Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Nov 25, 2021 18 tweets 10 min read Read on X
⚠️BREAKING—HOTEL CROSS TRANSMISSION OF #B11529—Traveler from South Africa🇿🇦 flew to Hong Kong🇭🇰 with new variant—but wasn’t discovered until 4th day of quarantine on 2nd PCR. Another guest across hallway cross-infected—only positive on 8th day on 4th PCR! Both Pfizer vaccinated🧵 Image
2) the viral load of these two with #B11529 in Hong Kong hotels were VERY high. PCR Ct values of 18 and 19!!! That’s insanely high considering they were negative on recent PCR tests. Damn, looks like vaccine evasion could be real with this variant.
3) and hell yes it’s very airborne. The hotel guests were in different room across the hallway from each other. Environmental samples found the virus in 25 of 87 swab across both rooms.
4) I think border and travel restrictions make sense. Especially since Hong Kong 🇭🇰 only caught the case because of a mandatory hotel quarantine. Which countries in the west still have that??? Almost none.
5) This #B11529 variant is bad bad bad. Scientists worldwide are worried. It has a very bad spike mutation profile and it is spreading fast across South Africa 🇿🇦— see thread 🧵 below 👇
6) 32 mutations in one spike protein is helluva a lot. Its “extremely high”. And it has real concerns because of the bad nature of these mutations too.
7) South Africa 🇿🇦 health leaders are extremely worried about #B11529. We expect the WHO will issue a new Greek name to it soon - likely the #NuVariant.
8) the #B11529 Nu variant seems to have a lot of antibody escape properties— escape in multiple epitope classes of the antibody. This is a really bad thing.
9) the spread across South Africa is quite sudden and widespread… and change from 1% positivity to suddenly 30% in a week!
10) cases still low but this surge in #B11529 is no joke. Take it seriously. Image
11) Let’s finally look at the relative growth plotted by @jburnmurdoch - cases of #B11529 surging much faster than Delta. Caveat is that cases are low. But this would be very worrisome if confirmed in the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned. Stay safe. 🙏 Image
12) 500% more infectious for #B11529 is jaw dropping if it is true. Let’s hope the early data is wrong. We actually REALLY REALLY want this early data to be wrong … because if it’s not wrong… it’s cataclysmic. See new 🧵 below.
13) Experts estimate that South Africa 🇿🇦 is already 72% infected. Natural infection clearly isn’t enough to stop #B11529 currently.
14) Israel’s testing has now found 3 cases of #B11529 - the second country outside of Africa to have identified it. This is bad. Israel 🇮🇱 and HK are very strict. I just worry for the non strict quarantine and entry testing countries now.
15) If you have found my threads 🧵 helpful, the please consider subscribing for special updates in near future:

➡️ drericding.substack.com
16) Latest models suggest #B11529 could be as much as 500% more infectious. That is indescribably bad. See thread 🧵
17) The new name for the #B11529 variant is OMICRON—which the @WHO warns has higher risk of reinfection! #Omicron
18) WHO mentioned reinfection risk (ie natural infection not a good idea)— it’s based on lots of research in bad mutations among the 32 mutations that #B11529 #OmicronVariant has in its spike protein.

Figure by @jbloom_lab.
jbloomlab.github.io/SARS2_RBD_Ab_e… Image

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More from @DrEricDing

Sep 6
⚠️ZERO ANIMAL CONTACT HOSPITALIZATION for H5 Bird Flu—the CDC has now confirmed the first ever U.S. human case “without a known occupational exposure to sick or infected animals”—which make this Missouri case very worrisome. Maybe community transmission.
cdc.gov/media/releases…
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2) H5 outbreaks in cattle have not been reported in Missouri, but outbreaks of H5 have been reported in commercial and backyard poultry flocks in 2024.

—>>so it doesn’t seem to have come from cows in the state. So maybe from birds?
3) So if rarely test, how did we even find it?

“While other novel flu cases have been detected through the country's national flu surveillance system, this is the first time that system has detected a case of H5. Targeted H5-outbreak specific surveillance has been conducted as part of ongoing animal outbreaks and has identified all the other cases. In this case, the specimen from the patient originally tested positive for flu A, but negative for seasonal flu A virus subtypes. That finding triggers additional testing.”
Read 4 tweets
Aug 30
BREAKING—the FDA has just authorized the new Novavax vaccine, tailored to JN1 related variants. Anyone age 12 and over are eligible. You may receive it 2 months after a prior version of COVID-19 shot (and prior infection, though FDA memo didn’t specify).
fda.gov/news-events/pr…
Image
2) Also, the FDA has further authorized a 2nd shot of the new 2024-2025 formulated Novavax shot for people who are immunocompromised, at the doctor’s discretion. (Bullet point #4 below) Image
3) NAMING—Do not just refer to the shot as “2024” Keep the nomenclature of the new COVID shot straight - the newest one adapted for JN1-related variants is called the “2024-2025 formula”, while the old one was called the “2023-2024 formula”. The old one is no longer authorized. Image
Read 6 tweets
Aug 29
Scientists have discovered more than 1,700 ancient viruses deep inside a Tibetan glacier. Most of them are completely new to science. These ancient viruses are now being thawed out from glaciers and Siberian tundras.
e360.yale.edu/digest/ancient…
2) This is no joke.

Arctic zombie viruses in Siberia could spark terrifying new pandemic, scientists warn

Threat of outbreak from microbes trapped in permafrost for millennia raised by increased Siberian activity

theguardian.com/society/2024/j…
3) The reason permafrost is a good storage medium isn’t just because it’s cold; it’s an oxygen-free environment that light doesn’t penetrate. But current Arctic temperatures are warming up to 4x faster than rest of 🌏, weakening the top layer of permafrost
cnn.com/2023/03/08/wor…
Read 5 tweets
Aug 14
JUST IN— W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency Over New Mpox Outbreak. The threat this time is deadlier. Since the beginning of this year, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone has reported more than 14,000 mpox cases and 524 deaths. Those most at risk include women and children under 15. The outbreak has spread through 13 countries in Africa, including a few that had never reported mpox cases before.

(Gift 🎁 link)
nytimes.com/2024/08/14/hea…Image
2) public health emergency of international concern— Also known as PHEIC, this is a status given by WHO to “extraordinary events” that pose a public health risk to other countries through the international spread of disease.

cnn.com/2024/08/14/hea…
3) The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak a public health emergency of continental security the day before — the first such declaration by the agency since its inception in 2017.
Read 15 tweets
Jul 19
Concerning—CDC now says that 42 states are seeing rising rates of #COVID19 again—with levels high or very high in 35 states (and rising). COVID wastewater levels have already surpassed last summer’s peak and climbing fast. #CovidIsNotOver
cdc.gov/forecast-outbr…


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2) Substantial 28% increase in one week. Question is how high it will go. It’s a new variant (mostly KP2 and KP3 and JN1), which are evasive against past infection and past vaccines.
3) COVID is surging in many countries worldwide. Eg in Italy where deaths are also climbing once again. New variants, new surges.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 3
A girl using cover name JANE DOE testified under oath at Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial that she was introduced to Trump by Jeffrey Epstein when she was 14 years old. Pass it on.
Trump’s name appears 7 times in Epstein’s latest files. They regularly called each other according to phone logs. Trump says Epstein is a “terrific guy”. And he traveled on flights, according to logs, to Epstein’s island multiple times.
3) THIS STUFF IS NEW—not old Epstein-Trump info. New information regarding Epstein's child trafficking activities was released 7/2/24. Documents from 2016 are now out of date and do not show the depth of Trump's dealings with Epstein... READ MORE:

nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Read 4 tweets

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