BREAKING—Beijing officials are recommending all residents of Chaoyang (mega district of 4+ million) to stay home on Monday—do not go indoors publicly, and do not leave the area. #BF7 variant suspected. China had its first death from #COVID19 since May. 🧵reuters.com/world/china/be…twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
2) Beijing is also recommending wearing the public to wear masks in public. And they mentioned the “highly contagious” #BF7 variant of Omicron being a potential factor.
3) crazy how @Twitter put a warning label on my original post about CCTV website even though the Reuters version has the exact same info. reuters.com/world/china/be…
4) here is what Beijing is doing—“Strict community (village) bayonet management, all entering personnel to implement epidemic prevention measures such as scanning code temperature measurement, checking nucleic acid negative certificates, etc.”
5) “the same time, we will make every effort to ensure residents' livelihood services such as living and medical treatment. Focus on ensuring the needs of quarantined residents for medical treatment and drug purchase, & require all medical institutions to open as much as possible
6) “Focus on ensuring the supply of materials in high-risk areas, timely provide vegetable packs, epidemic prevention kits, etc., and ensure smooth logistics by opening a "white list".”
7) “Focus on residents' epidemic-related demands, respond to solutions in a timely manner, and care for key groups such as the elderly, pregnant women, and patients with underlying diseases.”
8) folks—why is this significant? Chaoyang district of Beijing is the most populace district and is home to almost all the foreign Embassies and is a major economic center. Thus it’s a huge move to do this in its capitol city. reuters.com/world/china/ch…
9) Meanwhile, the #BF7 is ~8% of total variants. #BQ1 and #BQ11 are more prevalent and rising, while “older” #BA5 is in rapid decline. #BF7 is holding steady at ~8% for 3 weeks, but not really declining. covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…
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I'm shocked a lot of doctors don't know about this newer flu antiviral drug called Baloxavir (XOFLUZA)... that shortens your flu illness by 33%, and reduces your viral load by day 2, versus what a placebo takes 5-6 days to achieve. Baloxavir also seems superior to TAMIFLU (oseltamivir) for smashing your viral load on 2 day, achieving what takes Tamiflu 3-4 days. CDC even lists Baloxavir on their website as one of the top 4 drugs that it tracks whether it works against new flu strains (it works)
2) "Baloxavir was associated with significantly more rapid declines in infectious viral load than placebo or oseltamivir (Figure 3A and 3B)." nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
3) Adverse events for baloxavir were no different than placebo. in fact theres even hints that it could be lower than Tamiflu.
"Adverse events that were considered to be related to the trial regimen were more common in oseltamivir recipients (8.4%) than in baloxavir recipients (4.4%, P=0.009)"
⚠️WORST FLU SEASON ever since 2002-2003 when we began to track flu (red, first graph). Worst hit this year are children ages 0-4 and 5-17. ▶️We also have significantly LOWER flu vaccine uptake this year, one of the lowest flu vaccine coverages (red 3rd graph). Indisputable facts.
2) I don't need to tell you that certain US states have vastly lower vaccination rates than others. See map (lighter green, less flu vaccination coverage), and which have higher (darker green)...
If you want to see details and demographics on which state has the LOWEST flu vaccine coverage rates... the data is here. cdc.gov/fluvaxview/das…
3) It’s not just the flu that is going around… Gaines County, TX, where the epicenter of the measles outbreak is, has one of the lowest measles vaccination rates too.
INFLUENZA REACHES EPIDEMIC THRESHOLD in New York—Influenza A (Unknown variety) positivity soars (yellow), while hospitalizations stand higher than past 3 years. The rise of unknown subtyping Flu A has led NY to issue new alert to subtype all Flu A immediately for bird flu.
2) This was the reason for the urgency in NY issuing an alert to subtype all hospitalized cases for bird flu if Flu A. See thread below 👇
BREAKING—22 States sue to block Trump WH cuts to NIH research grants.
2) Attorneys general representing 22 states sued the Trump administration on Monday, asking a federal judge to temporarily block a major policy change by the National Institutes of Health that would substantially limit payments for research overhead
3) In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of MA, the AGs argued that NIH’s abrupt decision to set a 15% cap on payments for indirect costs would cause major harm to institution budgets, jeopardizing basic operations and medical research.
💣TORPEDOING MEDICAL RESEARCH—NIH indirect grant funding just got slashed by Trump to 15%. What does this mean for you? Colleges and universities won’t be able to support students, tuition will increase, especially graduate students & researchers who find cures/preventions for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and more. This will not only raise tuition and hurt pipeline of future scientists/doctors, but COMPLETELY DECIMATE MEDICAL & PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH. It will also give more power to big pharma to manipulate research agendas and buy out ideas that should remain in the public domain. Ie THE RICH BIOTECH TYCOONS (eg Vivek Ramaswamy) WILL GET RICHER. The lay public will someday only see future drug/tech prices soar as biotech and big pharma control more science and make more money.
Also, Trump’s NIH posted this graphic - but it ignores that most public universities also heavily rely on indirect to subsidize tuition, and train next generation of scientists and medical doctors doing research. (Public colleges can’t compete with wealthier schools who do have endowments, and hence will fall further behind). Public colleges that do medical research will literally fall apart without this mechanism.
2) People don’t seem to get 2 things:
📌Indirect funds college administration and facilities and support services. Academic advising, building operations, new labs and classrooms for students— where does that money come from? If not indirect grants, then it’ll have to come more from ⬆️student tuition.
3) Most universities don’t have billion+ endowments. Most have almost none — so when you slash NIH indirect grant funding to just 15%… it hurts small schools and public colleges the most—smaller places might even go under. Rich school survive, public schools do not.
😷Flu is so bad right now that schools across the country are closing. Schools around the U.S. are closing due to surges of flu which are sickening students and staff.
📌At least 41 states are currently reporting "very high" or "high" influenza-like illness activity
2) As the 2024–2025 flu season rages on with no peak yet in sight, some school systems are overwhelmed with sick students and staff.
Schools and even entire school districts are temporarily closing in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee and other states.