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

Nov 6
📍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 Image
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Harris has enough remaining in PA Philly suburbs to still win. Image
3) folks. The NYT needle is not reliable.
Read 5 tweets
Oct 31
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.

Gift🎁🔗
theatlantic.com/health/archive…Image
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.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 29
⚠️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…Image
Image
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.

store.pharmalynk.com/products/advin…Image
Read 6 tweets
Oct 22
⚠️CDC warning of “fast moving” situation—McDonald’s E. coli outbreak—1 dead, 49 sickened from an E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers across multiple states. @McDonalds has now stopped selling Quarter Pounders from locations in several states. Still yet unknown exact ingredient contaminated. Results still pending. Some suspect it’s the onions, which is why it’s been pulled in some places already. But tracing the exact ingredient source requires tricky case-control studies that needs contact tracing. Nutritional epidemiology of these foods one of the most difficult since people scattered nationwide and lots of ingredients to investigate. Need to be vigilant. Updates coming.
cdc.gov/ecoli/outbreak…

Gift 🎁 link
nytimes.com/2024/10/22/hea…Image
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2) Wowzers - 10 people hospitalized!

The same strain of bacteria has sickened dozens of people in 10 states, although the C.D.C. said most people were from Colorado and Nebraska. One Colorado resident has died. Ten people were hospitalized, including a child who the health agency said has a complicating illness.
3) All of those interviewed said they had eaten at McDonald’s recently, and most said they had consumed Quarter Pounders. The fast-food chain told investigators it mainly uses fresh onion slivers on that item.
Food and health investigators are also trying to determine whether any contaminated beef has been sold to other retailers or grocery stores.
Read 9 tweets
Oct 18
Reminder—50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, international study says
cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-…
We need to end the GOP scam of trickle down economics.
When it comes to the economy, Donald Trump plans to give another massive tax cut to billionaires and big corporations—and further drive up the deficit. All at the expense of the working class.

Read 8 tweets
Oct 11
New study, involving nearly 250,000 adults, found that those with any type of COVID-19 infection in 2020 had📍2x the risk of suffering a major cardiac event in the 3 years after a diagnosis. If COVID hospitalized—then📍4x future cardiac risk. @cbarbermd
fortune.com/2024/10/11/cov…
2) In the nearly three years following the acute infection in 2020, the study’s authors found double the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death compared with the uninfected group. Somewhat surprisingly, the elevated risks did not abate over the three years of study, suggesting a problematic staying effect.
3) “The two-fold increased risk observed in year one following infection was also seen in year two, and even year three,” says study author Stanley Hazen, chair of the Department of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences at the Cleveland Clinic. “This was seen in all subjects independent of age, sex, or risk factors for cardiac disease.” (The ages of those in the study ranged from 50 to 86, with an average age of 67.)
Read 5 tweets

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