⚠️SUB-VARIANT SURGING—Omicron 2.0 is rising—the #BA2 sublineage of #Omicron has *tripled* in one week, dislodging the old Omicron from total dominance—BA2 now at 3.6% and climbing fast. Expect to be dominant by March. Omicron reinfections are possible. 🧵 covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…
2) Omicron subvariant #BA2 now seems to be surging nationwide (pink), especially in the coastal regions of the Us the fastest. This means it’s not a fluke increase. US’s #BA2 trend will follow Europe’s rise for sure.
3) I’ve been worried about #BA2 for a while. In 3rd week of January, it was rising in Denmark— it’s now near total dominant in Denmark.
4) Multiple studies show the #BA2 subvariant is much faster transmission than old Omicron. Some say 30% some say ~90-120%, and some say 150% (1.5 time more).
5) Who said #BA2 is 1.5 times more contagious? Denmark’s CDC @SSI_dk said so—and they warned it was extending Denmark’s Omicron wave much longer. Same thing is going to happen in the US which is much much less vaccinated.
6) other tricky thing is that #Omicron#Ba2’s PCR looks like almost any other non-BA1 Omicron because the SGTF shortcut PCR won’t work on BA2. Thus it’s hard to tell apart BA2 from Delta variant without genome 🧬 sequencing.
7) Virus researcher & chief physician of 🇩🇰’s CDC @SSI_dk says you can get **reinfected with #BA2 sub-variant** 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-…
8) It’s also surging in UK 🇬🇧 as well. #Ba2 d doubled in one week. It’s also surging in Netherlands and in Germany and elsewhere. It’s everywhere now- and quickly displacing the old Omicron 1.0.
9) How different is #Omicron BA2 from BA1? #BA2 has **17 additional mutations** that BA1 doesn’t have! There is also a BA3 but that one doesn’t have much difference beyond BA1 and BA2.
10) Notably, “Each of BA1/2/3 variants is as different from one another as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta are from one another”! says @WmHaseltine
11) BA2 #Omicron is not a child-lineage of BA1 #Omicron. They are more like “cousins” that branched off earlier - hence they are much more different than parent-child versions of each other. This is also why reinfections could be higher.
12) If you still have any doubt in your mind about #BA2 being a 2.0 Omicron that will displace the old Omicron and cause a new surge— just look at how #BA2 (aka ‘Omicron 21L’ in the charts) is surging like mad across multiple countries (& this is just late Jan data!). Get ready.
13) 🇬🇧 data also shows a higher secondary attack rate in households for #BA2 versus the old BA1 Omicron. And the growth rate is indeed more than doubling per week. Exponential rise will beget exponential trouble - earlier Omicron immunity clearly isn’t slowing it much—not good.
15) Some relatively good news on #BA2 is that it seems to responds similarly to vaccines as BA1– but it responds well only to 3 vaccine shots if you get a booster. Without booster, the symptomatic efficacy is very poor —13% and that’s not even significantly different from 0.
17) the reinfection risk of #Omicron is real. We need to take it seriously folks. Don’t feel like you’re invulnerable. That leads to blase attitude and risky behaviors.
18) Further—“results indicate that Omicron infection enhances preexisting immunity elicited by vaccines, ➡️but on its own **may NOT induce broad, cross-neutralizing humoral immunity in unvaccinated** individuals.” ⚠️
19) It now seems the @WHO is getting very concerned about #BA2 variant outcompeting and displacing old #Omicron. @mvankerkhove is now warning about likely looming surge. We must be vigilant.
⚠️BREAKING—ICU Hospitalized human bird flu case in Canada now officially confirmed as H5N1. Worse, it is the same 2.3.4.4b virus clade (variant group) as the one found in BC🇨🇦 poultry and in Washington state🇺🇸! The hospitalized teenager (with no pre existing conditions) had no animal contact, does not live on farm, had “deterioration quite rapid” and now critical in ICU with ARDS. Canada officials says infectious period is 2 days **prior to symptoms** (ie asymptomatic transmission) and infectious up to 10 days.
2) Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg confirmed that the individual has avian influenza H5N1 canada.ca/en/public-heal…
3) details…
⚠️BAD UPDATE—BIRD FLU HOSPITALIZATION IN CANADIAN TEEN
Summary 🧵 of the live press conference with Canada’s British Columbia health officer.
📌The teen is in intensive care.
📌Condition is ARDS
📌Teen was healthy prior; no underlying conditions
My god—Google Search for “what is a tariff” sudden spikes the DAY AFTER ELECTION DAY. 🤦🏻♂️
2) many folks simply don’t understand what a tariff is — unless you explain it several times to them with analogies. Even then, it’s hard for many to grasp. Eg 👇
📍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
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.
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.
⚠️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…
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.