Let’s talk about systemic risk from negligent public health: Catastrophe doesn’t require population-wide illness.

The worst case isn’t sickness. Worst case is infrastructure collapse due to overstressed resources.

You know power plants need stable power to operate?

1/many If there is a widespread disruption in the service area of, e.g., a nuclear power plant, it shuts down for safety. Massive blackouts like in 2003 or in Spain this year are caused by safety systems!

If too much trips out at once, it has a ripple effect across the grid
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If Florida drops vaccine mandates, society is probably officially over. I really, really, really don’t think most people get that herd immunity is the only thing keeping measles from ripping through the population, and a measles infection wipes out all pre-existing immunity

1/3 Measles specifically infects the cells that are responsible for “remembering” which pathogens your body has encountered before. So they ALL get wiped out, and all you’re left with is cells that remember your measles infection and nothing else.

2/3

Can I say something? I have a BA in psych, a BPhil in linguistics, and went to grad school for cognitive psych. My research, including an undergrad fellowship, was on the cognitive relationship between written and spoken language…

Audiobooks are NO DIFFERENT than reading print. In the last hour, there have been a dozen replies from people nitpicking the first tweet

The topic of discussion is "do audiobooks 'count' as reading?," and the answer is "Audiobooks are NO DIFFERENT than reading print."

Maybe read the thread before arguing with it? lmfao

Many people are asking for recommendations about what storage media to buy, so here's a buying guide from an experienced data hoarder (me)

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to know is that SOLID-STATE MEDIA IS NOT DURABLE. Flash drives, SSDs, SD cards, etc. are NOT long-term storage.

1/

https://twitter.com/plagueprose/status/1885315243506626641

That's not to say that it's impossible to use solid-state media for long-term storage. It's just that anything with durability guarantees gets prohibitively expensive quickly. Spinning hard drives—as well as DVDs and Blu-ray discs!—are your friend.

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I wish people would understand that insurance underwriters have armies of actuaries calculating risks, and if an insurance company drops you, it's because things have changed in such a way that insuring you will take more out of the financial pool than you're putting in

1/ It sucks, but it's a direct result of the fact that humans are widely inhabiting locations that are rapidly becoming impossible to inhabit safely. If you can't find insurance for your home, it means there's a high likelihood you'll need to move soon anyway.

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So here’s the thing about some of the subtle neuro damage related to SARS-CoV-2 infection that I think a lot of people miss: some of the known deficits are correlated with things like impulsiveness and poor emotional control, so we might expect to see deficits there are well

1/ Consider how impatient people seem to be on the road in the last couple years relative to the 2010s, and I think we have a perfect example of where this is LIKELY already manifesting.

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Let's review some major points in the Nukit controversy, since some people are unclear:

- Someone criticized someone's use of Nukit lanterns.
- Nukit attacked the critic because, as noted, this is how they market
- Nukit now demands "mediation" with the community (how??)

1/
So let's look at this a bit more critically. Here is the "evidence" Nukit provided that the didn't say anything racist. First of all, these aren't the comments in question, but it's worth a look anyway.

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NEW STUDY! This exploratory study identifies a SPECIFIC PHENOTYPE OF LONG COVID that appears related to NEUROMUSCULAR DISTURBANCE rather than lung damage—and they've termed it Complex Ventilatory Dysfunction!

Breakdown of the paper (thread written for a general audience!)...

1/ Broadly speaking, there are two groups of acute covid outcomes involving dyspnea (shortness of breath) as a long-term symptom:

- Severe cases that may have physical lung damage
- "Mild" cases that now have ME/CFS-like features, but who have no evidence of lung damage!

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NEW STUDY! It VERY thoroughly supports the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a zoonotic spillover event in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market—using multiple methods!

Breakdown of the paper (written for a general audience!)...

1/many (but it's worth it, I promise!) This paper reanalyzes the same data from the April 2023 paper in Nature that cast doubt on the Huanan Market hypothesis (pictured).

In the new paper published in Cell this week, another group conducted far more detailed (and statistically sound) analyses!

2/

Want to see 13 academic cry-bullies throw a hilarious, peer-reviewed tantrum?

The real gold is in the 943-word "Competing Interests" section!

I also discovered that ONE OF THE AUTHORS WROTE HIS OWN WIKIPEDIA PAGE 🤣🤣

Thread...

1/19

Kasper P. Kepp "has been engaged in the pandemic debate in Danish media and social media, where he has been critical of the studied zero-covid groups"

It's wildly unethical to conduct a study *specifically* targeting entities you've personally had conflict with.

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NEW PREPRINT! Another study about ABNORMAL BLOOD CLOTTING related to SARS-CoV-2, but unlike the others I've covered, this isn't related to the spike protein.

Turns out that Mpro, a viral protease [pro-tee-ace], can START the cascade.

Thread (written for everybody!)...

1/many Here's the takeaway: The *Main protease* (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2—an enzyme that cuts up viral polyproteins—can also cleave a few host coagulation factors in a way that ACTIVATES them and BEGINS the blood clot cascade.

So that's uh... that's not ideal.

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Whenever I summarize a research paper about the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, people always ask if the S proteins from the vaccines will do the same thing. It's a fair question!

mRNA vaccines are MUCH less likely to cause spike-related problems than an infection! Here's why...

1/ First, the spike protein used in the mRNA vaccines isn't the same as the spike protein on the actual virus! The US-approved mRNA vaccines (and Novavax) use a stabilized version of the protein that DOES NOT cause many of the issues that the wild SARS-2-S protein does!

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NEW STUDY! This one confirms A LOT of other results.

Turns out, SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause lasting EPIGENETIC MODIFICATIONS, which effectively results in ACCELERATED BIOLOGICAL AGING.

Let's dive in! (Breakdown thread written for a general audience...)

1/many This one is dense, so I'll start with the takeaways, then some background, then the details.

The authors conclude that SARS-CoV-2 exposure may have "associations with aging, [stochastic epigenetic mutation] accumulation, and dysregulation in critical pathways."

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NEW PREPRINT! This one seems potentially very, VERY SIGNIFICANT!

This study found "significant reductions in measures of mitochondrial content and impaired muscle energetics" in LC fatigue—AND a corresponding biomarker!

Summary thread (for a general audience!)...

1/many So as you probably know (or at least, should know), prolonged fatigue is one of the most common and significant long-term consequences of COVID, even after mild cases.

Studies have pointed to the T cell response having an impact on mitochondrial function.

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This preprint (from April 5) is FASCINATING. Someone requested I have a look at it, and I'm glad they did, because it made SO MANY separate things suddenly make sense.

Here's a look at how a specific type of MICROCLOTS may be associated with LONG COVID pathology...

1/many This thread will have three things:
- Takeaways of this study
- Breakdown of the method they developed
- How these findings connect with other known patterns

This is a study that looks at some rugged little blood clots that come courtesy of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

2/

My thoughts on this new finding? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"The consumption of BW [bottled water] is associated with heightened risk for certain health conditions," such as:
- hypertension (+5% increased risk)
- diabetes (+9%)
- GI ulcers (+21%)
- kidney stones (+17%)

1/10 This was a very large cross-sectional study that looked at a national population, conducted by Italy's census agency. They controlled for covariates including socioeconomic status, age, and gender, then clustered and stratified the population as appropriate.

Solid methods!

2/10

New interdisciplinary review was published on current Long COVID science, with a roadmap for science and policy!

It is written in plain language, so it's worth a read on its own, but I just want to pull out some highlights about what WE DO KNOW into a single thread...

1/many This is definitely the definition for Long COVID I'll be explicitly using from now on: Long COVID is "the constellation of post-acute and long-term health effects caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection."

2/

Can't believe I missed this!

This review/commentary piece makes one thing extremely clear: We do not yet have ANY STRONG EVIDENCE about how SARS-CoV-2 infection affects PREGNANCY.

The limited evidence shows there IS harm, which may be MITIGATED by vaccination.

Thread...
1/ What is the takeaway? There are three:

- Unanswered questions remain about the effect of SARS-CoV-2 on pregnancy.
- Evidence shows congenital anomalies MAY be associated with COVID.
- Evidence shows vaccination provides "protection from such anomalies."

2/

THIS IS BIG. WOW. New paper in PLOS Pathogens has findings about:
- the effect of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on cardiac cells (and mitochondrial dysfunction!),
- a treatment to be investigated, and
- how this is NOT caused by mRNA vaccines!

Buckle up, we're diving in...

1/ [This paper is an uncorrected proof; it's been peer-reviewed, but not copyedited yet.]

A bit of background: syncytia (sin-sih-sha) are giant cells with multiple nuclei that form from the fusion of multiple cells. Viral infections are a common cause of syncytia.

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New preprint on the PATHOGENICITY of H5N1 was published yesterday, and... it's not good news, but it's definitely not *terrible* news either!

The delayed, lackluster response to the current outbreak remains DEEPLY concerning.

Here's a summary for a general audience!

1/many

They test three H5N1 isolates. I'll refer to them as:

- Texas: Isolated from worker at Texas dairy farm (A/Texas/37/2024)
- Bovine: Isolated from dairy cow (A/bovine/Ohio/B24OSU-342/2024)
- Vietnam: Isolated from fatal 2004 human infection in Vietnam (A/Vietnam/1203/2004)

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This isn't a major paper, but it's an interesting jumping-off point for three different topics:

- Accuracy of RATs—in practice
- Understanding what descriptive (incl. Bayesian) statistics mean
- HOW rapid tests work

Here's a thread written for a general audience!

1/ This study was conducted from January 2020 to June 2021 using admission screening swabs from 556 oncology patients at a single hospital in Jerusalem.

The patients in this study were swabbed for both PCR and RAT, allowing for comparison of the detection ability.

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