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https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1846932556836430170

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Conor Browne

@brownecfm

Nov 2

1. My background is in CBRN defense. I was involved in the field long before the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.

I used to essentially discount comments on social media - especially this platform - as fringe, not representative of the real world. Sadly, this is no longer the case.

2. The current US administration communicates, and arguably governs, through social media. This means that comments on this platform from Americans can no longer be discounted as simply bots; they are representative of the views of a significant proportion of the US population.

3. With that in mind, let me be very, very clear.

The mainstreaming of anti-vax ideology and the disregard and vilification of non-pharmaceutical interventions, including masking, has rendered the US more vulnerable to biological attack than at any time in its history.

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Conor Browne

@brownecfm

Nov 1

1. Fundamentally, a significant part of what I do is the prediction of both the behaviour of pathogens in the future and our likely collective response to future pathogenic threats. I have an excellent track record in this regard for two main reasons:

2. First, while I recognise the enormous value of quantitative data - and it *is* incredibly valuable - qualitative data is often overlooked by other individuals and organisations in this space.

3. Small outbreaks of unknown diseases are often not picked up in surveillance data; sometimes they appear and disappear in one discrete location, seen as an anomaly by an individual healthcare professional.

*All outbreaks of novel diseases begin as anomalies*.

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Conor Browne

@brownecfm

Oct 8

1. I've had a surprising number of conversations about Covid-19 over the past week or so, all sparked by the fact that I was, as always, wearing an FFP2 respirator. People in healthcare facilities, taxi drivers, people on trains and buses.

2. All of these conversations were perfectly pleasant. The theme that ran through all of them was a genuine belief that Covid-19 was 'gone'. Not endemic, or 'just a cold', but 'gone'. When you see videos on social media featuring young people bemoaning their 'mystery illness'...

3. ... my feeling is that their illness *genuinely is a mystery to them*.

This is precisely what happens when a concerted effort is made by governments, public health, and the media to downplay or erase Covid-19.

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Conor Browne

@brownecfm

Sep 25

1. The intense and all-encompassing institutional and societal pushback seen in some countries against any intervention to mitigate the impacts of Covid-19, whether that be vaccines, or air filtration / purification, or masks, is not simply as a result of mandates or lockdowns.

2. The memory of these policies is a component of it, to be sure, but the deep underlying reason is a shared yearning for the world to be as it was in 2019. In effect, 2019 has become the status quo that almost everyone needs to cling to. This need is pathological in nature.

3. As such, fulfilling this need requires a shared societal agreement to embrace vast cognitive dissonance. Those who choose not to be part of this agreement will, inevitably, be deemed as having a mental health condition (Foucault understood this phenomena very well indeed).

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Conor Browne

@brownecfm

Aug 28

1. I was at my local pharmacy this morning to pick up a prescription, and as I walked up to the counter, I immediately noticed that the elderly woman in front of me in the queue was wearing a blue surgical mask. She was adjusting it, pulling it up over her nose.

2. She was also quite obviously unwell, and frail in a manner very similar to the frailty my late mother first developed around 2017. As the pharmacist spoke to her, she adjusted her mask again, making sure it fully covered her nose and mouth.

3. As I waited, what I saw was this: a woman who is likely vulnerable to Covid-19, and has been told by her doctor to mask. A woman who probably has no access to information other than from her doctor and NHS leaflets. So she diligently wears her loose blue surgical mask.

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Conor Browne

@brownecfm

Aug 24

1. Biological risk is both multifaceted and additive. Any of the following individual risks would be concerning; when combined, they effectively constitute a powder keg waiting for a spark:

2. The growth of antivaxx ideology globally (and its institutionalisation in policy).

The retreat of many national public health services due to political and public blowback from the response to Covid-19.

Climate change increasing the spread of many vector-borne pathogens.

3. The rapidly increasing global prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial and fungal pathogens.

Perturbation of the immune systems of the global population due to ongoing SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission.

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