Catherine Clase @cmclase@qoto.org

Do COVID vaccines cause flares of Glomerulonephritis?
Nice methods in this paper from colleagues
https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/early/2022/11/04/ASN.2022030258

Does it need to be stated that infection with a pathogenic virus does not confer a net benefit to the host? Because sometimes it feels like there is a need to say this.

A billionaire emits a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person, according to Oxfam.

We know which ones we need to hold accountable for the climate crisis.

https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-billionaires-the-investment-emissions-of-the-worlds-richest-people-621446/

I am particularly vexed by the continued usage of #ImmunityDebt. It is not an established concept, and has never been used prior to the pandemic. And it mixes and matches a) population immunity, which is trivially true, b) individual severity effects, which are not, c) has echoes of the still controversial 'hygiene hypothesis', and d) uses a loaded colloquialism - 'debt' - to whom, and why? Would much prefer we stuck to precise terminology.

#stephenfry Poor admins!

List of COVID-advocates/COVID aware etc I have found on here. Obviously a work in progress. Happy to open if people want to add?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRkP-Mj8Z6pVOmeU7T2uVEJXH9SeTW4II20d76ABk3d5uXBh-7NYudf40WOcye0OW-_qtViaVQ8MQZ3/pub

To supplement my last toot of 800,000 years of CO2 data, here's a graph of the past 2000 years for CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide (all greenhouse gases, measured in parts per million) again showing the effect of human activities driving up the concentrations. These are the gases driving #climate change.

For #TwitterMigration my #DoAllTheThings infographic and hashtags for #engineering controls in a small commercial building to address #COVIDisAirborne:

#maskup #respirators #N95 #ventilation #filtration #IAQ #HEPA #CorsiRosenthalBox #UVGI #FarUVC #CO2 #COVIDCO2

During COP27, we urge the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those held simply for peacefully exercising their human rights, implementing criteria set by local NGOs for these releases: fairness, transparency, inclusiveness and urgency. One of these prisoners is Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who is now on a water strike since the beginning of COP27. (thread)

👋
I'm a #kidney doctor working in Sussex and an Associate Professor in #Epidemiology in the EHR group at #LSHTM. I do research into drug effects. especially related to kidney disease, and into #COVID-19. I get to work with the cool kids at the Bennett Institute in Oxford which is pretty great. I think about better use of observational evidence. Except tomorrow, when I will be eating cake

#MedMastodon
#nephrology
#epidemiology #bigdata #realworld evidence
#OpenSAFELY

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

Hey, so, we've hit 1,028,362 monthly active users across the network today. 1,124 new Mastodon servers since Oct 27, and 489,003 new users. That's pretty cool.

It's a sample size of 1 but this new study measuring #aerosol #SarsCoV2 RNA gives us a target size for effective removal by #filtration. In line with what we already know about aerosol generation. Paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23744235.2022.2140822

A system that doesn't address the needs for climate justice and securing human rights is a system that has failed everyone – we need to keep both in mind.
Human rights and climate movements are stronger when we stand in solidarity together. Then we can also successfully push those in power to live up to significantly increased adaptation finance and immediately, drastically reduced greenhouse gas emissions. There is no climate justice without social justice and human rights.
#FreeThemAll #COP27

Mastodon Top Ten Server Status 11/7/2022
Just Amazing! It keeps doubling!
Almost 64,000 new users today on the top ten servers.
Over 34,000 new users yesterday
With around 16,000 2 days ago!.
133,454 in five days!
Servers are stained, but adjusting to the mass influx. Be patient.
Link to 11/6/2022 Status >>> https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/109300393953171450
#twittermigration #mastodonmigration

A detailed tutorial about Mastodon:

https://blog.djnavarro.net/posts/2022-11-03_what-i-know-about-mastodon/

HT @SchoolingDiana in Twitter

Sample size of one, but 90% virus found in the under 5 um so droplet hypothesis is stupid and we should put it to bed already

Night night droplet hypothesis

#COVIDIsAirborne as we knew in the 30s. 1930s. #tw

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23744235.2022.2140822

It's a sample of 1 but a good start on target size of #aerosol #filtration for #COVIDisAirborne HT @linseymarr paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23744235.2022.2140822

Beautiful blog post reviewing the cognitive capacity of multiple animal species. Their work focuses on #animalwelfare and #cognition. #cognitivescience #behavior #physiology
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tnSg6o7crcHFLc395/the-welfare-range-table

#CovidIsAirborne #TwitterMigration

Welcome to Mastodon, where there is no engagement algorithm! Its a change, for the better!

Favorite ⭐ - Just between the author & the reader.

Boost 🔁 - Send the post to your followers.

⭐ posts, you tell the author you liked their work.

If you 🔁 posts, then more people see them!

No text searching here.
#Hashtags are how you search.

Remember, report any harassment.

Block, Mute & Filter to curate your experience.