Associate Professor of Health Systems and Population Health @UWSPH studying Health Organizations. Formerly @UMDPublicHealth, @UCBerkeleySPH, @UCSF, & @UCLAFSPH.
Joined June 2011
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Policy matters: Deaths in Republican counties aren’t limited to people who are unvaccinated or unwilling to mask because of their political opinions.
New work in @Health_Affairs with my colleagues @professor_roby and @DahaiYue and stellar PhD students @ellefpope and @RenHaoWang.
In their paper, @UMDPublicHealth's @NeilSehgal +coauthors find that counties in which a majority of presidential votes cast were for the Republican presidential candidate in 2020 experienced 72.9 additional #COVID19 deaths per 100k people relative to majority Democratic counties.
Not to be pedantic, but @AshishKJha46’s fact that “a majority of American adults go get the flu shot every fall” is… well… an alternative fact.
A very slim majority of adults got the flu shot last fall (50.2%) and pre-pandemic rates were as low as 37%.
cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/cover…
At White House, @tylerpager presses @AshishKJha46 on low covid booster rate + if Biden’s “pandemic is over” rhetoric contributed.
JHA: A majority of American adults go get the flu shot every fall… they don’t do it because the president comes out and says we have a flu pandemic.
Examining that uptick in flu shots last season, nearly all of the additional coverage is explained by an increase in shots among White people. Flu vaccination coverage wasn’t markedly different year-over-year for Hispanic people and coverage actually decreased among Black people.
Neil Sehgal, PhD, MPH retweeted
We struggle in public health, especially preventing infectious diseases, because the reality of it is sometimes emotionally difficult for people.
It’s not pleasant to think that your COVID infection contributed to a chain of transmission which maybe cost someone else their life.
Respectfully, @notcapnamerica, I feel bad for anyone who loses their life needlessly. Regardless of our political differences or where they got their COVID-19 information from.
And as a reminder, about 500 Americans still are every day. Not all of those people listened to Trump.
In fact, a lot of people who likely didn’t vote for Trump, let alone listen to him, lost their lives needlessly since the beginning of the pandemic.
The ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ feels a little hollow when you consider the magnitude of that excess death.
h/t @paulgp for the figure below.
If we wanted Americans to get vaccinated for COVID with more urgency than they do the flu, public health luminaries probably shouldn’t have equated the two.
Before COVID, about 40% of US adults got vaccinated for the flu each year.
“Through good science and luck, there is welcome alignment between the prevalent coronavirus strain and the booster shot to combat it…. But the vaccines are useless if the public doesn’t get them.” @PostOpinions washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
According to @KFF’s September Vaccine Monitor, 32% of adults indicated they either have gotten the updated COVID booster or were planning to as soon as possible.
I hate to be the reminder guy, but on Wednesday 916 Americans lost their lives to COVID-19. On Thursday @AshishKJha46 and @Surgeon_General were bantering about ice cream cones.
Just wondering: do either of you have a plan to fix that? Or, would @POTUS not approve of that either?
This man may be an amazing @Surgeon_General
But he's got a thing or two to learn about ice cream
Its not an ice cream cone without ice cream
@potus would not approve
We struggle in public health, especially preventing infectious diseases, because the reality of it is sometimes emotionally difficult for people.
It’s not pleasant to think that your COVID infection contributed to a chain of transmission which maybe cost someone else their life.
Our leaders backed away from that narrative as soon as that political liability became apparent — it’s not good politics to make people sad.
It’s much easier to assert that the vulnerable people should have done something differently, and that now ‘they have the tools’ to do so.
Hey #AcademicTwitter — quick question (especially for you adjuncts, assistant professors and non-tenure track faculty):
How many of you have the ability (financially and by school policy) to run multiple HEPA air filters in your classroom and hand out N95 masks to every student?
Not just one but 4 HEPA purifiers… “The oncologist, bioethicist, and professor @ZekeEmanuel provides each of his students with an N95 and runs four HEPA air filters during lectures.”
Since colleges dropped policies that protect vulnerable faculty, students, and staff, we’re all sort of on our own. When our schools allow us to be, that is.
At the @UofMaryland we’re not allowed to require masks in our classrooms, and UMD cautions is about even requesting them.
I admire @ZekeEmanuel for taking the steps he does to keep himself and his students safe. And clearly we know how to make lecture halls safer.
But not everyone in academia has the means to, or would be allowed even if they did.
So, Zeke’s classroom is probably safer than yours.
Neil Sehgal, PhD, MPH retweeted
We're proud to be part of this effort. @louiqaraschid and @VFriasM from @ClipUmd are joined by @NeilSehgal, @KristinaLerman & Eili Klein (@JohnsHopkinsSPH) to improve public health messaging and predictive modeling during pandemics.
beta.nsf.gov/news/predicting…
Hi @Bob_Wachter — the challenge with the President making that judgement call is that not everyone has the same means to stay fairly safe.
The President is effectively deciding for those people too, as the policy implications of declaring the pandemic over are fewer protections.
Certainly many are choosing to not stay fairly safe, as you say.
But, the actions of the collective materially increase risk for those with less choice as well — infections beget infections.
The risks of COVID to them, and the potential downstream consequences, are significant.
You rightly note that we need to double down on prevention and treatment of Long COVID. Maybe it’s my public health myopia but the most direct way of doing that still seems like doubling down on the prevention of COVID in the first place.
1° prevention is more effective than 3°.
Terrific piece on Long Covid @TIME. Quotes: me, @EricTopol, @ZekeEmanuel & several folks w/ LC, incl. my wife @katiehafner (90% better but still not 100% after 5 months). Even as acute threat falls, we need to double down on prevention and treatment of LC.
time.com/6213103/us-governme…
