Anti-vaxxers: “Why do the protected need to be protected from the unprotected??!” Why is it so hard for you to get this? It’s for the exact same reason people who *use* car brakes would need to be protected from other people who *don’t use* car brakes. 🤨

Congratulations to our 2022 CSL Centenary Fellows: Associate Professor Daniel Watterson, UQ News Dan Watterson and Dr Stephin Vervoort WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute) and Peter Mac Cancer Centre @Stephintje. bit.ly/3mfE3yo

I’m honoured to receive the 2022 CSL Centenary Fellowship. This award will enable my team UQ Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences to look deeper into how viral proteins work and make new broad-spectrum therapies that can target emerging viruses before they become pandemics.

Happy to see that our COVID-19 vaccine patch paper is officially published today in Science Advances! Great collaborations established and great work done by a lot of people. Thanks to all involved David Muller @ProfPaulYoung science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Anti-vaxxers: “Listen to this doctor who won’t get the vaccine! What is it they know?!!” No. Listen to the >96% of doctors who got the vaccine, & would readily get it again. 👍 Don’t ask yourself what the other 4% ‘know’…ask yourself why they don’t know what the 96% do.🤨

“Why do we need to vaccinate kids?! Very few of them die of Covid!!” …because some of us still don’t like the ‘very few’ part. 🤨

There is a viral disease Where most infections are mild, asymptomatic With a very low fatality rate And large age gradient: kids are even lower risk than adults And less than 1% of kids have any serious complications at all Yup Polio And we vaccinate against it

Australia’s fully vaxxed rate (as a percentage of total population) has overtaken the UK AUS: 67.8% UK 67.2%

The phrase ‘the science is never settled’ is terrible. It’s actually wrong. Gravity works. The Earth is round. We breathe oxygen. Vaccines save lives. Some things actually *are* settled. 🤨

For tedious reasons, I've been spending time around a few anti-vaxxer, QAnon types lately, which has been a confronting, exhausting and often bewildering experience. A few observations.

“What about the long term effects of vaccination?!?” The main ones are a greatly reduced risk of getting sick & dying of polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis ACYW, HiB, rotavirus, diphtheria, pertussis, flu, HPV-cancer… …& now Covid-19. 👍😃

“We never had lockdowns for cancer, & that kills more people than Covid-19!” How many times did someone give the person standing next to them cancer in less than 15 min? Answer: never. If cancer *were* passed this way, the world would have to be a remarkably different place.🤨

Boosted!! 💪🏻

Sophia Spadafore, MD Dr. Vanessa Grubbs (she/her) You can tell his guy has had enough

I’ve seen a lot of Covid in the ER recently. With so many people getting infected recently, some folks may wonder what’s the point of getting vaccinated at all? And is there really any value to a booster dose if I’ve had two Pfizer/Moderna or a shot of J&J? My observations: 🧵

1/ From my observations in the ER this week, it’s amazing how consistent this is: Boosted? I didn’t see you because you’re fine at home Vaxxed/unboosted? You got IV fluids, overnight observation and went home Unvaxed: You’re in the hospital for the holidays hooked up to oxygen

This week, we were able to estimate vaccine effectiveness (VE) against hospitalisation for the first time. In short, good news. VE after a booster is close to 90%. The full update from our team is published in this week's technical briefing update: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… 1/10

I'm fully vaccinated and not worried about dying from Covid. Why am I still trying to not catch it? You can get it again and again with long Covid risk every time; the unknown long-term effects of a virus that infects lungs, heart and brain; I don't want to give it to others.

With you, Debra Caplan

5th Viro labs Xmas BBQ + Dirty Santa 🥳🎄~