A short thread for parents, which will hopefully show why we can be confident that *nobody* is at risk of autism from the MMR vaccine. Below are some of the studies that look at the MMR and autism rates in different countries. Spoiler: The link does not exist… ….Firstly, the Lancet back in 2004, when all this was being debated, looked at people with autism and people who didn’t have autism, to see if there was any difference in their vaccination rates for MMR….

Interesting work on Hendra Virus in grey headed flying fox bats in Australia shows the presence of a new variant of Hendra (Hendra G2) in a sample of bats tested for Australian Bat Lyssavirus since 2013. For those not working in Oz, Hendra is a low-frequency high-consequence… …infection that is responsible for the deaths of 5 people who became unwell after exposure to sick horses. The bats infect the horses, who then infect humans. Infection of horses seems to occur when they feed underneath bat colonies and are exposed to falling birth products or…

Incursion of European Bat Lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1) in Serotine Bats in the United Kingdom - Interesting to see European Bat Lyssavirus (my third favourite bat lyssavirus 😂) establishing itself in another species of bat in the uk. EBLV is rabies’ brother… pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34696409/ …and is fatal in humans (though rare). It used to be pretty much only seen in Daubenton’s bat (which are also found in Ireland) but now seem to be establishing themselves in Serotine bats. Samples mostly taken in Southern England. Not sure if this species is seen in Ireland…

Mask-wearing cuts Covid incidence by 53%, says global study | Coronavirus | The Guardian This is all over my timeline today. I’m a fan of masks, and it is AMAZING progress to see a meta-analysis of public health interventions for covid. But….. theguardian.com/world/2021/nov… ..we need to look past headlines. This study looked at a range of measures, including masks, handwashing+disinfection. It’s well written and methodologically fine. But a meta-analysis can only analyse primary research and it’s conclusions are only as good as those studies….

It’s been a real Rabies/Lyssavirus week for me. And whenever that happens, I’m always amazed how much of an absolute operator the virus is. Some of it’s basic abilities include - Fooling your body into reducing its immune response (considering these viruses are 100% fatal…. …that’s quite the evolutionary achievement). One of the ways it does this is by inhibiting your body’s ability to produce B-interferon, which is a vital part of our immune machinery. In fact the #rabies virus has a whole chunk of its genome dedicated to doing just that….

As an end-user of the frankly awful data in the covid public health space, the best contributions that the various scientific advocacy groups and individuals around the globe could make, in my opinion, would be proper rigorous *systematic* reviews, especially around efficacy….

https://twitter.com/allysonpollock/status/1449409369955782665

…of various mitigation strategies (many of which seem to be over-sold to the public) and the actual prevalence of the now well-defined long covid in different age groups. Without certainty around these questions, it’s really difficult to conduct rigorous risk assessments….

We’re relocating back to Ireland in February and, much as I love Trim, I’ll miss having Urangan pier in #HerveyBay as my morning walk It was one of those rare Saturdays where I didn’t get called in to work, so we got to enjoy the local Osprey having breakfast

People keep saying that when this pandemic is over, we have to make sure our contact tracing capacity is strengthened to cope with future threats. This reflects a misunderstanding of what contact tracing is. Contact tracing involves talking to a case and finding out who….. …they’ve been in touch with. This is really important stuff, but that data is then used by specialists in outbreak control to assess and manage those contacts. Ultimately, public health teams need to use data from many sources to make a plan to control the disease. This is….

When reporting on Covid in Australia, the world’s media is keen to report on a perceived inability to control the virus as time goes on. But context is important. This is a country that’s the size of a continent….

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1423958485532909568

Most cases are in New South Wales, with less than 25 cases being reported today outside that state.

https://twitter.com/COVID_Australia/status/1424258015658528769

I’ve been delighted to see the sudden surge in support for mandatory hotel quarantine (MHQ) in Ireland, with the aim of achieving zero covid. While it is, on balance, the best option, I fear that some commentators have underestimated the challenges. Here are some examples.... ...1) MHQ is frequently framed as a temporising measure, with the aim of establishing quarantine-free travel bubbles with other zero covid regions. Not many countries have achieved zero community transmission. But in those that have, travel bubbles have been vanishingly rare...

Getting the whole world vaccinated against covid MUST be a priority. It’s unconscionable that close to zero people in low-income countries have been vaccinated so far. This is important to absolutely everybody for three reasons... ...1) The ethics of only vaccinating a quarter of the planet should be unthinkable to us. 2) For many reasons, we will have vulnerable people who are not protected by the vaccine, now and in the future. These people will be at risk on an ongoing basis from imported cases if...

My favourite thing about this week is that the Irish government went to outbreak school 😂 Naturally, the department of finance and Ernst&Young led the teaching. Public health weren’t needed because they had “data guys” instead..... ...The department of finance led with this cracker. Their advanced data mining revealed the presence a link between health, economics and society....

I know a thread on a contractual issue is never going to be one of the greats. But my Irish colleagues might take industrial action and it’s important to tell people why, before inevitable political mudslinging starts. This issue is about pandemic safety, so I’ll try to explain..

https://twitter.com/imo_irl/status/1321924720888074241

....in Ireland, when you finish medical school, you can go on and do specialty training. It takes years and there are lots of awful exams, but you get there in the end and you qualify as a consultant. And then the @HSE_HR give you a consultant contract. Except for public health..

The pandemic response in Ireland has understandably led to quite a bit of confusion and things are changing rapidly, from lockdowns to school closures. So I thought I’d write a thread on what might, and might not, work well in a country like Ireland with over 1000 cases per day.. ..Recurring lockdowns don’t work. Well, it depends on what you mean by “work”. They’re v good at getting cases numbers low. But they don’t change any of the underlying conditions that allowed the virus to multiply in the first place. So, once society opens up, cases go up again..

Five things I’ve done in the last year as a public health doctor that, like most of what we do, flies under the radar.... 1) Our surveillance system found disease-causing mosquitoes in an area where they shouldn’t be. We developed a plan to eradicate them, which we did, and followed up with continued surveillance to make sure they were gone. Nobody became unwell.

In trying to make sense of what might seem like confusing or inconsistent decisions around #COVIDー19 interventions at the population level it might be helpful to look at the different phases of a pandemic and what type of control measures happen during each phase. This is.... ....the Australian pandemic plan. It’s publicly available. Ireland will have a VERY similar plan, though the names of the phases might be different. PHASE 1: Preparedness; This is when planning happens. It’s ongoing, with meetings, desktop exercises and pressure testing.....