The Atlantic’s Zeynep Tufekci called out epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding over this viral thread on the “double mutations” variant B1617 first identified in India that is “surging fast in UK–5x increase in % of #COVID19 cases in just 2 weeks.”
Feigl-Ding is blaming this surge on schools reopening and suggesting the vaccines aren’t effective:
The new “double mutation” variant from India ?? #B1617 is surging fast in UK—5x increase in % of #COVID19 cases in just 2 weeks. Same with the South Africa ?? #B1351 variant. When did they increase? After schools reopened.
And keep in mind—it’s rising despite high vaccinations. pic.twitter.com/fzZC3VAJdZ
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) April 19, 2021
But, as Tufekci points out, this 5x surge is only 103 cases and they’re linked to international travel, not schools reopening:
Thousands of retweets for implying a “5X” surge of B1617 variant is related to school openings in the UK—and rising despite vaccination, implying vaccine escape. I looked it up. The UK health secretary says there are “103 cases” and “vast majority” linked to international travel. https://t.co/psKug43rO9
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
She went on to accuse him of attempting to scare parents by adding “double mutant” to his description:
Sure keep an eye on this variant, like all others—but reality isn’t sufficient to scare parents, I guess so let’s add unlinked stuff together and add “double mutant” and mention schools and imply vaccine failure. Very informative. https://t.co/x1PS1hUZ7D
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
Her mockery of him continued:
Even the school opening dates aren’t fully aligned with these overwhelmingly travel-linked 103 cases, but you never know! Double mutants can go from airports to schools without passing through the community, and can do time travel and turn vaccines into pumpkin. pic.twitter.com/i1QYp0HaHK
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
Even worse? the 103 cases “are likely overrepresented in the database –which wasn’t random to begin with”:
Oh, wait it gets even better. Well, worse. I also learned that UK sequences *every* positive traveler (good idea) to check for variants, so those 103 cases that are mostly linked to international travel are likely overrepresented in the database—which wasn’t random to begin with.
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
Yet, Feigl-Ding’s panic-porn does get the retweets:
I’m all for keeping an eye on variants but… Yeah, this isn’t it.
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
She did correct herself from an earlier tweet, but what he originally tweeted is “still garbled scaremongering”:
Correction: I’ve learned that Scottish primary schools opened in late February! But this is still garbled scaremongering and primary schools in Scotland have nothing to do with travel-linked 103 cases oversampled in a genomic database (really took five minutes to figure it out). https://t.co/psKug3LQWB
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
More here:
Chart is from non-random database. UK sequences every travel positive. There were 103 travel linked cases recently from India for this variant and the uptick is almost certainly that introduction, not “it’s outcompeting.” You can even see it’s those 103 cases by eyeballing chart. https://t.co/PSlGRoNxS4
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
While trying to object to his many misleading statements, many point out Dr. Ding is a nutritional epidemiologist or get personal. I don't think that's fair. I have far less credentials than him in the field. But that's not the issue: above took five minutes and third-grade math.
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
The situation in India is dire, deserves our outmost attention. It may just be unchecked exponential growth OR we may eventually find that this variant has threatening attributes, including higher transmissibility. We can say all that, without the above. https://t.co/LXdS0N1NOb
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
But this is a pattern with him and he keeps on doing it:
Look, I am not picking on this thread alone but pointing out a pattern that needs to stop. See this example with ~4K retweets: "COVID REPLAPSE" and "may remain in people's brains". Study was *in mice* genetically-engineered to express this very receptor. https://t.co/ut85VKVy0J pic.twitter.com/nx3MPMLgbp
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 20, 2021
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