Very important and informative study and thread by @jbloom_lab on what we should be looking out for in the H5 influenza HA mutations relevant to pandemic risk???? https://t.co/dog9v9h9Pv
— Prof. Akiko Iwasaki (@VirusesImmunity) May 25, 2024
Reuters: Many US dairy workers yet to receive protective gear for bird flu
Reutershttps://t.co/AORFEk1ixJ
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 28, 2024
US, European nations consider vaccinating workers exposed to bird flu https://t.co/TIq0SyVIj9
— Jess (@MeetJess) May 27, 2024
New @NEJM
in the experimental model, administration of H5N1 orally induces systemic bird flu with high virus titers in the lungs and moderate titers in other organshttps://t.co/dG68b8ZAoF@justsaysinmice Confirming risk of raw milk pic.twitter.com/10RGFq4Bbf— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 24, 2024
This is worth the read. #H5N1 #birdflu https://t.co/GV8kg3tbye
— Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 (@HelenBranswell) May 23, 2024
Wisconsin: Pasteurization kills 99.99 percent of avian influenza in study
"The study also heated milk samples to a higher temperature for a shorter period of time… This method failed to completely inactivate the virus."
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 27, 2024
Here's the latest variant picture for the United States.
"FLiRT" lineage KP.2 has been dominant, but might be under challenge by JN.1.16. This has some new sub-lineages which are not yet included in Nextclade.
Report link:https://t.co/LI7EKsHH06 pic.twitter.com/qYgZ0AijzC
— Mike Honey (@Mike_Honey_) May 27, 2024
Covid FLiRT Variants Have FDA Weighing Vaccine Update
They have to weigh whether to prioritize a quicker vaccine delivery with broadest protection or a recommendation that could protect against future subvariants with delivery delays of up to 4 months. https://t.co/ZMj7I17Oyk
— Jess (@MeetJess) May 26, 2024
Weekly U.S. COVID update:
– New cases: 54,482 est.
– Average: 45,848
– In hospital: 1,676
– In ICU: 195
– New deaths: 434
– Average: 478Note: Limited data
1/6
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) May 27, 2024
This is the 219th week in a row with more than 400 new COVID deaths in the U.S., or nearly 1.2 million during the same period.
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) May 27, 2024
======
New US #SARSCoV2 genomics: The FLiRT variants KP.2 and KP.3 now account for >40% of Covid infections. No indication of any wave(let) starting here. In contrast, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand are seeing increased rates of infection with these variants. pic.twitter.com/BsblfRCZRC
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 24, 2024
A citizen journalist imprisoned for 'provoking trouble' by reporting on COVID in China is released https://t.co/GAYPVcXfdl
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 22, 2024
Russia: 14.7% increase in Covid in one week
"The incidence rate over the past week was 8.1/100k and increased by 14.7% compared to the previous week. An increase in incidence was noted in 53 regions of the Russian Federation"
Interfaxhttps://t.co/UDteFuZAT1
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 23, 2024
Singapore: Covid hospitalisations rise to 280
"The number of Covid-19 hospitalisations has been increasing in recent weeks, with around 250 such cases for the week of May 5 to May 11, up from 181 the week before that."
The Straits Times – 26th May 2024https://t.co/zSpBsaMtuJ
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 26, 2024
New Zealand: Highest Covid peak in 18 months
6636 new Covid cases and 7 further Covid deaths.
Last week, the Health Ministry reported 6146 new cases of the virus and 19 further deaths.
RNZ Newshttps://t.co/BRKoe8IXim
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 27, 2024
New Zealand continues to rapidly surge with the highest cases reported since 18 months ago as new Covid viruses take off.
Same thing is happening in nearby Australia too:https://t.co/4RDxaNjajC pic.twitter.com/zSQQB4bORJ
— Chris Turnbull (@EnemyInAState) May 27, 2024
Philippines: Screening of arrivals for new Covid-19 variants
"All stations have been directed to conduct thorough screening at points of entry for arriving visitors originating from countries where Covid FLIRT incidents have been detected,"https://t.co/r16hXbOWED
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 27, 2024
======
A systematic review of airplane flights and Covid infections: duration of flight correlated with infection risk, long flights> 6 hours markedly increased risk (25X) and mask use blocked themhttps://t.co/KIdLgKB1zV
h/t @linseymarr pic.twitter.com/eE7JzHm7vV— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 24, 2024
⚠️COVID patients at higher risk for respiratory complications well after infection, study finds.
The risks of respiratory complications were eightfold and nearly twofold greater in COVID-19 patients in South Korea and Japan during and after infection.
1/3https://t.co/WEZdJrF1wj— FactFromFiction (@ACEGIK1476) May 28, 2024
which implies that the immune system is not fully recovered after 4 months, and constant attention must be paid to the patients."
— FactFromFiction (@ACEGIK1476) May 28, 2024
Up to 5.8 million kids have long COVID, study says. One mother discusses the "heartbreaking" search for answers https://t.co/eyh8MvpQEA
— Jess (@MeetJess) May 27, 2024
From lemons, lemonade!
The pandemic's formidable impact: accelerating biotech, life science, and digital medical technology https://t.co/MatffLtZ7W pic.twitter.com/9vASgUwzLb
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 23, 2024
======
Based on some travel last week, the answer to this headline seems to be no. Hardly a mask in sight at airports, planes, trains, etc.
“Covid will still be here this summer. Will anyone care?” https://t.co/WLErUnMQLb
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) May 27, 2024
Another gift link:
That is true when it comes to routine diagnoses let alone a novel condition such as long covid, whose definition remains very much a work in progress, clinicians and public health researchers said. https://t.co/0SVVZDdRMz
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 28, 2024
US: Summer wave starting in the Bay Area.https://t.co/tErrlrLdDA
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 26, 2024
If this nurse is here on twitter, I want to extend my wholehearted thanks to her for speaking truth ❤️👇 https://t.co/vZ0a0nviB3 pic.twitter.com/XXl4Bvv2pW
— tern (@1goodtern) May 26, 2024
I remember when the Biden Administration offered millions of free COVID tests to anyone in the U.S. who wanted them and people whined that they could ONLY get 4 at a time and then hardly anyone used them anyway. https://t.co/FpNZabva8s
— Charles Gaba ?? (@charles_gaba) May 28, 2024
The @MayoClinic rejected mom’s lung transplant due to lack of a full COVID ‘vaccination’
Mayo with a side of…. murder?!?!! pic.twitter.com/4kJYK1j8YT
— Toby Turner (@TobyTurner) May 23, 2024
TBone
On the appointment confirmation letter from my local health system, the instructions said “Wear a mask to your appointment if you are sick.” Not “stay home if you are sick.” Not “get a Covid test.” Just “Come on in! The water’s FINE.” I cancelled my mammogram and let them know why. No one gives even the tiniest shit anymore. The nurse in that video broke me. Again. I don’t go near any medical facilities here anymore unless it is a very dire emergency and I’m not taking cats to the vet for the same reason. They had overnight visits to get their teeth cleaned last year ($$$) and had checkups that said they were all healthy enough for that surgical procedure. I pray every day that none of us need go anywhere near medical facilities, Lord hear my prayer! I drop hubby off and pick him up but will not go inside where NO ONE wears masks. I haven’t seen a mask in the wild in months and months.
sab
My great grandmother died of TB about a year after she gave birth to my grandmother. For fear of infection, she never held the baby. Her husband never remarried.
I cannot remember the source that said in the 19th century 1/3 of all deaths in America were from TB. A not insignificant number caught from unpasteurized milk.
My great grandmother caught TB as a nursing student. We do not know if it was from a patient or from bad milk. Either was possible. Her whole nursing class died from TB.
sdhays
At least we ended in a happy note. People who refuse to do the bare minimum to protect their lungs shouldn’t be at the front of the line for transplant lungs.
Marleedog
Toby Turner is an extreme asshole.
Baud
Charles Gaba and the Good Alito speak for me.
TBone
@sdhays: agreed. My empathy for anyone refusing to take precautions is non-existent. They can stay at the back of the line in perpetuity for all I care, the dumb fucks.
My grandmother had polio and had to be in an iron lung. Grateful that she survived – the scar under her armpit forced her to swim sidestroke, but other than that she fully recovered. We swam facing each other.
Princess
@TBone: That’s nuts. If you wear a high quality mask you will be pretty safe. Much safer than foregoing everything but emergency medical care, that’s for sure.
sab
I am old. My own olds lived in a rougher world. Polio, TB. World wars.
I might trot this out in the next boomer v gen x war. We were raised by survivors. They were raised by wimps.
satby
That Turner character got completely dragged on shitter for whining about the Mayo clinic’s requirements. People rightly pointed out that if you’re not going to follow health guidelines before a transplant it’s pretty unlikely you’ll follow them after, when it’s critical. Plus, the correction to qualify is simple; and refusing is on them, not Mayo.
Baud
@satby:
You know how these people are. The world must conform to them. They don’t need to follow the rules.
TBone
@sab: 💙
TBone
@Princess: did you not watch the video of the nurse? One way masking is not an option for me. I am immunocompromised. Long Lyme got me before Long Covid, both of which which I am still suffering.
https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1794745117141500384
It’s ALL about the Benjamins.
sab
I have an offer in on my dream house. We were expecting to shop around for months or years. Then we saw this house. Just a normal house but everything we ever wanted. If it falls through I will be heartbroken.Over a house I never had. How nutz is that?
New Deal democrat
The CDC’s latest wastewater count showed an alarming increase in the West, with a doubling in one week back to March levels. The rest of the country was virtually unchanged at near record low levels. Biobot did not show any increase in the West, but a slight increase overall back to late April levels.
Deaths made another all-time pandemic low of 374 during the last full reporting week of April 27. Initial reports for the last 4 weeks including April 27 were as follows:
4/27 … 184
5/4 … 153
5/11 … 141
5/18 … 143
This suggests that the ultimate death counts for the last two weeks will wind up being under 300.
The CDC’s latest variant update last Friday showed KP.x subvariants having increased to 50%, new Kx.x subvariants at 10%, and the remaining JN.x subvariants at 40%.
It is likely that the summer wave of whatever strength will have started with get-together over the Memorial Day weekend. The good news (so far) is that JPWeiland’s modeling based on new variant penetration suggested only a doubling from very low initial levels.
BRyan
@TBone: I was leaving a physical therapy appointment, wearing a mask (i happened to be fighting a cold at the time, but I tend to still mask when out in public anyway) and got chastised by a woman coming into the place, who said, “you’re still wearing a mask? You people need to get over that.” I asked her if she would like my cold, and she responded that “everybody knows masks don’t prevent anything.” What I can never figure out in these encounters – and this is far from the first time someone snapped at me about wearing a mask — is, what difference does it make to these people? How is my wearing a mask impinging on their comfort level?
Harrison Wesley
Here in Florida it’s obvious the pandemic is over. I could tell from my visit to the cardiologist yesterday. Only one other person on each of the buses I was on was masked. Only one other patient at the heart center was masked. None of the staff – doctors,nurses,techs,admin -was masked. Let the good times roll.
TBone
@sab: I hope you prevail. Knowing what you want is half the battle.
Ohio Mom
Ohio Dad and I have appointments for Covid Boosters his afternoon. Something we would have forgotten to do without this weekly updates. So, many thanks, Anne Laurie!
sab
@BRyan: Nitwits think masks are political. Normal people think masks are for health.
TBone
@BRyan: 😓 I wish I had a penis to whip out and pee on people like that. Then pee on them again when they have to disrobe to change clothes.
You don’t close up your umbrella while it’s still raining unless you are a complete moron.
I had a really bad experience at my colonoscopy. All of the red hat men in the waiting room took one look at my N95 mask and promptly took their surgical masks off. Last voluntary appointment I attended.
Baud
I see the most masking by workers in retail establishments, where I also mask.
TBone
@Ohio Mom: seconded
TBone
@Harrison Wesley: 😔
MomSense
@sab:
I don’t think it’s a generation thing. At least where I live now it’s political party affiliation and where they get their information. I think there is also a rural / city / suburb factor.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
We never used ours because we never got sick. That all changed a couple weeks ago when baby girl gave me the cold from hell. I’m still fighting it.
Ohio Mom
@sab: I didn’t know you were looking to move. What is it about this new place that makes it your dream house?
I ask because I have been thinking it’s getting near time for Ohio Family to pull up stakes (for a variety of reasons) but nothing in our price range (in my very casual looking) has screamed “Dream!” Just wondering what your thought processes are, in case there is something to inspire me.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Children are disease vectors. I’m still angry at Biden for not doing something about them.
TBone
@Baud: I almost couldn’t see your snark tag.
TBone
BTW my local health system is named Evangelical. It’s almost like they think they can pray away a virus instead of taking common sense precautions. No wait, it’s exactly like that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: He shoulda locked all the little bstrds up in sanitariums!
But yeah, it was inevitable they would pass something on to us. Part of the deal we signed onto.
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d like to see clean air ventilation systems in place in our public schools and on public school transport, but I don’t have kids. Plus I know the other taxpayers wouldn’t stand for it.
Argiope
@BRyan: My sister was asked by a random elder stranger why she was wearing a mask, back when the MAGAs first decided masks were bad. She replied, “Because if I decide to kill an old man, I plan to do it with my bare hands for the satisfaction.” That shut him up.
Marleedog
@Baud:
Why try to reason with an anti-vaxxer when you can just wait them out?
TBone
@Argiope: you have an awesome sister.
Argiope
@TBone: She’s super quick on her verbal feet like that. And fearless. So, yeah! She’s younger and I like to think being mildly but consistently oppressed by me during childhood helped mold her into the kickass human she is now. Fortunately, I’ve been forgiven.
Joey Maloney
@Argiope: I’ve been using “it helps me remember to mind my own fucking business” but your sister leaves me in the dust.
Manyakitty
@sab: exciting! Where is it?
Manyakitty
@Argiope: can your sister be my friend?
lee
For the first time in a long time I ran into a Covid Conspiracy Crank on some random subreddit. It was the full blown ‘It was all Fauci’s fault, they exaggerated the number of dead, masks do nothing, etc’. It was really weird.
Interesting to me that in my suburb of Dallas (which used to be very red) nobody seems to care if someone wears a mask anymore.
bluefoot
@TBone:
I’ve had similar experiences as the one you had at your colonoscopy, and I live in Boston. Hell, I had the nurse at my last mammogram tell me to take off my mask. Assholes are everywhere. I am still wearing a KN95 out in public though.
At least at my neurologist’s office, all the staff wear a mask, though that isn’t true for other medical offices I’ve been to this year. The neurologist even thanked me for masking and testing before I came in. That’s very much the exception though.
bluefoot
@Argiope: Your sister is awesome and I am stealing that line next time someone asks me why I am wearing a mask.
soapdish
@Baud: That’s why Biden is trying to get Roe codified into law.
RaflW
On the flight risk, it is worth noting that the sample size drops considerably as durations rise, and the scatter plot gets quite divergent. Doesn’t mean that masking on longer flights isn’t a bad idea, certainly. But it points out, to me, that one or a few ill individuals can probably do a lot more harm on a longer flight than a shorter one.
RaflW
@BRyan: “What difference does it make to these people? How is my wearing a mask impinging on their comfort level?”
Their feeling of shame, which rises briefly and then gets squashed by their anger, belies that they know masks work.
My primary care doc has worn the el-primo N95s ever since in-person routine visits resumed, even after nurses first just wore blue surgicals, and later abandoned even that. Till this April, that is.
I still donned a KN95 to have my annual last month (it’s a clinic, there’s sick people there!) but doc was maskless. I didn’t ask him about it, but kinda wish I had.
All that said, I’m at my lowest level of caution since March 2020. Have indoor dined quite a bit the past month, flown maskless, etc. But I do watch these weekly posts and try to at least pay background attention to trends and rates, and will resume masking if anything even remotely like what is happening in N.Z. + Australia pops up in the US.
IOW, possibly soon. I think a bump is inevitable, given for example that the TSA set an all time, never before number of travelers screened this past Friday. You bet your @ss some of those people just flew from Australasia :(.
dssq
my read of the peer-reviewed, published results on the question was and is still that wearing a mask does more to prevent covid transmission from the wearer than to protect the wearer. i don’t like noting that to people, because far too many are so self-centered that they would use the information as an excuse not to mask. that information makes the sister’s response so precious.
Chet Murthy
@TBone: I sympathize with your feelings of frustration. I wear a P100 respirator everywhere in foreign buildings and public transit, unless the payoff from not wearing it is significant. Which …. it rarely is. I mean, I just don’t eat out that often, and the only regular occurrence where I unmask in a foreign buildings is when I swim.
Can I suggest that you look into a P100 respirator? I use this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013SIIBME/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Full disclosure: It’s got an “exhale value” which means that when you breathe out, your exhalations are not filtered. Now, that means that if you ever enter a “masks required” area, you can’t wear it, b/c typically those areas forbid respirators with exhale values. But then again, if that were to happen, everybody else would be wearing a mask, and you could go back to wearing your old N95. They also make a version without the exhale valve, though from what I understand, it’s more tiring to breathe thru it. This one, I lift weights for 2h at a time with it in continuously.
Just a thought. I haven’t gotten COVID yet, and I plan on not doing so for as long as possible.
Chet Murthy
@BRyan: “what difference does it make to these people? How is my wearing a mask impinging on their comfort level?”
I got that in a gym once. Guy said “I’m not going to infect you!” I think my (our) masking makes them feel guilty, b/c they in fact do know that they’re risking spread disease. It’s just like with slavery: they knew it was an evil, despicable thing, and the existence of free states and abolitionists reminded them of that daily. They just want that to end.