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

May 10
⚡️INBOUND SOLAR STORMS—5x mega coronal mass ejections - CMEs - that can knock out power are going to be slamming at Earth 🌍 between Friday and Sunday this weekend. Earth has only been hit with 3 previous severe CMEs in last 4 years. But we are gonna get 5x G4 CMEs in 3 days!😳 Image
2) Let this sink — this is the first GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH since 2005!

Folks - this is serious - it can knock out not only electricity but it can theoretically knock out airplanes ✈️ too! Image
3) Folks- it’s possible. Not only can it cause higher radiation and knock out communications, but a strong CME can knock out airliner avionics. “according to reports by aviation regulators, the issue is not whether it will happen, but when” 😳 thedailybeast.com/how-a-solar-st…


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Read 11 tweets
May 10
⚠️New sudden outbreak of MERS coronavirus with HUMAN TO HUMAN transmission—WHO has put out an outbreak bulletin regarding 3 cases in Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 who contracted MERS (with zero contact with camels). All 3 were hospitalized and intubated. Index case has died in just 11 days from the onset of cough and a runny nose. ➡️Here where it gets interesting—the other 2 cases, found via vigorous contact tracing—both likely contracted it from the index case in the hospital—one shared a hospital room with the index case, while the other merely visited the same hospital’s ER—but he was NOT in the same hospital ward as the index case! Given second case was in a completely separate ward of the hospital, it makes me think it was likely #airborne transmission.

Shouldn’t we all masking in hospitals? @CDCgov’s idiotic HICPAC committee that sets hospital safety standards meantime wants to water them down. Someone should share this with the HICPAC folks, thanks. And demand @CDCDirector to get serious about public health again.

who.int/emergencies/di…Image
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2) previously, WHO’s Feb bulletin of Aug 2023-Feb 2024 only reported 4 cases, 2 had camel🐪 contact. None of the previous 4 had any linkages (ie no human to human transmission evidence). Thus, this new hospital-derived outbreak is concerning.
who.int/emergencies/di…
3) it seems the Index case’s only overlap with Case #3 was on April 4th— the day they both went to the same hospital’s ER. But otherwise they were in different wards. And by the time the 3rd case went to the ICU on April 15th, the index case was already dead (died on April 11th). So it wasn’t ICU exposure. It was the ER—➡️why which why EVERYONE NEEDS TO WEAR MASKS IN THE ER DAMNIT! 🔥Image
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Read 4 tweets
May 8
“Think of the impact [of #LongCovid] on inflation and economy. On the talented labor pool unable to work. LC is a terrible—in the U.S. so far—there’s been 16 million people, 4 mil out of a job—mostly young people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Someone that used to jog 5 km can barely walk now because of permanent lung damage.“

(Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel)
2) Not just in the U.S… gee what happened to workers starting late 2020… the staggering loss of economic activity since the start of the pandemic is one of the biggest buried topics.
3) “One EU estimate suggests that long Covid may have cut labour supply in the bloc by up to 0.5 per cent in 2022, the equivalent of more than 1mn full-time workers. Studies in the US and UK have reached broadly similar conclusions — suggesting the condition has driven the recent increase in workplace absence in many countries”

ft.com/content/bb09a0…Image
Read 5 tweets
May 6
Very worried—“The virus may soon develop the ability to transmit from one human to another… This is of great concern. Earlier birds… then it started affecting mammals and now the virus has evolved and developed the ability to infect humans…” @WHO Farrar
2) “We have to make sure that the H5N1 does not come across humans as it can easily develop the ability to transmit between humans.”
3) Last year, scientists warned of a key mutation that would help supercharge human transmission down the road — the critical “E627K” mutation in the virus’s RNA polymerase PB2 gene. ➡️Well, guess what effing appeared in a CDC report for the first time last month in an infected Texas man? ⚠️That very goddamn E627K mutation! This is mammalian adaptation. This is why WHO is warning we are maybe approaching the brink of human adaptation.

(Warning article about E627K from 2023).


(CDC report from April 2024).
science.org/content/articl…
cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/s…Image
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Read 7 tweets
May 5
💔HEARTBREAKING—These twins need a $4.2 million one-time drug to save their lives (Spinal muscular atrophy). Their mother’s health insurance (and her employer) @Mosaic_LifeCare conveniently told the family the drug was cut from their coverage precisely one day after they were born. Total coincidence, my ass.

It’s also a race against the clock to get the treatment Zolgensma for the twins before it’s too late. If Zolgensma is given soon after birth, children may develop no significant disabilities. Children who receive the drug when they are a little older may avoid a feeding or breathing tube, and capable of some movement, rather than a life spent immobile, or death (<2 years usually), if not treated.

Zolgensma is sold by @Novartis. The drug sells for $1 million in Brazil, but $2.1 million in the U.S. Also in Brazil, if the child dies of SMA disease within 4 years, part of the $1 million payment is waived. But not in America. Many patients have had to sue health insurance to get the treatment covered—often at the expense of further disability of the untreated child.

All this is further enrage, when in fact, federally funded NIH research contributed to the development of Zolgensma. ➡️READ: Taxpayer dollars helped create the drug. Now the public is being shafted.



There is a GoFundme but this shouldn’t be the long term solution for other families. @Mosaic_LifeCare & @Novartis both need to be help accountable.


wbtv.com/2024/04/30/new…
gofundme.com/f/eli-easton-r…
durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press…Image
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2) how can drug makers dare charge so much? Because they can - it is the only treatment and the only cure. I always remind people that healthcare is a NEED (like air and water) and not a “want” (like a fancy widget) If there is a monopoly, they can extort you if it’s a NEED.
3) Free market people will try to trick you into thinking it’s just the “supply and demand” / “free market” at work. But that’s only works for things in which there is no monopoly, and for things like iPhones and fancy gadgets “wants” that you can simply pass up if too costly. But if it’s a NEED—like lifesaving treatment—(eg you will pay anything to save your child / family member’s life)—then the supply & demand curve COMPLETELY BREAKS DOWN and is invalid. Big pharma and PBMs and your hospitals & health insurance premiums all exploit that in different ways. Don’t fall for “free market” bullshit that doesn’t apply to critical lifesaving healthcare.
Read 5 tweets
May 2
Incredibly frustrating that the @USDA again failed to include basic information about H5N1 genetic sequences from cows. All data had dates and locations scrubbed out—only saying “USA” & “2024”, which is useless for scientists to analyze for mutation rates.
statnews.com/2024/05/02/bir…
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2) The fact that basic information — called metadata — isn’t being shared about the samples “hinders our efforts a lot,” said Gytis Dudas, a senior researcher in genomic epidemiology and metagenomics. Dudas is working with a group of U.S. and international researchers to try to make sense of what the genetic sequences say about the H5N1 outbreak in cows.
3) A number of scientists have openly questioned whether the USDA is deliberately withholding these data, or even removing more specific information. 🔥
Read 5 tweets

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