Authors Vinay Prasad MD MPH

7 days 30 days All time Recent Popular
Vinay Prasad MD MPH
Vinay Prasad MD MPH
@VPrasadMDMPH
A few thoughts on this sad development 👇👇

20 academics criticizing an paper is fine; good science, really

10000+ hate mail for studying schools in Sweden is insane

Anonymous docs/ prof (hiding in faceless accts) on twitter smearing researchers is insane
[thread] https://t.co/QYldLD3WO0


In April 2020, @jflier and I saw this coming

We saw increasingly heated and personal attacks against scientists merely for having a range of views on COVID19 (PS there is no playbook/ right ans)

Tying science to naked politics was also bad idea, we

Yet, repeatedly that is what happened. Twitter 'experts' displayed an absolute intolerance to other views

Folks who disagreed weren't just wrong, they were malicious actors spreading "disinformation"

Really? Someone worked for 25 years as faculty to suddenly spread lies?

Disinformation has been so misused that it has lost meaning.

I recently saw an ID doc & lab researcher in the UK be accused of spreading "disinformation"

hahah, get outta here, you are trying to say "i disagree" but your keyboard is broken

Personal attacks have become so bad that I have seen a lab researcher accuse a doctor of wanting to engage in inappropriate relationships with patients due to diverging views on vaccine messaging

Seriously? It was a low point even for twitter
WORLD
Dr. Vinay Prasad MD MPH, Associate Professor
Dr. Vinay Prasad MD MP...
@VPrasadMDMPH
I got the feedback today that my views on schools were too confident

I will die on this hill; hold to me to it

School closure will be the absolute worst public policy decision for the generation to come

The most discriminatory, net neg & cruel

It will be found to have made nearly no dent in the spread of the virus

The risks to teachers and staff will be found to be modest & modifiable

But the damage to kids and the very institution of public schools will be cataclysmic

The stories of undetected child abuse will be so powerful that every person who thinks it is reasonable to close schools, in this irrational way we have done in the US, will change their tune overnight

The damage to upward mobility will fall along class and racial lines, and this country will be more feudal

The fate of the nation itself-- democracy and those who participate in it-- will be made vulnerable.
EDUCATION
Dr. Vinay Prasad MD MPH, Associate Professor
Dr. Vinay Prasad MD MP...
@VPrasadMDMPH
NC schools experience:
11 districts data; ~100k
in person school

Aug to Oct 2020
NC had 1-2 cases per 1k pop (that's brisk)
733 community acq cases

If schools' transmission mirrored the state
Expected 800+ cases in school

Actual:
32 in school transmissions

Thoughts
[thread]


I really don't know what to say
America has few opportunities for kids who are born poor, school has long been one of them

Other countries recognize that schools provide upward mobility, detect child abuse, provide a hot meal, educate kids, allow them to develop socially

While the European union has bent over backwards to open schools, in the US we have seen massive school opposition

The schools that are open are not based on scientific factors (rate of transmission/ hospitalization), but by political factors (do they hate trump - close; strong unions - closed)

The mantra used is that schools are a threat to kids and teachers

Recently the Swedish experience came out and that showed that schools are remarkably safe

It showed incredibly low risks to students and teachers from open schools (without even
EDUCATION