@Taiwan_CDC 2. Three SARS infections to early onset dementia in this 19 yo. (1) In teens, this didn't happen. World's first case of probable Alzheimer's was recorded in Beijing. (2) Dementia is phase three of HIV or SARS-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND/SAND).
6. Can those of you who speak Chinese also start bilingual tweets? (same for other languages)
We’re in the twilight zone of socially organized pandemic denial. I think this can help. There are solutions; just need to bring the info to people’s ears if their eyes are wide shut.
7. Bilingual 🇩🇪 (1) SARS-CoV infection in the kidney (Nieren) can activate the complement cascade via C3b deposition, causing severe disease. Good study. (2) Viral persistence up to 500-787 days; reinfection resets the clock. (3) Consider Azvudine (ART) in chronic kidney disease.
9. No immunity & SARS-CoV as persistent viral infection? (For up to 500-787 days but made permanent by policy because even the official goal is 1-2 reinfections or year) Mention this to virologists and they’ll deny or not listen.
10. I share so much to help people understand the brutal math. Hundreds of millions were infected globally. 1 in 6, to 1 in 3 develop #Longcovid. To the degree that kidney function deteriorates, people will be unable to initiate antiretrovirals when/IF available in the future. 🤦🏻♀️
See XBB.1.16 XBB.1.9.1 mutations in Orf9b and this thread on 'hypothetical' gene Orf10. Everyone talks about the SARS-CoV spike protein. The nucleocapsid (N) is more important.
2. Shoutout to indefatigable (and largely volunteer!) variant hunters, doing God's work and states' jobs.
How can you tell the embarrassingly poor state of surveillance and genetic sequencing? The grey area—14%, top right hand—are unassigned variants.
We're sailing blindfolded.
3. As long as evolution and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 are not FUNDED for the long term—no stop-and-go pandemic cycle of panic and neglect—and well communicated, the public will have no chance to learn fast enough to protect themselves.
The brilliant @mylesbyrne always alerts me to essential, overlooked details. As pandemic-inactivated tango dancer, let me vote "It takes two to tango" as most misleading overused political phrase of the decade.
It takes society—profound feelings, often of pain/nostalgia and joy/intensity of connection—and countless human interactions to create music and dance over generations.
In each tanda, you dance in the shadow of giants.
It takes only one to infect half a packed milonga, danced for hours.
Do you see why SARS-CoV's cultural impact will far exceed HIV?
And boy did HIV have an impact. We haven't started facing reality yet in society; the knowledge is still twitter-confined.
I'll share bilingual content if time affords, never mind poor language skills. Play to twitter's strengths as polarization intensifies and it gets harder to communicate across academic & cultural boundaries.
Kind souls sometimes translate me+others. Love it; more of this please!
"If you know it, you avoid it / If you know it, it doesn't kill you". - The PR/scicomm we need, fast before the average person was infected multiple times.
SARS is the great policy question of our era that no policy scholar - god forbid policymaker - addresses.
People want citations for the claim survival rates 20 years post infection at age 50 may be less than 30%. Look at emerging trends. =>Lawyers and epidemiologists’ job
=>Precautionary principle. Don’t wait to demand policy change
2. I encourage folks to ask smart economists like @lajohnstondr who know trends in China for analysis of these demographic transitions. You can literally see the moment when policymakers got bored with protecting the population in the data!
See old societies like Japan, Germany.
3. @adam_tooze is right. Pay attention to what the pandemic does to rich/old and poor/old countries. You’d expect major societal decline if a country suddenly (subconsciously) decides to throw their old under the bus. Russia already got there; the rest I hope is redeemable.
You see how public health and science are not on equal footing, right?
Some are flying higher than others! Time to ground them in facts again.
Some may think I’m joking in saying there is a tradeoff between climate and society, or my identities as climate scholar/activist and other roles in life.
We may be transparent on Twitter, but wider society is not.
Public health makes this clear. We need to address it clearly.