The idea that people are chronically ill or disabled because they don't want to get better or aren't trying to get better is borne out of nothing but abelism. It's easier to think it's the patient's fault rather than acknowledge you don't know how to help patients. 🧵 There isn't a shred of evidence to support this view, yet it gets constantly doled out by medics to patients who are struggling & would do anything to get better. The impact is further gaslighting a patient population that has been offered very little for decades.

Rather concerning that only 5% of dairy farmworkers *exposed to ill cows after H5N1 detection* wore CDC recommended PPE. H5N1 (avian influenza) is highly pathogenic, and this is really worrying, given the large numbers of spillover events that have been observed in humans lately

https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1854618612117426392

H5N1 has been adapting to mammals, with the recent circulating strain in dairy adapted specifically to binding to cells in the human respiratory tract. Mammal to mammal transmission has been suspected in specific outbreaks (e.g. mink in Spain), but not shown clearly in others.

The hubris of blaming those whose families & communities have been slaughtered by your leaders for not voting for those same leaders - because now *you* feel unsafe - while sitting in your intact homes that are not being razed to the ground, with your children alive and safe. Implicit in this cry of American liberals is the devaluation of brown and Muslim lives. If it were their relatives murdered by their government, against their screams and protests, it's unlikely they would've voted for them. But white lives and safety always matter more.

If you've lived this long and have not had to realise that - *everything*- where you live, what you read, the streets you walk, what you eat, what you feel, where you work, the climate you live in, and even the air you breathe is political, I have news for you: that's privilege. I automatically find myself looking at how people parse the world, and whether they fit into the former or the latter.

https://x.com/lottelydia/status/1802974150513832207

COVID has disproportionately affected disabled, clinically vulnerable, deprived & black/brown/indigenous communities. To say that that airborne precautions worsen inequity is BS. Rather, these protect *everyone*. If you care about equity, set air Q standards, provide respirators.

https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1788101042506240266

The WHO has done so much harm in this regard, & still continues to, because they simply cannot seem to acknowledge that they were wrong, and that very likely caused harm - which led to loss of life, and to chronic illness in many. We need accountability & learning here. Not lies.

I remember all those who told us that RAT sensitivity was near 100% to detect 'infectiousness' - this study reports 47% compared with RT-PCR and 80% compared with viral culture. The lowest sensitivity is for those who are asymptomatic, and also during the pre-symptomatic phase.🧵 Sensitivity of RATs tends to rise when symptoms begin, but there is infectiousness before this that may not be picked up. Apart from the obvious impacts on transmission, this also has v. important impacts on treatment for people who are clinically vulnerable.

Just read this beautiful author's note after finishing Bloodmarked by @tracydeonn
This encapsulates my discomfort with how we tend to glorify surviving trauma as 'strength' & those who suffer as 'resilient', when they have no choice & cannot escape the violence aimed at them. This is not to diminish in any way the lived experiences of survivors of trauma, but rather to re-iterate that being human and vulnerable means being able to fall apart, and not having to be 'strong' in the face of the cumulative grief & trauma of just living in the world we do.

The success of movements and their reach often depends on solidarity between these leading to advocacy on multiple related fronts. Health equality, disability advocacy, decolonialism, anti-racism, feminism, trans rights, climate justice, health & social equality, are connected🧵 Not all movement leaders see these connections. From my experience, it's often the least privileged groups, and/or groups with an understanding of systemic power structures (often because they are subject to systemic violence themselves) who understand these connections better.

This epidemiological history suggests there may be cow-to-cow transmission of H5N1 taking place (cows affected without clear exposure to poultry/birds), which is quite concerning. To date, mammal-to-mammal transmission has only been identified in experimental conditions. 🧵

https://twitter.com/HmpxvT/status/1774889358174167549

H5N1 has been showing adaptation to mammals (PB2-E627K and PB2-D701N mutations)- which may explain the extensive transmission to mammals (sea lions, cats, foxes, and now cows) and high mortality among mammals affected over the past year.

A huge point missing from the 'cumulative risk' discussion is that it's not just about the cumulative risk of developing long-COVID population-wide, but also what happens to the quality of life of those who have long COVID with subsequent infections. Or does no one care? The limited research we have so far shows that this group is at high risk of worsening with each infection- significantly affecting their quality of life. Something not measured in cumulative risk studies- because those studies only measure new LC among those who don't have it

Given that 'cumulative probability' has now become additive- I guess the chance of getting a head from three coin tosses is 50% +50% +50% =150%?
(yes this is a subtweet, and no those calculations make no sense at all to anyone who has any basic understanding of probability!) The *real* cumulative probability for getting LC is as follows: 1-(the probability of not getting LC)=
(1- [(1-x)(1-y)(1-z)]....), where x, y, z... are the probabilities of getting LC at 1st, 2nd, 3rd infection and so on. The probability increases with each infection.

A brief 🧵on recent experience with possible MCAS (Mast Cell Activating Syndrome) as part of long COVID. Hoping this thread may help others who have symptoms of MCAS post-COVID who may not have been diagnosed, or have considered this possibility & may be untreated as a result Some background- I have had hypermobility, GERD, auto-immune disease (UC) & mild POTS before COVID. After COVID, the POTS, GERD worsened & I developed fatigue, brain fog & PEM. To those who know about MCAS, none of this will be surprising, as all these are associated with MCAS.

The media won't cover high quality peer reviewed published evidence on the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on every single organ system, but rushes to cover 'expert opinion' on an unpublished non-peer reviewed abstract that contradicts everything we know about LC so far.🧵 And of course no one can really critique because we know nothing about the actual nitty gritty of the study, as it doesn't exist, even as a preprint. How does one deal with a system like this?

Using TV shows to support the hegemony of normalising COVID by dismissing those taking precautions as having 'post-covid anxiety'. These shows, like MSM serve to maintain the status quo by dismissing anyone whose actions may threaten this normalisation as 'anxious'.

https://twitter.com/cv_cev/status/1768180056130527361

This is how a one normalises mass infection with an illness with serious long-term consequences. First, they call it 'mild' and suggest it's like the 'flu'. Then they talk about how mitigations like masks are harmful (they're not) & onerous, & how 'people don't want to continue'

This is such an abelist way to framing of how long COVID affects a whole family. Rather than highlighting the systemic issues that lead to CV families lives becoming smaller, it frames the risk aversion of an LC affected person as 'anxiety'
npr.org/2024/03/11/123… Here the partner/spouse of the person suggests that a 'compromise' is needed, where the 'compromise' is basically the person with LC taking risks that could disable them forever if they get re-infected. 'Eating in a restaurant' for example is presented as a reasonable compromise

The public health situation in Gaza is dire -
>1/2 million at risk of famine.
16% of children <2 are malnourished- 70% have had diarrhoea in the past 2 wks
>300,000 cases of resp infection & >200,000 with diarrhoea (1/2 in children under 5)
reliefweb.int/report/occupie… This is entirely man-made- forced starvation and lack of clean water, crowding - all imposed by Israel with support from our govts. Please please speak up. We cannot be silent. Every day more children are dying. And this will continue until Israel is forced to stop.

As govts take aim at Muslims & immigrants with blatant racism, your regular reminder that the most dangerous entities responsible for the most suffering and death are capitalism, capitalist hegemony, austerity, fascism, and ecocide (all of which are linked with white supremacy). It's odd that all those who speak about the 'impacts of immigration' or 'multiculturalism', never speak about the huge impacts of capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy on the world- it's hard to imagine anything that has had greater impact on humans & their environment.

The CDC refuses to learn from UK failures of public health. School absences remained very high when isolation was dropped. Those who were economically inactive due to chronic illness increased. Dropping isolation means more ill people- more absences. It's not rocket science. Even if you want to serve capitalist interests and get the most out of your employees (let's be frank- that's all they care about)- this is a really 'shoot yourself (and everyone else) in the foot' strategy.

Wrong. Studies of N95+ masks show that these work really well when used consistently. The Addenbrooke's study showed near 100% reduction in infection! The authors of this study clearly say that they did not measure SARS-CoV-2 transmission, so this conclusion is incorrect. If this study shows anything, it's that HCWs may need better training in donning and doffing. Also, would've liked to see quantitative rather than qualitative fit tests (one of the limitations that the authors acknowledge).

It's been nearly a yr of long COVID: POTS, PEM, debilitating fatigue. Here's what I've learned about my illness in the past year👇 1) My body hates heat (despite growing up in a hot desert climate). My POTS is *so much worse* in the hot sun. Just a short trip dropping daughter to school & back can floor me. Humid heat is worse than dry heat

I find it interesting that even as the ONS publishes figures about the highest levels of labour shortages due to chronic illness ever, JCVI are taking away the only preventative measure (even if only partially effective) against long COVID in place from much of the population...

https://twitter.com/GillianSmith16/status/1755567895772336598

It's totally antithetical to public health. Once again, one has to consider that this can only be based on ideology, not evidence. The CDC by contrast presented very clear evidence as to why the whole population needed boosters. The JCVI is consistent in it's imcompetence.