnote in the history of the pandemic.
Discussing whether masks "interfere with smiles"? Only in USA...🤣
You cannot make this up. Covid influencer
@tylerblack32
(who is a psychiatrist!), thinks that closing schools was great because a study shows less head trauma...🤣
I don't understand this anti-science movement in America.
Often on Twitter, I don't know what's real and what's parody.
Please don't mask your children, USA. It's cruel. It's anti-science. It goes against ECDC and WHO guidelines to mask little kids.
It's politics; not medicine.
Update for Americans. Healthy kids do not need Covid boosters. Most countries no longer offer them.
That is not the same as "we want them infected". They have all been infected already and will all get infected again, with or without a booster.
There is no proof whatsoever that vaccinating healthy people against Covid reduces incidence of
#Longcovid
.
A randomized trial would be interesting to see but I doubt it will ever be done.
#misinformation
.
I admit that I was very sceptical of Sweden's Covid approach in 2020. At the time, I thought Tegnell was attention-seeking and gambling with people's health.
In retrospect, very little of what we did made a difference. Everyone got Covid anyway.
"Sweden’s 🇸🇪 refusal to impose compulsory shutdowns has now, by contrast, been completely vindicated"
Excellent piece by
@mattwridley
in
@Telegraph
“Shutting down society completely won’t work,” said Tegnell on March 12 2020"
USAs weird focus on masks remains a mystery to the rest of the world. It seems clear that an agenda existed to exaggerate mask efficacy.
Was it just a smokescreen for USAs failure to implement meaningful societal change (free health care, paid sick leave, vax passport)?
This is why I hate Twitter. I spend hours fact checking and discussing Covid science.
I am in favour of our policy of not vaccinating healthy children/youth. Like the big majority of the world's MDs.
But Americans...
This is how we did it in Denmark:
Free, high quality health care
High vaccination rates in elderly
Paid sick leave
Vaccine passport
No stupid culture war over kids and masks.
This is how
#longcovid
should be studied! In large population studies. With a control group.
Overall, no increase in most neuro/psych symptoms after C19.
Loss of taste/smell very significant.
This is great news for everyone but the Covid grifters!
Have you lost your mind, USA?
- 3 negative RCTs and a Cochrane review.
- You are masking kids with no risk of Covid, but not adults?
- The whole world has moved on from masking kids, but it is still politically advantageous to push this anti-science in USA?
When asked if the CDC will revise its guidance to mandate masks in schools in light of the Cochrane review showing masks do not curb COVID, CDC Director Walensky tells Congress its advice on child masking will never change. “Our masking guidance doesn’t really change with time.”
Every time I log onto this Covid fact checker account, I wonder:
Did USA figure out who spread the misinformation that led to prolonged schools closures, masked toddlers and the general weird focus on kids?
You have 1+ million dead elderly, but you focused on the kids. Why?
@_Iaura_
@panopanopopoki
@TracyBethHoeg
@urgencyofnormal
If anyone tried to force kids to wear masks in Scandinavia, parents would go crazy. We have barely masked during the pandemic, which is consistent with the evidence.
I am still skeptical that any doctor would lend their name to a mask mandate.
This your weekly reminder that it makes absolutely no sense to mask a toddler. We never did in Scandinavia and the WHO and ECDC recommend against it.
But what crazy degree of misinformation in USA has allowed this to happen? Why don't USA MDs speak up about this?
We have been lying all along in Denmark but now we have been exposed.
Dead people in the streets. Almost everyone has long Covid now and our IQs have dropped due to the "neuro-degenerative virus".
If only we had worn cloth masks!
This is exactly like 99% of real doctors feel. People attacking Dr. Dhand are doing it for attention.
The true winners of this Covid pandemic are the Covid influencers, and they will do anything to keep the sense of anger and outrage going.
FINALLY NO MASKS in the hospital!
I get to interact with my patients like a real human being! If I never have to see another mask again��� I’ll be a happy Doctor
One assumes he generates significant income from all this attention. Now that Covid is resolving, he needs to keep fanning the flames to maintain his fame.
Today it's "The virus spreads throughout the body!"
This is common for most viruses. He should google what viremia means
A politician who forced millions of kids to miss 1+ year of public school while keeping private schools open would be absolutely unelectable in Scandinavia.
If he really thought Covid was dangerous to children, did he simultaneously think rich kids don't get Covid?
Newsom on California's extreme Covid restrictions: "We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We’re experts in hindsight."
His kids attended private school in person while millions of kids in CA were barred from school entirely.
This can't be true. 12% of Americans still wear masks in public. I think the number is less than 1% in Europe.
I suspect
#misinformation
. What is a realistic percentage?
I can't imagine any credible public heath agency recommending masks on healthy people at this point.
New poll finds only 12% of Americans typically wear a mask in public
The poll found that most Americans 73% say they don’t judge people who wear masks in public. But 14% of those surveyed said that they "think” less of people who wear a mask in public.
In Scandinavia, we had no protests to re-open schools, because we did not use children as a political tool like you did in USA.
Our political parties (we have many) agreed to open school when the evidence was clear that Covid was not dangerous for kids.
Fascinating thread and replies.
Taken at face value, it’s hard to argue its truth (that more affluent whites were almost exclusively leading the effort for what many now argue was a pro black/ brown / marginalized communities movement).
Thoughts? 👇🏽🤷🏽♂️
When you're infected with measles, your immune system abruptly forgets every pathogen it's ever encountered before & every vaccination. The loss is near-total & permanent. Once the measles infection is over, your body has to re-learn what's good & what's bad almost from scratch.
What difference does my fact checking make when this Covid influencer has almost a million followers?
The real incidence of
#longcovid
is less than 1%, but his followers will never know this.
X is depressing me today.
⚠️STAGGERING—24.4% of Americans ages 18 and over who have received a positive
#COVID19
test or diagnosis have experienced symptoms of
#LongCovid
that persisted for 3 months or longer. Long COVID generally worse/more frequent with more severe COVID survivors. Thus….
Worst states
Prior to the C19 pandemic, mask science was uncontroversial and the consensus was that community masking did not decrease Flu.
USA domestic politics ruined mask research for decades to come. Some Americans "believe" in masks so much that they will ignore all science.
This is what happens when MD and PhD Covid influencers are allowed to spread misinformation.
None of this is true. Long Covid incidence is less than 1% and generally self-limited (does not need therapy). We have no evidence to suggest that masks reduce long Covid.
Show me a person who states that "Long Covid is on par with cancer and heart disease"...
... And I will show you someone who is profiting from Long Covid.
More reasonable MDs need to speak up against this anti-science movement.
This is the time for good doctors to speak up. We cannot tolerate this kind of behavior on Twitter.
A prominent Covid epidemiologist is being called "Typhoid Mary" for her very reasonable post.
Has Twitter seen a more clear case of
#misinformation
than the monkeypox scare?
I doubt any of the influencers apologized, but did anyone at least admit that they were wrong?
From across the pond, I agree 100%.
Books will be written about how this could happen. In a broader sense, why did USA punish kids for a disease of adults?
#factcheck
: is this a joke?
Vaccinated children do not have to worry about measles. They don't need special ventilation and certainly don't need to wear masks.
This is
#misinformation
Students are back to school this week and some of them will be bringing measles with them.
We'd love to know if there's a plan to prevent outbreaks, beyond sending letters home?
Educate, vaccinate, ventilate, provide masks.
#ProtectNotInfect
@SylviaJonesMPP
@Sflecce
This dermatologist (!) has been spreading Covid misinformation for years now. I don't understand this anti-science movement. More good MDs need to speak up.
Don't forget that
@yaneerbaryam
could post this on Twitter without being ridiculed. That's how much misinformation was accepted in 2022.
We need more good news. Not crazy people thinking the sky will fall.
This is social media bully
@19joho
.
To him, opening schools in Denmark meant that we "wanted kids infected and sick".
We opened schools and our kids did fine.
Don't involve us in your crazy anti-science culture war, USA!
Assuming this is true, what the hell is happening in USA?
If you fixed your obesity problem, you could save and improve millions of lives, not to mention prevent 1000s of Covid deaths.
The anti-science movement in USA is hard to watch.
NEW: UCLA medical school's mandatory health equity class teaches students that weight loss is a "hopeless endeavor" and that "ob*sity" is a slur "used to exact violence on fat people."
The full syllabus has shocked prominent doctors—the former dean of Harvard Medical School.🧵
The famous guillotine shot. Is he really pretending to believe that Dr. Kulldorf wanted to behead people?
You fired a man for his opinions. Crushed a political dissident. USA, look at your anti-science movement. Academics should be furious (but are afraid to speak up).
I am a Danish infectious disease doctor and I am getting tired of fighting misinformation on Twitter. Some days its fun , but I am not sure I am making a difference.
Ask me anything.
I (and most other Danish MDs) thought Sweden was crazy in spring of 2020. I am no longer so sure.
For reasons I cannot explain, Sweden has much higher Covid mortality then Denmark and Norway but their overall mortality is relatively less.
It's worth noting that the latest numbers, that show Sweden with the lowest excess mortality rate in Europe, are pretty much in line with earlier studies from Eurostat, WHO, ONS etc.
Noted this subtle shift among the Covid influencers:
- Less talk about zero Covid. More about repeated infections.
- Less defense of school closures. But never admitting they were wrong.
- Less talk about Covid. More Long Covid
Most of them have never seen a Covid patient.
@hunt4change
@DrJBhattacharya
@FlatEarthOrg
He speaks up against school closures, mandates, lockdowns? This is how we lives in Scandinavia and we have done great.
Only in America is speaking up against prolonged school closures considered unusual.
The "40% get Long Covid" shouting does a disservice to the few patients who develop a distinct, debilitating post-Covid syndrome. We need to cut through the noise of vague symptoms and focus on these few patients.
Trust in public health is good. Our trust in Denmark is part of our Covid success.
USA is hobbled by it's 2-party (un)democracy. If I were a USA democrat, I would just admit the mistakes (schools, kids, masks) and try to move on. Admitting mistakes builds trust! 1/
"Public health officials should lose your trust because of their poor performance," says
@VPrasadMDMPH
.
Thursday at 1 p.m. ET, watch the premiere of
@nickgillespie
and
@TheAbridgedZach
's interview with Dr. Vinay Prasad:
I had forgotten about this guy
@jeremyfaust
, but he has all the Covid influencer hallmarks:
- Middle aged white man
- MD/scientist in unrelated field
- Exaggerates risk to kids (why always kids?)
- Blog and podcast to make money off people's fear.
1/2
@JustinRosatiMD
@AmerAcadPeds
I am not even American, but this raised my eye brows:
Masking little kids is very controversial. Most countries don't do it. WHO and ECDC advise against it. There is no evidence for it. But a recent AAP guideline simply stated "masks work in schools". Really? 1/
I have taken care of more Covid patients than 99% of Twitter MDs. Most of the time, it's a very manageable virus.
Spreading the superstition that Covid somehow breaks the laws of respiratory viral infections is not helpful in my opinion.
One thing I guarantee you will notice if you pay attention
Doctors who have cared for
#covid19
patients will never underestimate what this virus is capable of
The antivax, antimask pundits who have been tweeting from the safety of their home for the past two years often will
Misinformation from
@drclairetaylor
who runs a shady "Long Covid Clinic".
Don't listed to these snake oil grifters who try to profit from the pandemic.
The true rate of Long Covid is less than 1%...
This right here is the problem.
Some people have a deep sense that Covid changed all the rules of medicine and infectious diseases. It did not. There is nothing fundamentally different about Covid compared to other severe respiratory viruses.
Our new study in
@JAMANetworkOpen
: Long-term fatigue isn't a major issue for mild infections. Using the Fatigue Assessment Scale, we found little difference between infected & non-infected groups post-infection. Hospitalized patients had 23% higher fatigue scores.
@origincanada
@gregggonsalves
@urgencyofnormal
That goes to show that Twitter is not the real world.
Most of my colleagues are not vaccinating their kids. Some are, and that's fine.
Again, not one child has died of Omicron in our entire country. And almost all kids had it.
I read the whole thread to try to find out if this is a joke, but it seems like he is serious.
Please, remember that Covid is largely a disease of the old and immunocompromised. Out of 500K infected kids, we have not had a single death from Omicron.
With the pram hood down it should take our baby out of the range of people's faces & short range aerosol transmission whilst providing a pretty good supply of highly filtered air. With the (totally unmodified) pram raincover over top it should be even better, like a PAPR hood
Has anyone pretending to like science ever blocked as many people as
@19joho
?
He is so dug into indefensible positions (masking little kids, college vaccine mandates and school closures) that he has to block anyone who presents data to him.
This is what happens when scientists are censored and alarmist misinformation is allowed to run rampant.
Did you know that a Cohrane review from 2020 found no effect of masks on Flu spread? Back then, it was not a controversial conclusion.
@Billius27
Hello from Denmark. I am an infectious disease doctor here. All our kids already had Covid. Not a single death from any Omicron variant.
Kids will be fine. Everyone will get Covid eventually. There is no better place than school to catch Covid, as kids have lower viral loads.
Maybe school closures were not such a good idea...😳
"We'll close your schools and sports. When you inevitably get Covid, you should apologize for it!"
It seems like the adults should be apologizing to the kids in LA County!
I have not listened to these four. I don't know who they are.
There is absolutely no proof that a healthy person can decrease their risk of long Covid by wearing a mask. None at all.
I can guarantee that these four are Americans and see masking as a political statement.
How we beat Covid in Denmark:
Free health care
Free testing
Paid sick leave
Vaccine passport
Trust in public health
Opened schools quickly
No culture war over masks/vax/kids
Exactly. I'm a solo parent working 2 part-time jobs, homeschooling my child, N95ing 100% indoors, no restaurants, etc so that, in no particular order: we don't become disabled; we don't disable/kill others; & bc I refuse to comply w the blatantly destructive, discriminatory...1/3
I am going to take an extended break from Twitter.
I have run this fact checker account for over two years, but the attacks are getting too stressful.
I see two extremist groups on Twitter, each entrenched in largely emotional beliefs about the Covid pandemic.
A goodbye🧵
As someone who actually understands what a CD4 count means, this is my advice:
There is absolutely no reason to check a CD4 count in a healthy person.
Another example of an influencer thinking all the rules of medicine changed with Covid.
Next time I see my doctor, I really want to get my lymphocyte blood panel tested. Immunodeficiency in CD4 cells is something we all REALLY WANT TO AVOID. Could likely explain the high rates of other infections after
#COVID
infection / observed in
#LongCovid
patients.
I would like to know if a single MD agrees with this policy at University of Michigan.
We in Denmark (similar to other countries including the UK) no longer recommend boosters to healthy people under 50. But in Michigan, they would kick someone off campus for not getting it?
🧵 U Michigan Ann Arbor just announced all students living on campus Fall 23 must show proof of bivalent booster by May 15th.
Even if they’ve already gotten the original booster.
Even if they’ve already had covid.
Excuse me but…
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING
@UMich
?!?
1/>
@charlesbrew
I am a Danish infectious disease doctor. It seems like we agree on this 100%.
Looking at the data, I simply do not understand why anyone would vaccinate a healthy child.
Meanwhile America has millions of older unvaccinated people that no one talks about.
American Twitter is obsessed with ivermectin and masks. Both have plausible mechanisms of action but have little/no supporting evidence.
A USA Venn diagram would show zero overlap between believers of masks/ivermectin.
Thankfully, few believe in either one in Scandinavia.
This guy,
@DrPanMD
, a local politician in California was supportive of prolonged school closures in 2021 and seemed to (intentionally) misunderstand the Covid risk to children.
He is still around and is running for mayor of Sacramento, California. How is this possible, USA?🙁
Twitter bully
@tylerblack32
defending USAs prolonged school closures.
Of course countries with quick school re-openings had lower pediatric mortality.
Maybe isolation/obesity was not a great way for kids to prepare for the inevitable Covid infection, USA?
Who is going to tell him that RCTs were already done?
What is with USAs weird focus on masks? You should have used all this misdirected energy to achieve free health care, better workers' right, paid sick leave.
#misinformation
.
One of the biggest misunderstandings of the pandemic is that SARS-CoV-2 changed all the rules of medicine and infectious disease.
The main difference between this pandemic and the 100s before it is the presence of social media.