Women In Science: 8 COVID-19 Experts You Should Follow On Social Media

Public health officials have repeatedly warned that a dual pandemic of disease and misinformation has played out over the last year. COVID-19 has made it clear the types of challenges medical information faces in the age of social media.

Which is why I was glad to find neuroscientist Samantha Yammine, who has helped me understand everything COVID-related over the past year, while debunking the many myths out there. To her growing Instagram followers, she’s known as Science Sam, and she has used her platform to make science more accessible and easy to understand.

It’s important to highlight women working hard in the fight against COVID-19 misinformation: Recent studies have also highlighted how the pandemic has worsened gender inequality and disproportionately impacted women’s careers, and male scientists and doctors tend to get the most attention on Twitter. With that in mind, here are eight doctors, scientists, nurses and researchers who are women, that you should follow now.

@anna.blakneyAstraZeneca blood clots? ##teamhalo ##learnontiktok♬ SugarCrash! - ElyOtto

Dr. Anna Blakney

She's become a sensation on TikTok, using the platform to explain how vaccines work - “we inject RNA into your muscle, then your cells make a viral protein” - and to debunk myths about the vaccine’s risks and effectiveness.

1 year into the pandemic and #nurses #Physicians #housekeepers and #PSWs still need #paysickdays #mentalhealth supports and a freedom to speak freely and #advocate

— The Gritty Nurse- #paidsickdays is a must (@GrittyNurse) March 11, 2021

Amie Archibald-Varley and Sara Fung

The creators and hosts of The Gritty Nurse podcast, on which they discuss the pandemic, health equity and women’s health rights. The two nurses examine tough topics, including highly publicized cases in which patients died in hospital care and the importance of paid sick days for front line workers during COVID-19.

Exactly. WHY are we sticking to Sept visitation rules when LTC has been VACCINATED @DrFullertonMPP⁉️ Time for you to do your job and revise this ASAP. These families have suffered ENOUGH. https://t.co/x2nysGKksBMarch 11, 2021

Vivian Stamatopoulos

A sharp critic of the Ontario provincial government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis in long-term care. In endless tweets and media interviews, she has offered solutions on how to mitigate the crisis by hiring full-time personal support workers and ending for-profit nursing homes.

Cultural safe and responsive care means providing translated materials and also translation services.

Here is the Ministry of Health consent form for the #covid vaccine in Ojibwe. pic.twitter.com/mxt4aSpo7o — Lisa Richardson (She/Her) (@RicharLisa) March 10, 2021

Lisa Richardson

An internist who works with the University Health Network and University of Toronto’s department of medicine, she has been using her Twitter feed to share the experience of delivering COVID-19 vaccinations to remote First Nations communities. She’s also shared that the health ministry has a vaccine consent form available in Ojibwe.

I was interviewed on the weekend re the racist attacks on scientists in Canada, the latest & esp horrific to @mustafahirji. I teared up talking to @KWardTV discussing how it feels to be attacked as a woman of colour. With that reminder, I need to state publicly here that I /1

— Dr. Amy Tan 譚玉英 *Racism is a Public Health crisis* (@AmyTanMD) February 17, 2021

Dr. Amy Tan

A palliative care specialist and anti-racism activist in British Columbia. She doesn’t shy away from asking the important questions related to COVID-19 and speaking out about racism and misogyny she’s experienced in the healthcare sector.

Unambiguous Science

This account is run by Sabina Vohra-Miller who has a degree in pharmacology and is using it, in her own words, to “break science into easy to understand posts.” This cheat sheet she created about the vaccines approved by Health Canada is a very helpful reference.

How to talk with vaccine-hesitant people: a thread for epidemiologists & humans in general, on what the research suggests, and what has worked for me in the past.

— Maria Sundaram, PhD (@mariasundaram) December 7, 2020

Maria Sundaram

An infectious disease epidemiologist who has been studying respiratory virus epidemiology and influenza vaccines since 2011. Her pinned Twitter thread is a great resource about how to talk to loved ones who are opposed to getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

MAR 23: #COVID19 in #Ontario 1546 cases*, 9 deaths, 1271 resolved 32556 tests/day, 31325 pending, 5.7% pos 868 hospitalized (324 in ICU)🏥 1603699 vaccinations (+50659)💉 See thread for more graphs📈⬇️#onhealth #COVID19ontario pic.twitter.com/CG6xMFxoLx

— Dr. Mozz🐶 (@jkwan_md) March 23, 2021

Dr. Jennifer Kwan

A family doctor in Burlington, Ont., she has been helping the public break down and understand complex COVID-19 data since the start of the pandemic. The graphs she posts on Twitter track publicly available data on testing, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, vaccinations and more in Ontario.

 

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Eugenia Duodu Addy

The CEO of Vision of Science, a Toronto-based charity that aims to help the educational development of youth in STEM. Teen scientists have taken over the Instagram page, creating informative videos to show how dirty face masks can get and the importance of using a clean one every day.