⚠️Very worried about #BA5 causing #COVID19 hospitalization surges everywhere it goes—bad it’s very past-immunity-evasive. Portugal hit 80-90% of its old hospitalization peak recently. UK hospitals strained to the brink now too. Bad trends many in places.🧵
2) based on models, #BA5 and it’s close cousin #BA4, also past-immunity evasive, is surging so fast, it will likely be 50% of all #SARSCoV2 strains in the Us this week—and soon displacing all other past strains.
3) Why do we need to look at Portugal? It’s a highly vaccinated country, yet #BA5 has completely overwhelmed it. Vaccines work overall, but if a virus spreads unchecked without OTHER MITIGATIONS, vaccines not enough alone. We need vaccines+ PLUS other mitigations.
4) I want folks to understand that vaccines are incredible inventions & have saved MILLIONS of lives. But our old Wuhan-1.0 era vaccines need to be updated. Hospitalizations for #COVID19 in England soaring across all age groups. But Boris does nothing—need vaccines+PLUS.
5) why are some countries just only starting to see #COVID19 hospitalizations climb? Well #Ba5 & #BA4 have only just begun to arrive in various countries. Look at the central EU countries like France, Italy, Germany— #Ba5 is only on the upswing recently… it has room to surge.
6) “the new wave is starting”. And #BA5 and #BA4 are closer to old Alpha and Delta that infect the lungs more, leading to more serious respiratory illnesses. independent.co.uk/news/health/co…
7) Warning— do no rely on past infections to protect you from more severe #COVID19. New research shows that REINFECTIONS can be often times worse and have increased risks for hospitalization and deaths and #longCOVID. Don’t mess around with COVID.
8) to be absolutely clear—vaccines averted 14 million #COVID19 deaths to 20 million excess deaths during the pandemic. Don’t spin anything anti-vaccine please. Vaccines save lives. But now we need updates vaccines to save more lives against #BA4 & #BA5. thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
9) Hospitalizations for #COVID19 worsening even further in England 🏴— among not just elderly but young adults and children too. Worse yet is that 🇬🇧 is no longer doing mitigations and no longer offering free testing to stop and slow transmission. This will get worse.
10) The deep concerns about #BA5 & Ba4 are shared by many experts & supported by many studies that show much lower levels of protection from past infections to BA4/5. In some ways, it’s more evasive than old Omicron & likely more severe than BA1 Omicron. cnn.com/2022/06/22/hea…
11) Let’s not forget the #COVID19 risk to kids. Besides record pediatric hospitalizations recently, #LongCovid in kids is found in 1 in 4 infections!
⚠️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.