[Text on an yellow octagon meant to look like the output of an overhead projector.] The silent erosion of COVID-19 awareness & management in B.C.: A TIMELINE [A timeline of the year 2025 and the January of 2026. Numbered diamonds are placed on the timeline to mark the events below.] 1. April 16: Amount & timeliness of SARS-CoV-2 sample data uploaded to GISAID, an online repository, deteriorate. 2. May: The end of RAT Kit Distribution Program is announced in a professional newsletter. This provided free RAT kits to pharmacies. 3. May 31: RAT kits orders from this day onwards would not be reimbursed. 4. June: The BCCDC page dedicated to how COVID-19 spreads is removed. 5. September 1: Under the BC medical services plan, less than 20 people will be allowed in an online group medical visit. An unknown number of bed- & house-bound people will lose telehealth access to the BC-CLMF, a long COVID & ME/CFS clinic. Implementation delayed until January. 6. September 15: Vancouver Sun publishes a sponsored article, suggesting the program responsible for generating SARS-CoV-2 data from wastewater samples would be expanded & describes the then-current state of the program. 7. September 18: The wastewater surveillance program is cut: 8 of 12 wastewater treatment plants will no longer be monitored, and 1 sample will be taken per week instead of 3. 8. October 14: The year's vaccination campaign begins to widespread shortages.

I have been trying to raise awareness about the recent cuts to pandemic preparedness by provincial institutions in BC for the past 1½ months. Most of the cuts were not announced to the public beforehand and media coverage has been scant. 1/?

After blasting WHO costs, Trump officials propose more expensive alternative HHS proposes spending $2 billion a year to re-create systems the U.S. accessed through the WHO at a fraction of the cost, according to officials briefed on the matter.

“Spending two to three times the cost to create what we already had access to makes absolutely no sense..."

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

Six years in, long Covid is still with many Vermonters — and they say the system is failing them  - United States News Beep Mary Kate Shanahan has long covid. Seen in South Burlington on Friday, February 13, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

1/
"The most positive takeaway I have had from all of this is reinforcement of my knowledge that I have the capability to self-educate &
self-advocate within a system that seems to be working against providing care [for #LongCOVID] -

www.newsbeep.com/us/484051/

Thoughts on this: clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT048... (with 2 additional protocols now for tazemetostat or capivasertib)

vs hormone therapy & radiation?

54 yrs. Gleason 9. Grade 5. Stage 3.

#MedSky #urology #oncology #prostate #cancer

🚨OPENING SUBMISSIONS
'Impact on Society' - UK Covid-19 Inquiry

Adam Wagner KC, on behalf of CVF, identified unequal impacts and that Clinically Vulnerable people cannot be expected to protect themselves.

He asks for:
Safety
Support and
Status (under the Equality Act)

1/

Housing. The #1 most alienating thing about Canada to young people is the extraordinary cost of housing.

As a housing nerd, I know it’s mainly municipal/provincial, not federal.

But Poilievre identified a sore spot that the Liberals have long seemed out-of-touch on.

This is the sixth death in ICE custody in 18 days. This isn’t enforcement, it’s a system that cages people, outsources care, and shrugs when they die. Abolish ICE.

You all know that disease has been used as a tool of oppression throughout history, and that includes yesterday and today.

Fight oppression. Fight disease.

Solidarity. 😷

In like six months or so we’re gonna have some wild undercover investigative pieces from journalists who got jobs as ICE agents huh

Man 'trains' crows to attack MAGA hats after saying there's 'no longer a moral option A man has gone viral after training a murder of crows to swoop down and snatch MAGA hats from unsuspecting Trump supporters, documenting his months-long experiment Source: Daily Star https://share.google/VB2AOuDvmhM2wn9QH

I can't believe that this has been an option the entire time
*sets up school for raccoons against racism*

Iris Gorfinkel: As a doctor, this U.S. health policy scares me and Ontario kids are in the blast radius Vaccines have become a political loyalty test in both the U.S. and Canada.

As a doctor, this U.S. health policy scares me and Ontario kids are in the blast radius #Opinion

Not Russia, not China but the US today. Sickening.

JFC this works. Really. FFS.

I don't think most Americans have any idea how dangerous it is for a president to declare an entire ethnic group to be "garbage." This is how the worst atrocities in human history have begun.

On RFK Jr., vaccines and my son with autism and Down syndrome Knowledge is the vaccine for ignorance and fear. But RFK Jr. just wants to let the fever burn.

This pleases me (gift):

"I had only one advantage: I’m a historian. One of the true gifts of studying the humanities is not the content we learn in school, but that we develop the skills to learn what we need to know when life takes unexpected turns. So like a proper nerd, I made a reading list."

New meta-analysis shows systemic immune-mediated diseases are linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular death—highlighting the importance of integrated cardiometabolic care.
🔗 https://ow.ly/x87650XIyxo

#CardioResearch #HeartHealth #Inflammation #CardioSky #MedSky

screengrab from https://bccdc.shinyapps.io/respiratory_pathogen_characterization/. Graphics of test pos charts (LOL, no axes labeled) showing Flu A at 13.8%, up 6.4%; Flu B 0.3%, up 0.1%; RSV 3.5%, up 0.7%; SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) 3.8%, down 0.4%

Oof. Flu A taking off like a rocket in #bcpoli (as predicted, but who needs prevention from @governmentofbc.bsky.social, amitrite?!).

Flu A test ~2X in 1 wk, from 7.4% to 13.8%
COVID going down, RSV up a bit, but still LOTS of both around.

#FluIsAirborne. Get your vax asap AND #MaskUp.

Some scientists say that a mere cough or sneeze can produce airborne viral particles. Dr. Annalee Yassi, one of the country’s foremost occupational medical experts, said researchers now know that there is always an airborne component of a cough or a sneeze. A cough or a sneeze never produces just large droplets. She told the Commission: There is unquestionably some airborne spread even if it’s only when people are coughing or sneezing, never mind nebulized and ventilated

Hey everyone, it's time to play "guess the year we knew COVID was airborne"!

(answer in link: wayback.archive-it.org/17275/202203...)

“Leading medical societies and many state health officials say Kennedy is trying to dismantle a vaccine program that prevents disease and saves lives based on his beliefs rather than scientific evidence.”

Intensely funny because it seems like the vast majority of people at that event were convinced it was fully autonomous and Musk has repeatedly recently claimed they're not tele-operated

www.reddit.com/r/robotics/c...

Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications The dataset contains images of children’s faces downloaded from websites about autism, which sparked concerns at Springer Nature about consent and reliability.

Holy CRAP.

Retired engineer takes random pics of *kids*, without consent or attribution, bins them into “autistic” or “not autistic”, and uploads that “data” for free on Kaggle.

Well over a HUNDRED papers are published, 38 in Springer Nature, 25 in IEEE, using it.

And no reviewers objected? WTF.🧪

Not only is ICE snatching hard working people who are trying to earn a living, they’re taking their money too?

A witness recorded ICE agents taking a cash box from a taco stand in La Puente during an operation where four people were arrested.

So, to all the "RFK's got some good ideas" folks (Rachael Bedard, Leana Wen) and Jay Bhattacharya is "an excellent choice for NIH" (Steven Macedo, Frances Lee) and Vinay Prasad "will bring a breath of fresh air to FDA" (Adam Cifu, John Mandrola) groupies--you own this now too.

Federal judge restricts how ICE can arrest people in Colorado, calling past conduct ‘unlawful’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ conduct during arrests in Colorado has been “unlawful,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday in an order that restricts how immigration officers can arrest people ...

I haven't seen anyone else reporting on this great decision.

www.durangoherald.com/articles/fed...

Screen shot of Safe Parkside IG post

Pedestrian struck by motorist on Parkside a block from the speed camera that vigilantes kept tearing down that caused ford to remove them from all Ontario. Drive as you wish Ontario. Nobody matters. This is what you voted for.

For someone who hates socialism he sure loves being publicly owned

FDA drops proposed rule on asbestos testing in cosmetics

www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fda-dro...

Aerosol transmission of SARSCoV2 virus is the dominant route for transmitting COVID-19.
👏'2025 Faraday Horizon Prize for advancing understanding of the physicochemical properties of exhaled aerosols, and their impact on transmissibility of respiratory pathogens.' @rsc.org
www.rsc.org/standards-an...