Let's run the checklist as it stands at the start of 2026. Altered innate immunity: check

People seem to have forgotten that, in the years before effective HIV treatments existed, many people lived and worked quite normally with HIV for a *long* time. Sometimes close to a decade. Think of Freddie Mercury, still recording albums.

Magic Johnson, playing elite professional basketball right up until he retired, and only then disclosing his HIV status.

There's something else very important about the @jonstewart video.

"You go 'are you sick' and they say 'I don't want to talk about it'.

When Jon Stewart asks why you're wearing a mask, TALK ABOUT IT.

Say one of these easy things.
Pick one, learn it: I wear a mask because Covid is airborne.

oh ffs, honestly, how do these people not know that covid infection makes you vulnerable to shingles.
Here's the exact mechanism: Shingles is your old chickenpox infection (VZV), once sitting dormant in nerve tissue, now waking up when cell-mediated immunity dips.

It feels worth saying that, over the last year, I've seen a growing number of people whose energy, vitality, and enthusiasm are visibly draining month by month.

They're just looking physically and mentally shattered, sliding into a strange exhausted apathy. In my work, I've always encountered people struggling this way.

But in small numbers.

Checking back in on the state of polyomavirus infections.

These are viruses that almost all of us carry for life.
In healthy people they usually sit quietly in the background doing nothing much... ... but in people with weakened immune systems they can cause kidney damage, urinary tract disease, neurological problems and serious complications after transplants...

Ten words you need to know to understand how we can be entering the seventh year of the covid pandemic. 1
Covvabarator
A public health figure who sides with the virus over the people.

Covid infections make people more vulnerable to other infections.

Here's what the Cleveland Clinic say about Brucellosis:
"Brucellosis is an uncommon bacterial infection that comes on slowly and can last for a long time. It can look like a lot of other illnesses, so it’s important to see a healthcare provider to get properly diagnosed and treated. Brucellosis usually isn’t serious, but it can infect your bones and organs, so it’s important to keep a close eye on your symptoms."

Less uncommon now, apparently. Meanwhile... listeria continues its rampant ascent.

You've heard about lots of people having cancer scares recently, haven't you?

I certainly have.
I work supporting people with exactly this kind of situation. I was specifically thinking today about cancer scares that have turned out to *not be malignant cancer*, *yet*.

Ok... so this is going to be an extremely weird thread...
If you're squeamish or sensitive, *stop reading*. You know that you have mites living in the hair follicles of your eyelashes and eyebrows, right?

The ones pictured in the tweet above - and another similar species.

The UKHSA have started publishing this goldmine again - but this year it's even more valuable *because they've reset it to a period when testing was consistent*.

This is very important and it shows yet again:
Covid infection makes you vulnerable to other infection. So... in the weekly flu and covid surveillance report (that also covers other respiratory infections too), they publish these two charts.

Most people just don't understand the immune system, its different components, how covid weakens it, and what that leaves you vulnerable to. We tend to imagine immunity as a single light switch.
On or off.

Maybe on a dimmer switch.
Strong or weak.

Five simple facts about masks: 1
FFP2+/N95+ masks filter out fine aerosols.
They're built to capture tiny airborne particles that surgical masks simply don’t catch.

Ten Pathogens that are airborne: 1
Covid

I keep getting messages and hearing snippets from people who sit in various cross-department government working groups.

Over the last couple of years there’s been a steady drumbeat of concern, but recent ones have felt a bit more like panic: Things like mortality rising higher than births in some parts of the country, antibiotic resistance creeping up, disability claims rising, sickness absence climbing...

I quite like the bold insanity of the people who claim that the reason that there wasn't officially much flu, noro, adeno, rsv etc around in 2020/21 is because *they were all around but governments pretended they were covid*.

But It accidentally points to something profound. That year those things (flu, norovirus, adenovirus, rsv, para influenza) *weren't around to cause death*.

So covid infections actually caused *a lot more excess than people have realised*.

I had an interesting conversation last week that I've been trying to process.

It was with a therapist who I'm supporting, and they said it was ok to share this thread and its contents. I'm going to call them Sam, because I tried writing this saying 'they' the whole time and I kept on getting confused. I have also changed a couple of minor details to preserve anonymity.

We have a group of lovely birthing groups and parenting groups that use some of our building regularly, and I get to chat to them - women who are pregnant and women who have young babies.

They are *in a bad way*. In one of the expectant mothers groups, two of the nine had to stop work early due to complications in their pregnancies.

The problem with science denial is that once you start, you just can't stop.

When you deny any science, you switch on an overrule function in your brain that you can use on any information you dislike.

The more you use it, the more effective it becomes. And the more detached from reality your brain becomes.

It's absolutely time to talk more about this.

This kind of scabies that they're describing in here is *horrific*, and it's a result of *a weakened immune system*.

But LadBible are mistaken to think that it's just in Devon...
It's everywhere here.

But there's worse news... It's not just scabies that's a problem...

If by 'growths on my eyeballs' she means pterygium, then here's the chart for that in England.

https://twitter.com/BirdieBittern/status/1993721423659995527

If, on the other hand she means conjunctival deposits...

Here's that bad boy: