MISCALCULATION BY GOP—As an epidemiologist, I think Republicans might be killing off their voter base faster than they think. The #COVID19 death rate since June 30 in counties where Trump got >90% of the vote are 9.5x higher than where he got <10%—pretty strong. HT @charles_gaba
2) To be clear, as an epidemiologist, I present this because I am worried for all public health. There are plenty of people of both political parties dying. But clearly there is a strong geographic political skew. People need to vaccinate and mask, or else it will hurt us all.
3) This mass death trend in areas voting for authoritarians like Trump is also true in parts of Brazil 🇧🇷 that voted more of Bolsonaro. Not a coincidence conservatives in both US and Brazil are more often anti mask and anti vax.
6) While kids die at a rate of over 1 in 10,000 infected cases… that is quite high! Plus, it is 6-8 fold higher CFR recently during the #DeltaVariant wave than last 18 months before Delta! (Notice RED vs BLUE).
Thus, please no schadenfreude on conservative areas dying more.
7) this is the disaster looming. From not just deaths and hospitalizations, but also #LongCovidKids
8) let’s reframe kids deaths this way—pediatric cancers are the leading cause of death in the US past infancy. #COVID19 deaths in kids is now on par with annual kids cancer death rates! Let that sink in. We don’t want kids sick or them to “learn to live with the virus”.
9) Some asked about top 10% vs bottom 10% by Trump vote… The #COVID19 death rate in the top 10% decile of the country voting Trump has been 5.3x higher than in the least-Trump voting 10%. — still huge. Every bar is ~10% of the US population. Huge death gap.
10) If seat belt mandate laws were introduced today, we might see the same resistance (just as we saw decades ago), and possibly huge differences in automobile deaths too.
12) the gap in #COVID19 deaths between Trump districts and Biden districts is growing over time as vaccines are rolled out.
13) there are also certain right wing pundits who are worried about the unvaccinated GOP trend… they are expressing some concern too about their voting base. This concern is an epidemiological reality.
14) “Holy shit” is the right response. This is gonna hit red district hard once the fog clears of just how many people have died in rural areas. Not good.
⚠️BREAKING—ICU Hospitalized human bird flu case in Canada now officially confirmed as H5N1. Worse, it is the same 2.3.4.4b virus clade (variant group) as the one found in BC🇨🇦 poultry and in Washington state🇺🇸! The hospitalized teenager (with no pre existing conditions) had no animal contact, does not live on farm, had “deterioration quite rapid” and now critical in ICU with ARDS. Canada officials says infectious period is 2 days **prior to symptoms** (ie asymptomatic transmission) and infectious up to 10 days.
2) Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg confirmed that the individual has avian influenza H5N1 canada.ca/en/public-heal…
3) details…
⚠️BAD UPDATE—BIRD FLU HOSPITALIZATION IN CANADIAN TEEN
Summary 🧵 of the live press conference with Canada’s British Columbia health officer.
📌The teen is in intensive care.
📌Condition is ARDS
📌Teen was healthy prior; no underlying conditions
My god—Google Search for “what is a tariff” sudden spikes the DAY AFTER ELECTION DAY. 🤦🏻♂️
2) many folks simply don’t understand what a tariff is — unless you explain it several times to them with analogies. Even then, it’s hard for many to grasp. Eg 👇
📍HARRIS IS STILL AHEAD IN PA—in terms of votes yet to be counted. She’s still +2 of what is needed to win PA, given the outstanding votes still remaining in PA cities, according to @CBSNews @NorahODonnell
Plastic cookware should not be used. Period. Especially BLACK PLASTIC cookware, that often mixes in toxic recycled electronic waste materials. DISPOSE OF ALL PLASTIC COOKWARE, especially if black colored plastic ones. Pass it on to your family.
2) Because optical sensors in recycling facilities can’t detect them, black-colored plastics are largely rejected from domestic-waste streams, resulting in a shortage of black base material for recycled plastic. So the demand for black plastic appears to be met “in no insignificant part” via recycled e-waste, according to Turner’s research. TV and computer casings, like the majority of the world’s plastic waste, tend to be recycled in informal waste economies with few regulations and end up remolded into consumer products, including ones, such as spatulas and slotted spoons, that come into contact with food.
3) You simply do not want flame retardants anywhere near your stir-fry. Flame retardants are typically not bound to the polymers to which they are added, making them a particular flight risk: They dislodge easily and make their way into the surrounding environment. And, indeed, another paper from 2018 found that flame retardants in black kitchen utensils readily migrate into hot cooking oil. The health concerns associated with those chemicals are well established: Some flame retardants are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s hormonal system, and scientific literature suggests that they may be associated with a range of ailments, including thyroid disease, diabetes, and cancer. People with the highest blood levels of PBDEs, a class of flame retardants found in black plastic, had about a 300 percent increase in their risk of dying from cancer compared with people who had the lowest levels, according to a study released this year. In a separate study, published in a peer-reviewed journal this month, researchers from the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future and from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam found that, out of all of the consumer products they tested, kitchen utensils had some of the highest levels of flame retardants.
⚠️MASK MANDATE RETURNING TO ALL NIH PATIENT CLINICS—Effective November 4, 2024, masking will be required in all patient care & waiting rooms. Furthermore, testing for COVID, flu A, flu B, and RSV will be required for all inpatients & rooming-in visitors. cc.nih.gov/patient-servic…
2) This means wearing a mask will be REQUIRED in all patient care areas, including waiting rooms. ➡️This change is due to an anticipated increase in COVID-19 and other respiratory virus activity in the community. 😷
3) I think people should stock up on COVID tests again. The Cheapest COVID test on the U.S. market is now as low as $1.50 with special promo code “COV20”… expiring Jan or March 2025.