A third sequence of BA.3.2* popping up in the Netherlands after a two month break, so it's maintaining itself in circulation even without further evolution.

BA.3.2 has lots of components of a formula one variant... except for the tyres.

When it finds them, it may go *fast*. Just to explain that a little more...

Some dangerous variants appear *complete*.
They're the spawn of one or two existing widespread variants, and just pick up an extra mutation or recombination that makes them even more efficient.

I was in school yesterday, and a class asked me about my mask. I told them about why I wear it, and first one student, then another, quietly said that they had Long Covid. They explained it very matter-of-factly, the way young people sometimes do. As they were speaking, I looked round the class at the other teenagers. They were listening without condemnation and with open minds.

When I write posts like this one, I normally get accused of being a doomer, but I really feel like that's a case of shooting the messenger.

But I'm not holding out much hope that treatments for persistent covid infection will make much of an impact on a population level. Why?

Here’s what I do every time I put on a mask.
🧵 I check the mask.
No tears, no damage, straps intact.

Six months ago a young man in our local community asked if he could meet me to talk through a problem he was having.

We met a few times, and recently I asked him if I could share the basics of his story. He said yes, so here it is.

For absolute clarity, I would not have shared this without his express permission to do so.

I had a reply yesterday that said that if everyone masked and socially distanced for 2 weeks, we would stop the spread of Covid.

I love this sentiment, and it's true.
It would stop covid for a while.

But only for a while.
Important thread that may help you understand things... Although it might not help you understand things, because this is pretty complicated, and I find it hard to get my head round how to explain it sequentially.

Figuring out where to start is a nightmare.

Have you heard anyone anywhere talking about how nurses and health visitors in England are taking more than TWICE AS MANY sick days for "Pregnancy Related Disorders" as they used to?

In the 12 months to March 2020: 204k
In the 12 months to March 2025: 430k 👀🚨 Not for 'pregnancy', or for 'going shopping for baby clothes'.

SICK LEAVE.
SICKNESS ABSENCE.
FOR DISEASES OF PREGNANCY.

I had a very sad conversation this week.

A young school receptionist who caught Covid at work, developed Long Covid, returned to work, caught it again and became even more ill... and then again...

She said I could share her story.

It's about masking... She said masks don't work.

Covid is just a cold

that can reawaken dormant cancer cells. Covid is just a flu

that can accelerate dementia.

So it turns out that the ukhsa *are* afraid of the same thing I am.

But their solution to the problem is terrifying.

A quick thread about what this seemingly nonsensical post of theirs means....
🧵

https://twitter.com/UKHSA/status/1961452961164370412

This official statement says that the vaccines won't be less effective than the virus.

Now that may sound like gibberish or a typo, but it's not.

The ukhsa have one aim here, and it's not one they often say out loud.

I feel it's important to comment on this whole 'thoughts and prayers' thing.

Prayers without action are lifeless and dead.

One of the writers of the Bible puts it this way: "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?"

I've been bashing my head against the polyomavirus thing for a couple of years now.

The basic situation is that case numbers in England have been 🚀📈ing.

I've been bashing my head against the polyomavirus thing for a couple of years now.
Until today.
🧨🚨🧵 NB:
That's *polyomavirus* not *polio virus*.
They're very different.

I hope someone somewhere is looking into this.

Days of sickness absence taken each month by doctors in England for Pregnancy Related Disorders. And I hope someone somewhere is looking at this.

Days of sickness absence taken each month by doctors in England for Nervous System Disorders.

I have no idea why it should fall to me, a bird on the internet, to ask this question, but are an increasing number of people dying from serious conditions because their symptoms are being mistaken for 'just Covid'? Yeah. I know that's a weird question.
I'll explain.

Chatting with a colleague who runs a large summer event...
Her: "The behaviour of the kids this year was a nightmare, it's getting worse and worse, it's because this age group missed out on three years introduction to school."

Me: "Schools were only closed for 12 weeks..." Me: "... in 2020 and 9 weeks in 2021. They were open the whole of the rest of those years!"

My niece, a nurse, 30s: "I was just getting more and more tired, and I was getting really short of breath, and needed to sit down loads, so I saw my GP who told me it looked like one of my lungs had collapsed."

Me: "And...?" Her: "Yes, so I had a scan and an x-ray, and there's fluid round that lung. It could have been like that for a whole year, gradually getting worse"

My brother-in-law: "I don't know why you're so concerned about catching it. I had Covid, Flu, and Pneumonia last year, and covid was nothing compared to the other two."

Me: "Which did you get first?"

Him: "Covid" Me: "So when did you get them?"

Him: "I had Covid first in October, then I had pneumonia in November, then Flu in December"

Before Covid came along, England was doing pretty well with meningococcal disease.

Which is great because it's a disease that can *kill a healthy teenager within hours*...

... or leave them alive without limbs, hearing, or memory...

But... and it's a really big but...
🧵 ... but then, of course, covid infections came along.

I had heard of several more serious DKA episodes leading to hospitalisation, disability, and death since I last wrote about it in May, then this last week, I heard of two more.

Let me tell you about one of them. This is a very miserable thread, so stop reading now if you need to.

Look.
They know that covid infections are still causing death, damage, and disability, but they're still gambling on it *going away* once everyone's been infected enough times.

Can't you see how dangerous that gamble is if each infection is harmful to your long term health? And how especially dangerous it is if the gamble is pointless, because it's not going to work to make covid 'go away', and because the damage is actually cumulative.

Hey you super people, the lovely folk at The FaceMaskStoreUK have given me an affiliate link for face mask sales - so if you buy your masks after going to the site at the link here 👇I get a small cut.
I'm currently wearing these black Tridents with pride:
thefacemaskstore.co.uk/product/projec… They're on offer - and I think they're maybe the best masks I've worn.
Definitely a new favourite at this price.