THREAD
1/ Have seen comments floating around re whether the numbers used in this article are exactly correct or completely fit the epidemiology of spread etc; the footnotes clearly state these limitations, but beyond that, I think these folks are **missing the bigger picture** https://twitter.com/abraarkaran/status/1321597322472558593

2/ There are hundreds of thousands of people (if not more) in this country *right now* who don’t have a strong grasp of how this virus transmits at all.

It has been a failure of science communication at a time when we need it to work most. #covid19

2.5/ I think that *in part*, although not completely, explains the hesitancy & confusion re masking (when to mask, why to mask etc)

If people grasped transmission better, there would likely be fewer questions about the value of wearing masks & in which situations.

3/ This article conveys important messages with digestible takeaways; the numbers used are based on models with certain assumptions- they can be tweaked & you would get a different number of people infected over a period of time in diff situations.

But the *big picture* holds.

4/ Crowding indoors is bad.

It leads to more cases—congregating for longer is even worse.

Just because you’re at your own home doesn’t mean spread cannot happen.

Aerosols do play a role especially in these settings; cloth masks may not be enough to stop transmission here.

5/ Right now, we are headed straight into a third surge — averaging over 70k cases per day over 7 day average; higher than ever before & higher already than our second surge in the summer.

We need to act quickly before people start congregating socially this holiday season.

6/ We need better scicomm around #covid19 transmission— it’s an emergency.

If all behavioral measures were perfectly executed by everyone in the country + people had adequate PPE provided, the epidemic would likely end within weeks. But we are heading in the opposite direction.

7/ This really gets at the huge disconnect between scientists/doctors/“experts” & the public.

Many of the former are so focused on the weeds— which some should be— with far less attention to what bigger picture communication needs to be getting out quickly & *effectively*

8/ Ultimately, the control of this epidemic likely depends more on many “nonexperts” understanding the basics of transmission & tweaking their behaviors quickly & consistently more than it does on a few experts figuring out even tinier nuances around transmission. #covid19