⚠️UPDATE—#BA2 is now 11.6% in US, up from 8.3% last week. It’s definitely increasing, as warned. #COVID19 still dropping, but BA2 is growing in underbelly—it’s a matter of when (not ‘if’) case drop plateaus, then reverses. Likely late April, early May.🧵 covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…
2) Where is #BA2 highest? In New England (HHS region 1), where BA2 is already 24% of all cases. It’s definitely outcompeting the old original #Omicron which is fading away.
3) #BA2 is not mild among unvaccinated and under-vaccinated populations. In Hong Kong 🇭🇰 where BA2 is very dominant, hospitals and morgues are overflowing. Hong Kong has never had a surge of this kind before - not until BA2 showed up.
4) But some say HK hasn’t been hit hard by old Omicron, unlike US or UK. So what’s happening in England 🏴 then with its BA2 rise? Let’s check in— hospitalizations are rising in all age groups. Especially in kids 6-17, surging 26% in hospital admissions in one week. 👇
5) Some are asking how bad is #BA2 in England 🏴 anyway— their last variant update was FEB 25th, but it shows roughly ~1/4th BA2– it’s not even that high of a percentage. Maybe it’s closer to half now but not dominant—yet hospitalizations up already. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
6) How fast is the relative rise of #BA2 versus the emergence of other variants? Early on, it matched the old #Omicron for a while… slower now but still faster than older variants. This is not a good sign.
7) HOW IT STARTED… HOW ITS GOING… by region in the US, compare one month ago on Feb 5th… versus now March 5th data see anything wrong with the pink pie charts? #BA2 is growing. I’ve seen this rodeo 4 times before. New variants displace old ones for a reason—it’s not good sign.
8) Back to Hong Kong— just how bad is #COVID19 deaths in 🇭🇰 right now? It is almost “Holy Mary” bad. It’s higher than any record high that US or Europe has ever seen. When hospitals 🏥 & morgues overloaded, it’s not merely “with COVID”—it’s directly COVID. HK is undervaccinated.
9) If we just look at the recent (old) Omicron wave, HK’s surge makes the recent really bad Omicron wave look tepid (it’s not —it’s the second worst wave the US had). The new HK BA2 is that severe. Maybe the Us might fare better initially—but I worry about waning immunity by May.
10) Meanwhile, The good news is that #Omicron responds to Boosters well — 90-95% protection against hospitalization. However, 2 shots “basic” vax isn’t enough anymore versus Omicron—protection now only 70-79% depending on agent group. ➡️Note—70% is 3x worse than 90% if inverted.
11) the secondary ATTACK RATES (infection in secondary household members and in workplaces) is also much higher with #Ba2 than other variants. 14.3% is quite high and about ~25% ⬆️ higher than BA1’s 11.4%. Basically it’ll cross infect more people. This is why it’s a bad sign.
12) Furthermore, in non-household settings, the secondary ATTACK RATE (cross infection to others) is 6.1% for #BA2. but that is 32.6% ⬆️ higher than BA1 (old Omicron). This again is not good.
13) REMINDER that #covidisairborne. Please try to mask - but if you don’t, please buy a HEPA filter or build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box 📦 filter. See thread 🧵 below 👇
15) Again, don’t be misled by falling cases. While total cases may be dropping (of the older variants), there can be an “under growth” in the underbelly, that when it becomes dominant, will crisscross and then cause a new surge. We have seen this before countless times.
16) Too many people are selfish and lacking in compassion during the pandemic. This is one of the fundamental reasons that #CovidIsNotOver. I explore many of the fallacies below 👇
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…
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.
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:
Reminder—Trump had expressed executing people on many occasions while President, according to his own Attorney General. Now the Supreme Court has green lit any official act with full presidential immunity. Germany did the same in 1933. It turned out great.
2) If we ignore history, we are bound to repeat it. How Germany became Nazi Germany in 1933….
📍 The New York Times Is Failing Its Readers Badly on Covid
📌“Example of ‘science opinion’ run amok in the [NY Times] is a piece… by Zeynep Tufekci, a commentator with no training in biological science or epidemiology… ➡️Tufekci plays into the hands of the anti-science politicians who now seek vengeance on the flimsiest of grounds.”
2) “Tufekci also adds to the ongoing pile-on about whether the directive to maintain a distance of six feet from others was needed. Although the precise distance was indeed somewhat arbitrary, there was no possibility of obtaining hard data in the relevant time frame. The six-foot distance was a reasonable assumption based on public health history, and the practice of social distancing for other respiratory pathogens, particularly those spread by droplets. It was also adopted in multiple other countries, for the same reasons.”
3) “The problem here isn’t that Tufekci is questioning the evidentiary basis of the six-foot rule—science and public health cannot progress if we don’t evaluate the results of our work. But that progress is more effective when grounded in good-faith inquiry, rather than the kinds of attacks Tufekci levels against government scientists for doing their best in desperate circumstances. This only serves to bolster the forces who seek to destroy the US public health infrastructure, not make it better.
Tufekci also leaves the impression that she alone realized SARS-CoV-2 was airborne early on. In fact, the debate about transmission was fast and furious within the scientific community at that time”
⚠️Whooping cough has smashed all records in UK🇬🇧 with barely any serious govt actions. These are NEW CASES PER WEEK, not cumulative. Each week smashing previous. Other countries rising too amid anti-vax. Pertussis is also airborne!
3) Whooping cough is also extremely contagious. For up to 3 weeks. With UK govt advising staying home for 3 full weeks if no antibiotic treatment. How many people being told that and doing that?