Reality check: #SARSCoV2 will never be endemic. It is an epidemic disease, and always will be. This means it will find unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people and spread rapidly in those groups. It will display the typical waxing and waning pattern of epidemic diseases 1/5.
Cases rise rapidly over days or weeks. No truly endemic disease does this. This is the reason governments prepare for pandemics - the propensity for epidemics to grow rapidly can stress the health system in a very short time. Here is the pattern, classic epidemic. 2/5
Every epidemic infection follows this pattern unless eliminated by vaccination or mitigated by non-pharmaceutical measures. Natural infection NEVER eliminated any infection. Not smallpox, which displayed the same pattern over 100s of years. 3/5
Not measles, still epidemic in many countries. See Australia before and after a major measles control campaign. Elimination is a technical term, means prevention of sustained community transmission. Countries that met WHO elimination criteria still see outbreaks of measles. 4/5
So don't be surprised as we see this pattern continue for SARS Cov2. Vaccines, masks and other public health measures are needed. There is hope for better vaccines, schedules and spacing of doses but we must be agile and pivot with the evidence.
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To add to @larrybrilliant's caution against dismissing the possibility of respiratory transmission of MPXV, #mpox is caused by an orthopoxvirus, closely related to #variola, the cause of #smallpox. Both are respiratory viruses. Smallpox was highly airborne 🧵mdpi.com/1999-4915/12/1…
In fact, variola could transmit across great distances through the air. Even Clade IIb MPXV has been detected in ambient air in the clinic setting link.springer.com/article/10.100…
The large epidemic in #DRC comprises mostly children, with 60-70% of cases in kids. This is non-sexual transmission, likely close contact and respiratory. .ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events…
Information warfare has been part of medicine and science forever. The heliocentric theory of the universe; smoking being harmful to health; h. pylori and stomach ulcers; the Sverdlovsk anthrax leak; climate change; vioxx, the list goes on. unsw.press/books/dark-win…
A lab leak of weaponised anthrax from a biolab in #Sverdlovsk was denied by the Soviets, who blamed animals in the markets. US experts agreed and published high impact papers "proving" it was natural. 12 years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin confessed it was a lab leak. Truth came via a confession, not science.
In the case of the Rajneesh bioterrorism attack in the US, even a confession was not believed. CDC and local public health authorities said it was natural. Shouted down Jim Weaver, a politician who suspected the truth. It was the accidental discovery of a biowarfare lab a year later by the FBI, not science, that uncovered the truth.
Our new paper on #influenza #vaccine for 50-64 year olds to prevent sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). We have long known that flu can trigger heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events. ~20% of 1st presentations of heart attack is SCA. 🧵sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Survival from heart attack has dramatically increased since I was a med student in the 1980s, due to advances in rapid revascularisation of coronary arteries. Survival from SCA, not as much, as many occur in the community.
Ambulance time usually longer than 6 minutes, the time to brain death. We already know that flu vaccine prevents cardiac death from the IAMI trial led by @FrobertOle ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.11…
This paper is a tour de force in understanding recent changes in highly pathogenic #AvianInfluenza and why the risk of a human pandemic is higher than ever- here is my simple explainer 1/7: 🧵 nature.com/articles/s4158…
phylogeographical analysis confirms there have seen major ecological changes in HPAI since 2016, and esp since 2021. Since HPAI began infecting domestic birds in 1996, we have seen a pattern of epidemic waves that subside between waves, and with mass culling of birds. 2/7
Now we see increasing and unprecedented spread of H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b globally, from what used to be the historic epicentre of HPAI, Asia, to Europe, North America and Africa. Instead of epidemics that subside, there has been a sustained increase in H5N1, 3/7
The government’s take on long Covid - the problem is, the medical community needs to go back a few steps and accept that 1. COVID is not a cold, but an illness that can result in serious chronic illness due to multi-organ effects. 🧵thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/health/20… via @SatPaper
The term was coined by patients, but fatigue may be due to heart failure, respiratory damage, immunological effects or a range of other genuine pathologies. The virus may persist in the body ilong after the infection. This may cause immunopathology nature.com/articles/s4158…
The effect on multiple organ systems may be quite substantial and the risk of many serious effects including diabetes, sudden death, PE, heart attacks etc remains elevated for at least 12m as shown by @zalalynature.com/articles/s4146…
Some key quotes from this brilliant piece: "Hegemony refers 2 the dominance maintained by those in power to ensure that their preferred worldview is seen as natural, inevitable and beneficial to all, largely by manufacturing the consent of the people." 1/6 croakey.org/rethinking-cov…
COVID Hegemony (is) normalisation of widespread infection achieved by .. coercive persuasion, to gain our consent and even approval. Divorced from realities of widespread transmission, the media, politicians & experts push 4 “return to normal”, “live with COVID”. 2/6
"Our governments and mainstream media have persuaded Australians to accept increasing morbidity, mortality, & erosion of our public health systems using four key strategies. First, by promoting myths which downplay its severity – “it’s mild”, “the pandemic is over” 3/6