The US’s second Omicron surge is fully here.

At the end of Jan / beginning of Feb, my hypothesis was that if there wasnt a clear national surge by the end of March we would be basically surge-free until the fall.

I was wrong.

A few thoughts 1/🧵

https://twitter.com/JasonSalemi/status/1527618507042529282

My original prediction built on these ideas:
1) Prior summer waves in the US were largely regional
2) Regions with summer waves spent summer mostly indoors
3) People would be outdoors more in many regions come spring
4) Spring/summer weather may be less conducive to transmission

I saw someone say that much of what we see as scary about polio is actually “long polio” & tbh that’s pretty true.

I think the “long” framing makes it clear long COVID isn’t unprecedented & that we need to face up to it.

What other long infectious diseases are there?

A list* *Thread disclaimer: obviously not all cases of all of the diseases in the following tweets share the exact same cause, because very few diseases have only one single cause (tho a few do!)

The diseases below are those that CAN be caused by infections with the pathogens listed.

There was a truly misguided and factually incorrect Wall Street Journal article yesterday claiming we should *accelerate* the spread of omicron.

The authors fundamentally misunderstand the evolution of infectious diseases in a way I think many talking heads share.

A 🧵 When people think about evolution, they are accustomed to thinking about long time scales, decades, centuries, millennia.

But evolution does NOT depend on calendar time!

THINK LIKE AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST, Part 2.

In today’s 1st thread, I discussed the math of infections to help you understand what #TinyWiseDecisions you can make to be #COVIDSafer this winter.

In this 2nd thread, I want to give some concrete ideas for making your risk a little lower.

https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/1473681500650545158

Omicron is very contagious & ideally, we would all be taking STRONG precautions.

But risk is additive & a spectrum, so #TinyWiseDecisions will help.

Choose something from this thread or share an idea of your own, so that we can all be just that much safer this holiday season.