⚠️90%-120% FASTER—New model on the new #BA2 subvariant shows a ⬆️90% competitive growth advantage over vanilla BA1 #Omicron in Denmark🇩🇰. Worse, modeling in England🏴 shows ⬆️~120% faster BA2 advantage over BA1. 🧵
HT @JPWeiland (who correctly said Omicron was 5-6x Delta before)
2) #BA2 is now over 50% in Denmark! It only took 1 month to overtake the already super contagious original BA1 #Omicron.
3) in the Netherlands 🇳🇱, #BA2 is also surging and displacing the old BA1 #Omicron.
4) In Germany 🇩🇪 too— #BA2 is surging exponentially as well.
5) interestingly, BA2 once popped up months ago briefly in Denmark but then was displaced by Delta last summer. Somehow it’s back - perhaps it is more evasive but slower— but now evasive variant is more competitive? Unclear.
6) I’ve been growing concerned about #BA2 for a while. Denmark ministry of health (SSI) also put out a warning last week it could be more transmissible.
7) the #BA2 is also harder to find and decipher from other #Omicron because the shortcut SGTF signal of the BA2 isn’t there, while it is for Omicron BA1.
9) Virus researcher & chief physician of Danish public health authority @SSI_dk says you can get infected with #BA2 subvariant of #Omicron after being infected with Omicron BA.1. ➡️ This is why we shouldn’t risk COVID or chase mass infection. nyheder.tv2.dk/2022-01-21-ny-…
10) 1.5x faster — Denmark’s CDC says BA2 subvariant of #Omicron is about ~1.5 times more contagious than BA1 (original Omicron). This makes it much higher than prior estimates and could “extend” the Omicron wave into February, says 🇩🇰 officials. ssi.dk/-/media/arkiv/…
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⚠️NO RARE BEEF!—@USDA suddenly admits (after Q&A pestering) that 120F cooked beef🥩patties experimentally inoculated with H5N1 virus still had surviving virus.
➡️“Cooking to… 120° F did show that there was virus still in the cooked hamburger patty, although at reduced levels."
2) Initially the @USDA only stated that no virus survived cooking to 160 F and 145 F. But they didn’t volunteer the 120 F rare cooking temperature results! Only after more questioning did they reveal 120 F virus survival. But so many folks eat rare meat! 🥩 DISCLOSURE CRITICAL!
UPDATE—Solar Storm hits the highest level of G5, the first in over 2 decade, which could knock out power to grids and disrupt GPS. A coronal mass ejection of G5 was also what the infamous “Carrington Event” was in 1859. But it depends on magnetic 🧲 polarity of each CME wave. NOAA warned earlier today that CME storms tend to be even stronger on the latter half of a storm wave. Let’s hope the next two days won’t be as extreme as the Carrington Event. #solarstorm
3) We are potentially in for a wild weekend. We haven’t been hit with this many CMEs in a long ass time. Nor has NOAA alerted with a GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH in over 20 years.
⚡️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!😳
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!
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…
Things are not going well with whooping cough (pertussis). Childhood vaccinations plummeting in the UK 🇬🇧, and kids also have weakened immune systems post-COVID. And it’s not even autumn 🍂.
HT @1goodtern
2) Also… let’s not forget the “m” word. Because masks do work if society takes it seriously.
3) unless we systematically solve the. chronic lack of public health infrastructure, new outbreaks will continue. We shouldn’t just learn to live with it.
⚠️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.
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! 🔥