Lazarus Long Profile picture
Mar 2, 2024 45 tweets 16 min read Read on X
Let's take this apart. This being the justification for this policy change.

cdc.gov/respiratory-vi…
Trend in hospitalization.

Right up front, they want you to miss that severely ill ONLY includes those sick enough to be hospitalized.

As many of you know, that can still be incredibly sick. AND Americans do their utter best to avoid hospitals (another reason why Image
hospitalizations are a crap indicator for the CDC pastel green maps). We also do our level best to get out of hospitals as well.

But I digress.

So, they want to compare a rate of 15.5% hospitalization to the flu with 13.3% - so they must be the same!
Oops. We only catch the flu one every 5 to 6 years?

So, with a 15.5% COVID hospitalization, with a virus people are catching multiple times per year?

That would seem to be a fallacy. Of false equivalency.

COVID being Mandy's pet jaguar.

But hey! Old people that we don't care about who catch RSV are 1.5 times more likely to be hospitalized than COVID. Image
But....there's that jaguar again...haven't we been running massive vaccination campaigns for COVID for years, and only just started pushing RSV vaccinations?

So, it's a false equivalency again?
Hey, I know....let's have everyone look over at the 150,000 hospitalizations in 2022. Maybe everyone will not notice that there are almost twice as many Covid hospitalizations as influenza.

That those are 18,977 hospitalizations that simply did not exist before 2020. Image
The same craptastic logic, and worse, lies behind the RESP-NET figures.

"Look it's in the same range!"

For a mountain range that never used to be there.

As far as range goes? I'm willing to bet that playing with that y axis could make it look a whole bunch worse. Image
Because you know that is the best it CAN look. @amethystarlight will appreciate that, I suspect.

Oh, and....
"Hospitalizations rates are likely to be underestimated as some hospitalizations might be missed because of undertesting, differing provider or facility testing
practices, and diagnostic test sensitivity."

But never you mind, with that fine print.

Definitely do not pay attention to the fact that 2022-2023 is still higher than the 2019-2020.

Or that it dwarfs the other two.

Those are all still cuddly kitty cats. No jaguars. Image
Ok...there is far more of fallacious logic and crap data to be harvested, but I am hangry.

Ok, just angry and hungry from burning a rocket of anger all day today.

Deaths. Obligatory - "look, you are not old so what do you care" stat. Sooo ridiculous.

Next? A fun one they Image
try to slip past us.

Remember all the fun "with and from Covid" they tried to slip past us, before?

Rocky the Sequel, here. In 2020, 91% of the deaths were listed as from COVID.

Good news (except for the dead and their families)! In 2023, that was only 69%!

So, Covid Image
only contributed to their death!

That is such progress!

Moving on...COVID kills a lot of people! But hey, influenza data are often underreported, so COVID deaths must be incorrect.

Do you see that logic? FFS, we can see the hurry-up offense taking a toll on the writers here. Image
Because they next try to slip RSV in there....

"However, influenza AND LIKELY RSV are often underreported as causes of death."

Such crap writing!

Now they have you distracted, they throw actual numbers of 17,000-50,000 of influenza deaths at you.

Oooo, says Ricky Gervais,
Image
Image
"influenza MUST BE the same as COVID."

How much COVID death do we have with all of the CDC at our disposal?

"Current estimates of total COVID-19 deaths are not available,"

You absolutely fucking wankers @CDCgov .

It's so bad that they had to fucking bury it. Image
Unfortunately for them, CIDRAP popped up a new study which documented excess mortality FROM COVID.

cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid…
Image
162,886 of these excess natural-cause deaths were COVID and not reported as such. Out of 1,174,626 dying from COVID.

Looks to be roughly 15%.

Bonus....nearly as many excess mortality deaths occurred in the second year as in the first.

Got that? Since those Image
fuck sticks cannot give us data on deaths? We have data showing the number dead, plus about 15% excess mortality on top of that.

But then the CDC pops up a graph showing deaths as listed from death certificates.

We are supposed to go ...oh!

50,000 influenza deaths from above Image
plus 5,000 is 55,000 which is WAY more than Covid.

The flu and covid ARE the same!

(Record scratch)
"Modeled burden estimates for influenza are not directly comparable to death certificate derived counts for COVID-19 and RSV."

So, right there in the italized for ease of Image
reading, fine print. We cannot add that 50,000 to that 5,000.

AND, of course, what these fucking wankers do NOT POINT OUT....

covid has all the same problems in data reporting.

Shh. Super secret squirrel! Image
And, of course, that is 32,000 deaths (grossly underestimated ) that were not there before.

Fuck you if you work at the @CDCgov . Why don't you go hold an in-person EIS conference or something?
Ok...have some food and back at this.

The entire premise of this change hinges on balancing " other critical health and societal needs"

Which is not defined anywhere, @DrMandyCohen.

What are those societal needs, praytell?

Get Biden re-elected?

Because it certainly Image
will not result in the CDC rebuilding any trust - supposedly your goal. But I guess who had to balance your need for staying employed and buddies with Zients with our actual health.

I have already eviscerated your crack team of craptastic writers' logic on tools.

Let's take on Image
LongCovid, ya lying landlubbers.

Yes, the CDC lied.

They said that "prevalence of LongCovid also APPEARS to be decreasing."

I guess they said APPEARS means that it's ok to infect 10-25% of us with LongCovid with every wave, right? Right?

Here is the basis for that claim.
Image
Image
Notice that they point to decreases in LongCovid prevalence in the UK.



And indeed, looks great! Wow, a 88% decrease in LongCovid!

Oy. That was only measuring up to 3 months.

Compared to wild type, the OG
Alpha .6
Delta .38
Omicron .12 nature.com/articles/s4146…

Image
Image
Very LongCovid? More than a year? We have no idea. "insufficient follow-up time for VLC"

But VLC is really what we all truly worry about. And this study doesn't tell us that.

Neither did the German study.
USA study.


The lie. It went down.

The truth? cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
Image
So....it went down, initially, but then went flat. Technically, decreased over the entire year, but its really a big fat lie because the CDC is implying that it just kept trucking on down.

And what did the study authors say?

Not changed. Image
I prefer not to have to read my public health documents like a Republican interrogating Bill Clinton on the definition of "sexual fucking relations."

Anywho, this study did not capture duration of symptoms. 3 months? 3 years? No idea.

But we do know this. After the initial Image
decline, LongCovid has not decreased.

And in reality, the CDC is deliberately distracting us from the main question.

Are we ok with disabling 5% of our population permanently?

Or 20% if they are in pain only for 3 months?

Is Biden good with that?
With LongCovid, of course comes the question - did they consider that reinfections lead to increased LongCovid?

No. Fuck no!

But they did try to be tricky.

They talked about how population immunity leads to mutations and further selection for immunoevasive variants.
Image
Image
That was actually pretty smart, @dgurdasani1, but they probably didn't plan on someone eviscerating their bullshit.

Riddle me this, @CDCDirector - if population immunity selects for immuno-evasiveness with unfettered transmission, how do we know that LongCovid % won't increase
back up to the 80% LongCovid out of the Wild type (your study, CDC, your study)?

Because isn't the thought, that our immune system is what is tampering down LongCovid via vaccinations (although that effect was not found in your study)?

So, on LongCovid the CDC lied with studies
And yet, they ask us to trust them to monitor LongCovid when there is NOT EVEN A COVID DEPARTMENT?

When we know Walensky was trying to hand it off to NIH (or some other such group).

This is insanity. Hitting post all so I can make some coffee.

Have I said Fuck the CDC here? Image
@danaparish - here's their silly 98%.

This will not go well for them.

Hang on. Image
@danaparish The 98% section tried to make us feel better by saying, " Ooo...lookie! It was 22%, but only 2 years later? 98%!"

To which I point out, that in 2019,it was zero fucking percent.

But let's break that 98% down. Image
@danaparish 14% from vaccination alone - great.
26% from infection alone. Not good.
58% from both. Also not good.

So, you, @DrMandyCohen, are celebrating that in just two years, you and @RWalensky's policies infected 84% of EVERYONE older than 16?

Are you fucking mental? This is not Image
@danaparish @DrMandyCohen @RWalensky to be celebrated.

(Lowers voice to a cold steely whisper so they lean in)

particularly as reinfections lead to worse outcomes over the long haul.

sure, we die less quickly, but haven't you heard of the phrase, "a fate worse than death"? which is the most befitting description
@danaparish @DrMandyCohen @RWalensky of longcovid as i have ever heard

Let's turn to the kids. Oh! You are happy to have infected 92% of them. Such a maternal instinct.

You should form some sort of wine club with Emily Oster.

And here's the thing. Are kids or adults getting infected any less? No. We just Image
@danaparish @DrMandyCohen @RWalensky went through the second biggest surge, yet.

With us having passed even measles herd immunity marks in 2022. Two years ago!

So...everything that the CDC has done is infect us. And they just want to quintuple down with vaccinations

Their vaccinations rates are...22%. Image
@danaparish @DrMandyCohen @RWalensky Reducing the isolation period to 1 day followed by 5 days masking (everyone masking get ready to be asked if we are sick, over and over) ?

Means that is 6 days. But your selected study on viral shedding clearly states that INFECTIOUS virus is up to 10 days.

So, you are Image
@danaparish @DrMandyCohen @RWalensky deliberately infected the American people over and over, while not pushing Biden to use the DPA to get N95s for everyone.

()

The @DeptofDefense would view that as biological warfare.nature.com/articles/s4157…
The CDC "one and done" rationale page critique cont.

With one fell sweep, the CDC has indemnified the test and treat program that was the mainstay of the USA policy of Covid, @DrJudyStone @apoorva_nyc @charliesmithvcr @tarahaelle

cdc.gov/respiratory-vi…
Image
Paxlovid, our true remaining pharmaceutical tool, has to be taken within 5 days.

By removing a tool, testing, the CDC is removing another tool, Paxlovid from being used as designed.

Or, at the very least, made much more difficult to be used, juggling

. yalemedicine.org/news/13-things…
Image
work and a boss pushing you to be back.

As a side-note, I think the leaked WaPo story pushed the CDC to release way before ready.

I've made that observation re other parts, but here we see them say

"... testing, distancing, improved air quality, hygiene, and/or testing) . Image

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More from @LazarusLong13

Feb 23
Great interview of Ed Yong - I am just covering the C0V1D part.

/1 The Interview  Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World  Ed standing with his arms folded.  His eyes tell you COVID is not over.
You've been clear in saying that C0V1D has not gone away. You ask people to wear masks at your events..... You’ve been clear in saying that Covid has not gone away. You ask people to wear masks at your events. But that attitude is not necessarily where the rest of the world is. How do you think about continuing to take precautions and advising others to do so when it feels as if society has moved on? I do it for a bunch of reasons. Firstly, I have learned that I enjoy not being sick. I know that the cost of long Covid is real and substantial, and I don’t want to run that risk lightly.
"I think it makes a huge difference to them to have the person at the front of the stage wear a mask. It tells them, It’s not weird." . I also know that I have many friends and people I’m close to who are immunocompromised. So for the sake of the people around me, I also don’t want to get sick. When I do events, I wear a mask for those reasons, and because I know that every time I do a talk, while the vast majority of people in the audience have probably moved on, there are going to be other people who haven’t. I think it makes a huge difference to them to have the person at the front of the stage wear a mask. It tells them, It’s not weird. So I do it for that reason, too. In terms of holding this line at a point when a l...
Read 5 tweets
Feb 22
I am sorry if this will upset you. A lot of people depend on NASAL SPRAYS for C0V1D.

I have been iffy on them, but viewed them as "if they don't hurt, why not" but not for me.

There's an analysis
on Reddit that you should read in detail, and make up your own mind.
/1
Here is the link:


Here is a 4 tweet TLDR version.

Here is how it starts - the author goes HARD at the underlying studies. reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCom…There is no convincing evidence that nasal sprays prevent COVID-19  There is a lot of misinformation out there about nasal sprays preventing COVID-19. Unfortunately, there are no convincing studies showing that nasal sprays prevent COVID-19. The published studies investigating whether or not nasal sprays prevent COVID-19 each have major issues, which I will detail here.  I have a PhD in biochemistry and one of my PhD projects was on COVID-19. The main takeaway of this post is that there is no sound evidence that nasal sprays prevent COVID-19. Thus, nasal sprays should not be used for COVID-...
Some pretty harsh language, but to me the important thing is we still have clean air.

Which is good, because it boils down to only 2 studies saying that nasal sprays work, per them. 5. Summary/TLDR and final thoughts  Unfortunately, many people including covid influencers have fallen for the grift of nasal sprays preventing COVID-19. Some such influencers have promoted these nasal sprays for free and helped spread the misinformation that they prevent COVID-19. Unlike with nasal sprays, there is ample, sound evidence that high-quality well-fitting respirators, ventilation and air purification prevent COVID-19.  The human clinical trials testing whether or not nasal sprays prevent COVID-19 are garbage, and to my knowledge there are only two! Please don't lower your covid...
Read 7 tweets
Feb 17
Guillain-Barre Syndrome linked to poultry eggs? H5N1?!

The BBC had a good article from February 3 that talks about how these Indian states' cases are linked to campylobacter jejuni, a bacteria. It IS the most common root-cause, globally.

And IT is commonly found in poultry. AVOID CHICKEN AND EGGS RIGHT NOW SIGN showing for the country of India in a tweet from @alwaysmadesh.  Due to Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
"Campylobacter jejuni infection is the common associated microorganism (25–40%), followed by cytomegalovirus (6–15%), Mycoplasma pneumoniae (3–21%), and Haemophilus influenzae (1–9%)"

BTW - Cytomegalovirus is also an airborne virus - that just happens to cause brain cancer.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae - also airborne.

And...drum roll please...Campylobacter jejuni also airborne.

Don't get me wrong - jejuni most definitely is also fecal-oral, no question.

But it's also airborne.

Sampled from the air below. Figure 7. GCN/m3 results using microorganism-specific primers. These microorganisms were chosen for their pathogenic and opportunistic nature. Samples 1–12 indicate the WWC collections in House A, 1R–12R the WWC collections in House B and 1F–12F the filter collections in House A.
Read 11 tweets
Feb 13
Just a little bit closer to acknowledging H5N1 is airborne.

3 vets asymptomatic, + for bird flu antibodies. Did not wear respiratory gear or glasses.

Did wear gloves and coveralls - so rules out fomites.

One practicing in states with NO H5N1.

Vets get very close to /1 No seropositive practitioner knew that they were working with dairy cattle with known or suspected HPAI A(H5) infection. None of the seropositive practitioners reported wearing respiratory or eye protection while providing veterinary care to cattle. Neither respiratory or eye protection is recommended when working with uninfected animals in regions without confirmed cases; however, safety goggles and a respirator are recommended when working with uninfected animals in regions where there are confirmed or potentially infected animals (4).
Among 150 bovine veterinary practitioners, three had evidence of recent infection with HPAI A(H5) virus, including one who only practiced in two states (Georgia and South Carolina) with no known HPAI A(H5) virus infection in cattle and no reported human cases (1,2); this practitioner reported no exposures to animals with known or suspected HPAI A(H5) virus infections. These findings suggest that there might be HPAI A(H5) virus–infected dairy cattle in states where infection in dairy cattle has not yet been identified, highlighting the importance of rapid identification of infected dairy cat...
aerosol sources. Aerosol orifices.

This lines up with previous studies.

"93% glove usage and 85% boot covers would have stopped transmission" 93% glove usage and 85% boot covers would have stopped transmission  CDC PPE Study of Dairy Workers Infected. 11/7/2024 Dairy workers exposed to ill cows during the week after A(H5N1) virus detection reported higher use of gloves (93%), boots or boot covers (83%), head or hair covers (79%), and eye protection (76%) compared with those who reported exposure to ill cows in the week before detection of HPAI A(H5N1). Reported use of N95 FFRs or other respirators and other types of masks was low (9% and 27%, respectively) among workers exposed to ill cows the week before A(H5N1) outbreaks were d...
CDC PPE Study of Dairy Workers Infected. 11/7/2024 Dairy workers exposed to ill cows during the week after A(H5N1) virus detection reported higher use of gloves (93%), boots or boot covers (83%), head or hair covers (79%), and eye protection (76%) compared with those who reported exposure to ill cows in the week before detection of HPAI A(H5N1). Reported use of N95 FFRs or other respirators and other types of masks was low (9% and 27%, respectively) among workers exposed to ill cows the week before A(H5N1) outbreaks were detected, with higher usage reported among exposed workers in the week...
Veterinarians are one possible vector between infected and uninfected herds/ farms.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 13
Latest Pew Poll.

Or an exercise on "How well did Biden disappear C0V1D?"

On one hand, 21% of Americans still view C0V1D as a major public threat 21% of Americans still view COVID as a major public threat.
On the other hand, still masking?

6% of Democrats
4% Americans
2% Republicans

Guess when Biden took over on the graph? On the other hand, still masking?  6% of Democrats  4% Americans 2% Republicans  Guess when Biden took over on the graph?
Yes - pretty much as soon as Biden took over, he began disappearing C0V1D.

BTW, the last poll was by yougov - masking was at 12% last year. On the other hand, still masking?  6% of Democrats  4% Americans 2% Republicans  Guess when Biden took over on the graph?
Read 12 tweets
Feb 11
What do we need to do to make every healthcare worker in the world understand that flu is airborne?

Get IPC on board.

Let me introduce you to Dr. Zahir Hirji, President of @IPACCanada at #IPAC2023.

Where do we know him from?

That's a very interesting question.

/1 Image
In 2006, Dr. Tellier wrote an article in the CDC EID explaining that influenza was airborne via aerosols.

Quite nicely done.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC33…
Dr. Zahir Hirji and some other IPC doctors from the Canadian HUGE University Health Network disagreed.

Right back you, Tellier - in 2007.

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13…Camille Lemieux*Comments to Author , Gabrielle Brankston*1, Leah Gitterman*, Zahir Hirji*, and Michael Gardam*† Author affiliations: *University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; †University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;
Read 10 tweets

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