A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

NEW: At a private Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump asked oil executives for $1 billion for his campaign and promised to axe regulations. Now, the oil magnates are carrying out their part of the deal with high-dollar Texas fundraisers.

Our latest at More Perfect Union:

https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/trump-asked-oil-magnates-for-1-billion

#LongCOVID #LifeInsurance

Bishof said, “As a patient advocate, I urge insurance providers to reassess their policies and embrace a more inclusive approach that recognizes the ongoing challenges faced by Long Covid patients. It’s imperative that we support and protect these individuals, not isolate them further.”

https://clearhealthcosts.com/blog/2024/05/getting-a-new-life-insurance-policy-will-longcovid-be-a

Good morning SARS2PAians!

I hope your very cloudy annd humid Spring is going well. 💐💐💐

The only thing I have right now are VOC visuals.

Nationally, KP.2 in the lead at 12% of random sequencing. The FLiRT variants are not far behind and VERy fast variants KP.3 and LB.1 are still making fast gains even after only a few days.: https://ibb.co/309Ygcj

In PA, classic JN.1 is still at the lead here. We don't have KP.3 here but we do have fast mover LB.1 which is now over 5% of random sequencing.: https://ibb.co/CpyDWkH

IN NY/NJ, immune evasive variants LB.1 already at over 7% of testing and KP.3 almost at 5%.: https://ibb.co/LZ1hZM7

__________
Wastewater

Biobot has released a statement saying they are stopping keeping up their COVID-19 wastwater visuals. There's still WastewaterSCAN but only three sheds are on there.: https://ibb.co/2tYPPcm

https://biobot.io/from-raw-data-to-actionable-insights-biobots-evolution-of-public-data-sharing/

This is another removal of a GREAT tool that helped everyone stay informed, and gave a heads-up when to buckle down on source control issues.

A very good potential replacement for Biobot is Iowa Covid-19 Tracker and I'll start to try to get familiar with that as soon as I can sit down to do it so the vizzes might look very different soon.: https://iowacovid19tracker.org/

I hope to have more info on Friday, and until then have a GREAT week and safe Spring! 💐💐💐

#covid #Covid19 #SARS2PA #CovidIsNotOver #Pennsylvania #PA #JN1 #FLiRT #F456L #R346T #spike_f456l #spike_r346t

#DeFLiRT #S531del

#FLuQE #SQ493E

#KP3 #LB1

#Biobot #IowaCOVIDTracker

#WearAMask #CleanTheAir #WashHands #StayHomeIfSick !

Fire chars home of Black dog walker earlier targeted by racist threats

Just weeks after he began receiving racist threats at his family home, both of Terry Williams’ parents had to be rescued from their home after a sudden fire set their building in flames. Williams’ mother, who is nearly 80, had to be carried out of the building, and his father was rescued as he was trying to escape the building, according to Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter.

https://missionlocal.org/2024/05/fire-chars-home-of-black-dog-walker-earlier-targeted-by-racist-threats/

The CDC asked local and state health officials Tuesday to maintain flu surveillance operations at peak-season levels over the summer.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/21/h5n1-bird-flu-cdc-urges-summer-flu-surveillance/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon_organic

If you don’t understand:

- The profit motive.

- Slowly boiling frogs.

- Institutional corruption (the influence of corporate finance in political decision-making – i.e., lobbying and revolving doors).

You will keep getting surprised over and over gain by what corporations and the politicians bought by the corporations do.

#crapitalism #capitalism #institutionalCorruption #revolvingDoors #followTheMoney #lobbying

SURPRISE for #COVIDisAirborne folks:

#HICPAC has another meeting June 6-7

The deadline to submit a request to make an oral public comment is Friday night, MAY 24. Here's the website to submit a request: https://www.cdc.gov/hicpac/php/upcoming-meeting/index.html

There is apparently no opportunity to submit a written comment now? Weird but ok.

HICPAC = Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, I'll put some links with more info in the chat

#Covid cases have almost doubled since last week in Singapore.

How unique. They have numbers.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/05/20/eyes-on-singapores-covid-19-wave

🇪🇸 Spain: A new wave of COVID-19 infections is beginning to be noticed in hospitals in Spain.

"According to data from the Acute Respiratory Infection Surveillance System released by the Carlos III Health Institute, hospitalizations due to covid-19 have quadrupled in two weeks, mainly affecting people between 65 and 79 years old."

"In communities like Madrid, infections have skyrocketed in patients aged 60 or over, increasing by 60%."

#COVID19 #Spain #COVIDisNotOver @auscovid19

Source: https://bilbaohiria.com/en/bizkaia/el-repunte-covid-es-la-variante-omicron/

May 20, 2024- "A large body of work now supports that months or years after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, evidence of persistent viral antigens -- spike and nucleocapsid -- and viral RNA are detected in various tissues in people, based on autopsy and biopsy studies," observed Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.” - https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/longcovid/110225

When Trump openly and repeatedly exclaims that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” or shares a video calling for a “unified Reich,” he is literally echoing the language of Hitler.

Trump is not a “populist.” He’s not a “strongman.” He is a fascist.

Use the word.

In a place with a history of hate, an unlikely fight against GOP extremism

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho
— Locals prefer not to talk about the hate that took root here a generation ago, when the Aryan Nations and other militants built a white supremacist paradise among the tall pines and crystal lakes of North Idaho.


Community activists, backed by national civil rights groups, bankrupted the neo-Nazis in court and eventually forced them to move,

a hard-fought triumph memorialized in scenes from 2001 of a backhoe smashing through a giant swastika at the former Aryan compound just outside of Coeur d’Alene, the biggest city in this part of the state.


For much of the two decades since, civic leaders have focused on moving beyond the image of North Idaho as a white-power fiefdom.

They steered attention instead to emerald golf courses and gleaming lakeside resorts where celebrities such as Kim Kardashian sip huckleberry cocktails.


Now, however, North Idaho residents are confronting that history head-on as a new movement builds against far-right extremism.


This time, activists say, the threat is no longer on the fringes of society, dressed in Nazi garb at a hideout in the woods.

Instead, they see it in the leadership of the local Republican Party, which has mirrored the lurch to the right of the national conservative movement during the Trump era on matters of race, religion and sexuality.

The bigotry of the past, they say, now has mainstream political cover.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/20/idaho-extremism-republicans-primary/

fucking hell, the PIP assessment (disability benefit) is actually as demeaning as I was led to believe.

If you really think that it's important to have to describe, in the details, the step-by-step process of going to the toilet, in order to see if you qualify, then you've never been in a position where you've had to describe, in the details, the step-by-step process of going to the toilet to a young lady 20 or more years your junior.

For International Tea Day, my Green Tea Chemistry print. This linocut illustrates green tea and its chemistry. There's a tea pot, two cups of tea and a tea plant (Camellia sinensis) on a tray, and in the steam, you can see some of the organic chemicals found in green tea. Up to 27% of the composition of green tea can be a member of the flavonoids called catechins like the molecule illustrated on the right. 🧵1/n
⁠
#tea #greenTea #chemistry #linocut #sciart #printmaking #InternationalTeaDay

Scientists have managed to generate a full genetic sequence of #H5N1 #birdflu from store-bought milk, suggesting commercial milk products could be a way to monitor the outbreak in cows, given the lack of cooperation from dairy farmers. https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/21/bird-flu-virus-spread-scientists-monitor-h5n1-in-store-bought-milk/

When people tell me they read one of my books and found it “quite good”, I like to assume they’re from the US where “quite” apparently means “very” 😊

As opposed to the UK/Aus, where “quite good” is just damning with faint praise.

Unless you say it was “really quite good”. *That’s* when you mean “very good”.

If you say “quite good, really”, that means you’re surprised it was any good.

And if you say “Oh, I say, that is quite, *quite* remarkable”, you’re an 18th-century Earl confronted by a tempestuous highland beauty who is tossing her raven-black locks and flashing her sapphire-blue eyes at you because you’re enclosing her commons 😉

#WritingCommunity #linguistics #quite

Re: the last boost

Is someone working on a global low/no-covid specific dating app?

Because if god willin, there is ever a world where it's safe for me to leave the house again, I would really like to meet people who are:

- systems thinkers
- in solidarity with those who have less economic power
- fighting eugenics and ableism
- able to resist peer pressure
- resolved in their convictions
- thinking for the long term

Truly, I can think of nothing sexier and I mean that with my whole heart.

Caitlin Rivers is an epidemiologist who specializes in outbreak science. She advocated for the creation of a National Center for Epidemic Forecasting, and I have followed her for some time for her insights into Public Health.

She is about to release a book to show the influence of Public Health and tout some of its unsung heroes. I highly recommend getting the book either hardcover or ebook:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704843/crisis-averted-by-caitlin-rivers-phd/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

or follow her on Substack:
https://caitlinrivers.substack.com

#PublicHealth

Here we go again. Singapore CoViD19 cases almost double leading hospitals to cancel most elective procedures to free up bed capacity:

The #SARSCoV2🦠 pandemic is not even close to being over.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-covid-19-cases-nearly-double-hospital-capacity-vaccination-4345961?cid=internal_sharetool_ipad_18052024_cna