CDC: How H5 Bird Flu Could Spread on a Dairy Farmhttps://t.co/YjyBBx2FX0 pic.twitter.com/XZ0ki0p411
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) December 18, 2024
Not sure how widely the CDC’s information will actually be circulated, but at least it’s out there.
7 more states are set to take part in #USDA 's mandatory bulk tank testing program looking for #H5N1 #birdflu in dairy cow herds. Indiana, Maryland, Montana, New York, Ohio, Vermont & Washington will join California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
— Helen Branswell (@helenbranswell.bsky.social) December 17, 2024 at 3:50 PM
CA's Dept of Food & Ag recalls raw milk products from a second supplier, Valley Milk Simply Bottled, after its bulk tank tested positive for #H5N1 #birdflu.
& ICYMI coz I did: #CDC slipped Delaware onto the list of states that found a probable human case. (CDC couldn't confirm.) Source unknown.— Helen Branswell (@helenbranswell.bsky.social) December 16, 2024 at 5:35 PM
As I understand it, Mike Hoerger’s PMC COVID-19 Dashboard is regarded as the gold standard, so this is moderately alarming:
PMC COVID-19 Dashboard, Dec 16, 2024
🧵1 of 8🔹1 in 64 (1.6%) actively infectious in the U.S.
🔹750,000 new daily infections and rising
🔹Highest % increase in transmission in nearly 3 years
🔹10th wave is the "silent surge," coming on late out of nowhereThe video will walk… pic.twitter.com/qhcNm3EdTi
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) December 16, 2024
Click over for a much longer explainer.
PMC COVID-19 Dashboard, Dec 16, 2024
🧵2 of 8🔹10th wave taking off (U.S.)
🔹5 million infections expected this week
🔹>250,000 post-infection conditions (#LongCovid) expected to develop from this week's infections
🔹Higher transmission than 73% of the pandemicInfo for new… pic.twitter.com/hy865ItBHj
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) December 16, 2024
PMC COVID-19 Dashboard, Dec 16, 2024
🧵5 of 8I offered a sneak peek earlier. Here's what to expect on Christmas Day if the model holds. We will update as data come in. Vaccinations, masking, air purifiers, & serial pooled rapid testing reduce risk.https://t.co/Pso86yOEPn
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) December 16, 2024
PMC COVID-19 Dashboard, Dec 16, 2024
🧵6 of 8Covid transmission is projected to be very high around New Year's Eve.
At a party of 25 without testing or isolation, it's a coin toss of getting a Covid exposure.
Flight? All but guaranteed.
✅Vax
✅Mask
✅Air purifiers
✅Test… pic.twitter.com/vyL86ZYxKQ— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) December 16, 2024
PMC COVID-19 Dashboard, Dec 16, 2024
🧵8 of 8Please share the web dashboard, video, images, and summaries across all social media platforms. 🙏
With the wave coming on strong out of nowhere, we need to get the word out quickly. #SilentSurge https://t.co/sYT5KNhC7r pic.twitter.com/0R2GaM6WsE
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) December 16, 2024
======
Despite the Actuaries Institute changing their baseline to include cvd deaths,
2024 Excess Mortality data is higher than predicted
Especially the shocking 70% higher than expected cvd deaths 😮
Link to report in next post pic.twitter.com/9UcZsi5C8G
— Sue J (@SMpwrgr) December 17, 2024
======
#A genetic "tuning dial" in the #ImmuneSystem may explain varying COVID-19 severity. This discovery could lead to new treatments for infections, autoimmune disorders, and cancer. @CellCellPress https://t.co/rkBtK0UPOJ https://t.co/egheEfSIQF
— Medical Xpress (@medical_xpress) December 12, 2024
Study shows resistance to Paxlovid is uncommon
Researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 clinical resistance to Paxlovid in EPIC-HR was infrequent, occurring in 6 of 530 treated participants (1.1%). https://t.co/SXhSDZDkxt
Photo: Anthony Quintano/Flickr cc pic.twitter.com/8qjyUHZoQi
— CIDRAP (@CIDRAP) December 17, 2024
@cidrap: Last year, about eight percent of US adults reported that they ever had #longCOVID, and those who currently had the condition or currently had activity-limiting long COVID were both under four percent. @uncpublichealth https://t.co/o5hVHSLPxq
— NC Coalition on Aging (@NcAging) December 16, 2024
Regarding #LongCovid treatment clinical trials, you should know that we applied to @PCORI (stands for "Patient-Centered") to test 5 promising candidate drugs in large, randomized, de-centralized, direct-to-participant efforts, but after a ~1-year review it was not funded.
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 12, 2024
They said there wasn’t enough proof (prelim data) that they’d work!
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 13, 2024
======
Much like the damage cause by the vaccines cause autism paper
(they do not), the retraction of this pseudo trial that pushed ivermectin for COVID will continue long after this retraction. Once a seed is planted grifters and conspiracy theorists do not let go easily.
www.science.org/content/arti…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) December 17, 2024 at 2:23 PM
The Conspiracy World Is Pushing Paranoia About a Post-Inauguration “Plandemic” – thank you @annamerlan @MotherJones for educating us how influencers work to stir up hate vs scientists so they can monetize the internet. Terrible people https://t.co/vjJXE5WLfd
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) December 14, 2024
Sadly, it’s a good time to once again share this amazing infographic that we ran at @science.org more than 7 years ago
?? #IDsky
www.science.org/content/arti…— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 4:10 PM
Anti vaxx is the perfect storm for the modern fascist coalition of anti elite idiot demagogues, crunchy volkisch "reject modern medicine" cranks, and rabid "they're poisoning and mutilating the national body" reactionaries
— Maia (@maiamindel.bsky.social) December 13, 2024 at 8:13 AM
These assholes all get their kids vaccinated.
Revealing in 2020-2022 that few prominent reactionary pols/propagandists died of COVID. They knew Trump was FOS, & used social distancing, wore masks, got their families vaxxed…except for rightwing radio. Bunch of them died. They were true believers— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) December 13, 2024 at 6:18 PM
“The country is ready for a big debate over whether, contrary to what the out-of-touch elites tell us, the earth is actually flat.”
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) December 13, 2024 at 12:49 PM
Sad, utterly predictable (probable) resolution to the ‘mystery disease’ in the Congo:
For those living outside of endemic regions, malaria as a real and present threat seems far fetched. The undiagnosed mystery illness in Panzi, DRC appears to be Malaria compounded by social determinants of health. An outbreak fueled by poverty and lack of HC access.
www.reuters.com/world/africa…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) December 17, 2024 at 11:47 AM
Together hookworm and malaria cause profound hypochromic anemia as seen in the pic, guess we’ll find out soon enough
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) December 18, 2024
Holidays – Miki – Holidays When We Were Little series
p.a
I don’t know it there’s some sort of quantifiable study possible, but my impression is stupidity ^ as the attacks on free public edumacation ^
Provides breeding space for charlatans & cranks.
MagdaInBlack
I can’t even..with these arrogant, ignorant, fully-vaccinated, fully insured, well fed, well cared for white male assholes yammering against vaccines…….
I’m gonna have more coffee…
New Deal democrat
Biobot has not published any updates in nearly three weeks, with no explanation. This is particularly worrisome because I fear the CDC updates are likely to cease almost immediately after January 20. The CDC did update through December 9, showing that the Holiday winter wave has begun, as wastewater particles per mL increased from 1.69 to 2.66, a 57% increase, compared with a 27% increase in the first week after Thanksgiving last year. On the other hand, arithmetically the increase was 0.97 particles per mL this year vs. 1.59 particles per mL last year in the first week after Thanksgiving.
Forecaster JP Weiland continues to believe that this winter’s wave will only be about 25% of last winter’s:
https://bsky.app/profile/jpweiland.bsky.social
The CDC’s update on deaths for the last full week of reporting, November 16, showed 488 deaths, the lowest since July 13, and also lower than at any point in the last 5 years before May of this year. For the week of December 7, the preliminary reporting was 210 deaths, a slight increase from the two prior weeks, suggesting a final count of between 420-525 deaths for that week. If the forecast of a weak Holiday wave are correct, this suggests weekly deaths could peak at about 1,000-1,250 in early January.
The total death count for the full past 52 weeks was 54,600. The likelihood is that by the end of January, this number will drop below 50,000, and thus be within the range of deaths from flu in an average year.
There will be no variant update until Friday. There is no indication at this point of any new virulent variant on the horizon.
TBone
Thank you in perpetuity AL. Although I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by too much WTF from my usual morning internet travels, I know there is always a place where I can sit back, pour another cuppa, and settle in to learn and digest without any accompanying bugfuck insanity from the insane clown posse peanut gallery. My eternal gratitude cannot be overstated.
Jay
In many regards, I DON’T CARE.
I started wearing masked to protect others.
I got the vaxx first chance I got to protect others.
Now, I wear a mask to protect me and mine.
I vaxx to protect me and mine.
That’s it, everybody else is on their own.
When I was at the last job, somebody had stickered a bunch of machine tools with warning labels, saying “if you won’t stick your hand in here, don’t stick your penis in here”.
I removed them all.
Jay
And thank you, Anne Laurie, for your Covid posts, and now your Covid/Bird Flu posts.
You have saved lives.
New Deal democrat
Michael Hoerger’s model is alarmist and has been completely wrong this fall. For example, here is a link to his November 4 forecast:
https://pmc19.com/data/PMC_COVID_Forecast_Nov4_2024.pdf
The forecast stated: “The 10th wave of COVID in the U.S. has quite likely begun. We estimate that the low point of the “lull” was approximately October 18, but as one will note looking at the summer wave, the most extreme level is a bit moot over the course of a month and likely will not be known with great certainty except in hindsight.”
The accompanying graph, just as the one for this week, drew a straight line almost vertically upward.
As we now know, that was completely wrong. Wastewater particle levels remained at near record low levels for another 6 weeks!
The reason why the latest weekly report showed the “Highest % increase in transmission in nearly 3 years” is because the base level going into Thanksgiving was so low (similar to the way an increase from 2 to 4 is a 100% increase). As I pointed out in my first comment above, arithmetically the increase in the first post-Thanksgiving week was substantially less than that one year ago – hardly what we would expect for a big outbreak.
TBone
A resumé
https://sse.tulane.edu/michael-hoerger-phd-mscr
I prefer, in such matters, to err on the side of caution.
Also too
https://pmc19.com/
TBone
Guns weren’t lawful back in day
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T4G0YPv8s3U
A bit of Dorothy, for perspective.
Princess
@New Deal democrat: Thanks. It didn’t make much sense to me, especially without a new variant. What would the driver be?
Nelle
@TBone: i agree. And I particularly appreciate the updates about DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). My sister and BIL live in Kinshasa, but after the first scare headline, it’s dropped out of the news.
TBone
How do we know there is not already a new variant is my question. Mutation happens quickly and doesn’t announce itself. A lot depends, as always, on location.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/3-things-to-know-about-xec-the-latest-covid-strain
TBone
@Nelle: holy cow, please keep us posted if you can. Sending best wishes with all my might.
Steve LaBonne
Always happy to start my day with cheerful news about the impending collapse of civilization. ;) Seriously, thanks for the work that goes into these posts.
New Deal democrat
@TBone: Here is JP Weiland reviewing Hoerger’s forecasts:
https://bsky.app/profile/jpweiland.bsky.social/post/3lcz2zjvz5c2n
Quote: “He has no idea what he’s talking about. LP.8.1 taking off before Xmas? How he’s convinced anyone he knows anything is frankly beyond me. Just take a look at his last almost-dozen models”
And thereupon Weiland shows a composite of Hoerger’s last dozen graphs. *Please* click on the link. It’s a devastating takedown.
TBone
@New Deal democrat: of course I will click on the link – I believe in getting as much reliable information as I can, and I trust your judgment. I also trust the judgment of AL in providing reliable information. So I read both, all, and weigh the evidence like the lady who holds the scales of justice, but without a blindfold. Having long Covid, I still prefer to err on the side of caution, since err I will, being human. Will read your link now.
TBone
@TBone: I spelled judgement the way it is spelled in a law office, out of habit, please excuse.
I have come down in the middle between Hoerger and Weiland. No matter how much I wish for a crystal ball, mine is made only of dreams and intuition.
I thank you, NDD, for the counter weight.
Jay
@Nelle:
The Guardian, has been covering it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/17/drc-health-ministry-says-mystery-disease-is-severe-form-of-malaria
rusty
AL, it’s been a bit since I have said thank you for these posts. They will only become more important after Jan 20, since it’s likely reporting will drop off and information will be withheld (or the right wing play book, information not collected. If we ignore it, then it’s not a problem!).
artem1s
Out of nowhere – bullshit. we’ve had these surges after every break in the school year and holiday when families and/or students travel and people get together in big groups. It’s not that hard to figure out. I had to find a locally owned pharmacy who would give me a booster early in the summer when they weren’t given them to anyone under 65. no way I was going to wait until fall when the summer wave was already in full swing. That wait is the reason I caught Covid almost exactly to the day two years in a row in October. I wasn’t going to wait this time. My doctor wouldn’t prescribe one even though I was only a few months from my birthday. The local county hospital refused to vaccinate me too even though they knew the summer wave was already spiking. The locally owned pharmacy didn’t even blink – they only had the old booster and they were clear about that but were happy to give it to me. Making people wait for a once a year shot is the reason we keep having these seasonal waves.
Jay
@artem1s:
Here, if you are of age, or “Vulnerable Groups”, or anybody else, you qualify for 2 shots a year,
So when T had to have her first surgery, we jumped the line.
Her, Cancer Patient, me, primary caregiver,
So early Jan, second shots
Anonymous At Work
Anyone good enough with Google-fu to know how much of the US dairy herd is represented by the raw milk testing program now?
Matt McIrvin
It does appear we had a significant spike up of cases in early December, as you’d generally expect, but there’s a lack of really up-to-date information about what’s been going on over the last couple of weeks. Since cases are undoubtedly wildly undercounted these days, the death and wastewater stats are probably more trustworthy, but I don’t have recent wastewater numbers. It does seem like this is a milder wave than last season so far.
My anecdotal impression is that there was a noticeable wave of COVID among people I know *earlier* in the season but not right now. But who knows.
TBone
@artem1s: fuck those gatekeepers with a rusty old hinge spike.
TBone
@Anonymous At Work: nope, I had that question immediately when I read that the “Domestic Milk Supply” was to be tested. I didn’t even know that we had such a thing as a designated supply. But I haven’t actually spent time checking for answers, being pulled in too many directions IRL as well as here in the ether. Le sigh…
daveNYC
Hells, H5N1 is gonna go full human-to-human transmissible with an R-naught of eleventy-billion on the 21st. Worst timeline.
tobie
My husband grew up in an extended family household where they had their own cow. They “pasteurized” themselves, i.e., boiled the milk. Hard to believe we may have to return to this outdated method.
Doug R
@TBone: Mike Hoerger is also on Bluesky. He’s shared some there, but it looks like he’s still entrenched in the hellsite formerly known as twitter.
https://bsky.app/profile/michael-hoerger.bsky.social
TBone
@Doug R: thank you!
Scout211
Late update in California: Governor Newsom declared a state of emergency today for H5N1bird flu.
. . .
dnfree
@tobie: Pasteurized milk that you buy in the grocery store is safe.
feather as a light
With all respect, I’d like to politely offer that Mike Hoerger’s dashboard is not the gold standard.
Mike has no training in epidemiology (he is a psychologist), his forecasts have been consistently wrong, his methods are secret (and appear not to be based on any actual epidemiological principles), and he has made some clear errors in data interpretation.
Regarding the accuracy of his forecasts, see here.
He uses the CDC Wastewater Viral Activity Level as a proxy for infections, but the Wastewater Viral Activity Level is a z-score over a rolling baseline, and isn’t proportional to infections (explained here).
The CDC itself recommends against using the data this way (“community infection based on wastewater measurements should not be used”).
The CDC itself has a perfectly good dashboard which shows the latest trends in very clear terms. Hoerger’s effort on X appears to be aimed at discrediting the CDC. However his approach is not scientific (again, his methods are secret, they’re consistently inaccurate, he misrepresents the CDC data). Hoerger is neither a reliable nor a trustworthy source of information, and platforming him furthers his goal of tearing down public health institutions like the CDC which will make us worse off in the next pandemic.
feather as a light
Here is TIME Magazine’s take on covid today:
COVID-19 Rates Are Strangely Low This Holiday Season
Mike Hoerger doesn’t seem to be in the mainstream of opinion on covid in the US.