Eric Topol
physician-scientist, author, editor
Last synced from Twitter 6m ago
Ignoring Expert Opinion, Trump Again Promotes Use of Hydroxychloroquine
Katie Thomas, Maggie Haberman - Nytimes.com 2h 3 tweets
The president’s advocacy of the anti-malarial drug has created tensions in his administration, and fears among doctors that it could unnecessarily expose patients to risks.
Eric Topol Add this accurate coverage on the topic by 33m
Inside the epic White House blowup over "game-changer" hydroxychloroquine
Jonathan Swan - Axios 6h 20 tweets
The drama pitted economic adviser Peter Navarro against infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci.
Coronavirus Case Counts Are Meaningless*
Nate Silver - FiveThirtyEight 36h 13 tweets
*Unless you know something about testing. And even then, it gets complicated.
Eric Topol More data to support a US slope decrease (and how meaningless* the case numbers are) by both via 8h
Fearing COVID-19 spread to families, health care workers self-isolate at home
NBC News 5d 2 tweets
"The least you could do is stay home so that we, too, can go home to our loved ones one day,” Dr. Tim Cheng posted on social media.
Google Searches Can Help Us Find Emerging Covid-19 Outbreaks
Nytimes.com 14h 19 tweets
They can also reveal symptoms that at first went undetected. I may have found a new one.
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Eric Topol How searches about #COVID19 teach us about the symptom complex and may also help to localize emerging hotspots "I can't smell"--> anosmia occurs in more than half of infections "My eyes hurt"--> ~30% have eye symptoms by 13h
Death rate of COVID-19: Total confirmed deaths per million people
Our World in Data - Our World in Data 14h 1 tweets
The starting point for each country is the day that country had reached 0.1 confirmed deaths per million people. Limited testing and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death means that the number of confirmed deaths may not be an accurate...
Eric Topol I don't usually look at the per capita adjustment graphs since it's the slope of the curve that really matters. But agree with that it further supports the case 14h
What We Pretend to Know About the Coronavirus Could Kill Us
Nytimes.com 18h 9 tweets
Today’s propaganda is tomorrow’s truth, and vice versa.
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Eric Topol The #infodemic can spread much faster than the pandemic by 14h
Severe Covid-19 illness in young down to genes or 'viral load', scientists say
the Guardian 21h 8 tweets
Coronavirus hits the old and those with other health problems hardest, but fit and youthful people are dying too, and experts are trying to learn why
Eric Topol More on viral load and its link to taking down young, healthy people The alternate hypothesis (not mutually exclusive) is host #genomics. That's being pursued, but no data yet to support 15h
How sick will the coronavirus make you? The answer may be in your genes
Science | AAAS 9d 17 tweets
Projects drawing on large biobanks and COVID-19 patients aim to find genetic differences that predict who will get seriously ill after an infection
Eric Topol More on viral load and its link to taking down young, healthy people The alternate hypothesis (not mutually exclusive) is host #genomics. That's being pursued, but no data yet to support 15h
A German Exception? Why the Country’s Coronavirus Death Rate Is Low
Katrin Bennhold - Nytimes.com 41h 65 tweets
The pandemic has hit Germany hard, with more than 91,000 people infected. But the percentage of fatal cases has been remarkably low compared to those in many neighboring countries.
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Eric Topol How did Germany do so well to counter #COVID19? The parallels to South Korea are notable. Following best practices: start early w/massive testing, tracking, etc by here's S Korea's "secret" 👇 25h
When a Virus Spreads Exponentially
WSJ 3d 2 tweets
The key to stopping the Covid-19 pandemic lies in lowering the rate at which infections multiply.
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Eric Topol In the "exponential era" we live in these days: —Real wisdom on exponential growth from , a mathematician, w/ explanation why slope is key and that we can't predict how humans will behave —And the requisite levity from 35h
Reporting for Coronavirus Duty: Robots That Go Where Humans Fear to Tread
mims - WSJ 41h 5 tweets
A robotic army is being deployed to radiate surfaces, sanitize floors, scan for fevers and enforce mask-wearing.
Eric Topol When robots are part of the clinician's #PPE by 36h
Singapore Restrictions Escalate Amid a New Wave of Coronavirus Infections
Niharika Mandhana - WSJ 3d 6 tweets
This city-state ordered most workplaces to shut and schools to shift online starting next week, significantly ramping up restrictions as it faces a rise in coronavirus cases after it beat back the first wave of infections.
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Eric Topol Singapore has been one of the great success stories in countering . But now it's experiencing new cases, not just from imported ones. A new 4-week lockdown. How hard it is to achieve control, avoid a 2nd wave by and 36h
How science finally caught up with Trump's playbook – with millions of lives at stake
Ed Pilkington - the Guardian 46h 19 tweets
The president’s failure to heed the warnings about coronavirus and act quickly has set in train a domino effect that now imperils large swathes of the US
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Eric Topol A masterful deconstruction: the alarm bells were ringing, but no one, particularly , was listening by #COVID19 39h
Q&A: CDC director on the coronavirus, masks, and an agency gone quiet
Helen Branswell - STAT 41h 26 tweets
STAT spoke with CDC Director Robert Redfield about Covid-19, the agency’s muted role, and how he sees the pandemic unfolding.
In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies
Jason Horowitz - Nytimes.com 43h 33 tweets
Weighing an idea that might once have been relegated to science fiction, Italy once again finds itself in the unfortunate vanguard of Western democracies grappling with the coronavirus.
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Eric Topol Add Italy to the list of countries mounting a large antibody screening program by 39h
How Many Will Die from Donald Trump's Lies?
Steven J. Harper - BillMoyers.com 54h 1 tweets
Trump’s magical thinking and contradictory messages about the coronavirus have created public confusion. The consequences are becoming catastrophic.
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Eric Topol I annotated 's timeline on the US response to #COVID19 w/ some important lapses on testing and our missed chance for getting ahead of it. My summary and its impact on the #healthcare workforce: 54h
Impact of school closures for COVID-19 on the US health-care workforce and net mortality: a modelling study
The Lancet Public Health 54h 3 tweets
School closures come with many trade-offs, and can create unintended child-care obligations. Our results suggest that the potential contagion prevention from school closures needs to be carefully weighted with the potential loss of health-care...
Eric Topol What is the impact of school closures, childcare obligations and the #healthcare workforce in the US w/ #COVID19? The trade-offs examined by modeling: and 54h
Scientists have turned the structure of the coronavirus into music
Science | AAAS 56h 3 tweets
“Sonification” could help researchers identify binding sites for new drugs
Eric Topol And you can even turn the sucker's structure into music 🎶🎼 56h
Bad News Wrapped in Protein: Inside the Coronavirus Genome
Carl Zimmer, Jonathan Corum - Nytimes.com 3d 35 tweets
The virus injects a tiny but remarkably complex strand of RNA into infected cells.
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Eric Topol It's hard to find an aesthetic, non-ugly thing about #COVID19. But somehow @13pt and dissected it and made for a pretty 's cover 57h