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Posts by Marc Veldhoen

no single variant achieves >50–60% global share again.

It will be undermined if a new variant rapidly displaces others worldwide, BA.3.2 acquires an adult transmission advantage, or global cases re‑synchronise.

I think it’s biologically and epidemiologically reasonable, but still provisional.

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c) Regional persistence can also reflect the asynchronous seasons across the globe with additional heterogeneous testing and policy + behaviour differences

The hypothesis could be right if we would see BA.3.2 (or successors) persist across multiple seasons and pediatric dominance remains, and

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Buts:
a) BA.3.2 could be an oddity; a short‑lived immunological gap in children, schools-driven.

b) Viral evolution is still unconstrained
One mutation cluster that can restore strong antibody escape, increasing intrinsic transmissibility, and re‑ignite a wave

SC2 still has evolutionary room.

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That favours niche persistence, not total replacement.
3. Slower, saltational variants fit late‑pandemic dynamics; spread unevenly, plateau regionally and coexisting with others is what is expected as selective gradients flatten.

But (Bsky continues):
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1. Global, rapid takeovers require a strong transmission advantage and immune novelty across all age groups. This seems to be reduced.
2. Age‑structured immunity changes evolutionary incentives
Children now represent one of the least homogenised immune compartments globally
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-A shift toward regional coexistence rather than global sweeps is plausible over the next few years.
-End of large, synchronous global waves? This is contingent on immunity landscape stability, which seems stable. So, certainly possible. The replacement pattern is weakening.
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with immune development and viral biology also playing possible roles.
• Is BA.3.2 more severe in children? It does not seem like it
• Do losses of accessory ORFs alter where it replicates in the airway? Not clear as yet
• Could transmissibility still increase? Possibly
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in SARS‑CoV‑2 evolution, it might favour regional coexistence rather than global dominance. Pandemic‑style waves could give way to more localised, endemic dynamics. Key open questions remain. Age‑specific antibody landscapes are one hypothesis,
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Another signal is that BA.3.2 appears to disproportionately those with reduced immune memory: children. In several regions, its rise coincides with increasing pediatric case numbers, something not seen so clearly with recent variants. f this pattern holds, it may be a shift,
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• It spreads alongside other variants, but this was the case previously, albeit less apparent.
• It dominates in some regions, not globally
• Its expansion is gradual, not wave‑driven
This seems different from past variant behaviour.
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Instead of rapid takeovers, multiple variants from late 2025 are still co‑circulating. At the same time, a new saltation variant, BA.3.2, is spreading worldwide, but slowly and unevenly. Is this now different? The authors argue it is. They make the claims that:
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For the past few years, SARS‑CoV‑2 evolution followed a familiar pattern: a new variant would emerge, spread fast, and replace what came before. This work suggests this global replacement pattern may be changing now.
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Does BA.3.2 epidemiology imply a change in SARS-CoV-2 evolution?

On the evolution of SARS-CoV-2: plausible, but far from certain.

www.thelancet.com/jo...
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Trump’s surgeon general pick faces mounting GOP opposition Add abortion and psychedelics to the list of reasons many Republicans oppose Casey Means.

We're more than a year into the 2nd Trump administration and there's no confirmed Surgeon General. This quiet war raging within the Republican Party is a big reason why. www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

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Registrations to the University of Lisbon, Faculty of Medicine and Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine MSc course 2026-2028 are still open. There is an open day on May 5th and a Q&A on May 7th where we show the institute and facilities and try to answer your questions.

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April 2026; still not understanding that every species is different, that genetic codes are different. That to make Spike protein is a very different code than to make heamgglutinin. That PCR primers +probes perfectly recognise unique genetic code. It is educational failure.

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Crackers.

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Registrations to the University of Lisbon, Faculty of Medicine and Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine MSc course 2026-2028 are still open. There is an open day on May 5th and a Q&A on May 7th where we show the institute and facilities and try to answer your questions.

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A clear, unambiguous statement by the European Court of Justice and exciting news for Europe and compassion in general:
"By adopting a law which stigmatises and marginalises LGBTI+ persons, Hungary has acted in breach of EU law and the values of the European Union."

curia.europa.eu/site/upload/...

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Een houdbare analyse begint niet met morele superioriteit van de ene over de andere, maar met erkenning dat vrouwen op rechts, net als op links, handelen vanuit botsende waarden, belangen en angsten. Menselijk, net zoals mannen. Zonder deze erkening blijft het karikatuur.
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"Links en Rechts" maken hier dezelfde fout; het reduceren van vrouwen tot een type. De ene kant tot misleide pionnen, de andere tot de rationele zwijgende meerderheid. In beide gevallen verdwijnen diversiteit en interne spanning. Het is een te gemakkelijke voorstelling.
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Wie beweert dat er door rechts niet gekeken wordt naar wie je bent maar alleen naar wat je doet, negeert dat juist begrippen als cultuur, aanpassing en nationaliteit normatief geladen zijn. Ook dat is identiteitspolitiek, alleen anders verpakt, maar ook zwak.
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Daarnaast wordt door populistisch rechts vaak één oorzaak voorgeschoteld voor complexe problemen: migratie als sleutel tot zorgcrisis, woningnood en onveiligheid. Dat is geen analyse, maar vereenvoudiging gepresenteerd als "gezond verstand".
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Dat frame is ook niet houdbaar. Alsof politieke keuzes ooit losstaan van waarden, emoties en identiteit (dat Ă­s politiek!). Ook (juist) rechts mobiliseert narratieven over gemeenschap, orde, traditie en dreiging. Dat is ook geen koel, gecalculeerd beleid.
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Dat zou allemaal terechte kritiek zijn. Maar wie dat paternalisme bekritiseert, vervalt vaak in het ander uiterste: rechts als zuiver rationeel, links als emotioneel, ideologisch of wereldvreemd. Dit is eigenlijk hetzelfde zwakke argument, maar dan omgekeert.
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Nog problematischer is de impliciete gedachte dat vrouwen die rechts stemmen vooral worden verleid, misleid of ingezet. Dat ondermijnt het handelingsvermogen van de vrouw en maakt politieke keuze tot sociologisch symptoom. Dit lijkt me niet sterk en kan bekritiseerd worden.
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Maar de column noemt deze zorgen “gekaapt” en de antwoorden “vals”, zonder stil te staan bij de vraag waarom juist deze oplossingen voor kiezers logisch, haalbaar of eerlijk kan aanvoelen. Hier vervangt oodeel/afwijzing verklaring, en analyse stopt waar het interessant wordt
3/10

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Terecht is de observatie dat thema’s als veiligheid, zorg en sociale cohesie reële zorgen zijn. Die vragen zijn niet verzonnen, en vrouwen kunnen daar natuurlijk legitiem politiek op reageren, ook via rechtse partijen. Dit op zich is toch echt geen probleem.
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Wat beweegt de vrouw op rechts?
De column raakt iets terechts: het idee dat vrouwen op rechts vaak als “raadsel” worden neergezet, alsof hun stemgedrag afwijkt van wat bij hun gender of identiteit “hoort”. Die verwondering verraadt een normatief kader.
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Mitochondrial vulnerability underlies myocarditis from COVID-19 mRNA vaccine | Nature Communications mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have been widely adopted to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. However, myocarditis has emerged as a rare but severe adverse effect, predominantly affecting young males. Here, we show that mitochondrial vulnerability is associated with mRNA vaccine-associated myocarditis. In our case-control study, patients with postvaccination myocarditis exhibited mitochondrial abnormalities. To examine the impact of mitochondrial damage, mRNA vaccines were administered to Polg+/D257A mice, which heterozygously express a proofreading-deficient mitochondrial DNA polymerase that sensitizes mitochondria to stress. mRNA vaccination in Polg+/D257A mice reduced left ventricular ejection fraction and induced cardiac immune cell infiltration. Bazedoxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator, prevented the reduction of cardiac function in Polg+/D257A mice, suggesting a protective role for estrogen signaling. Notably, mRNA vaccination induced mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, resulting in RIPK3 activation, a necroptosis-related kinase, in cardiomyocytes. Collectively, we propose that mitochondrial vulnerability is a potential risk factor for myocarditis following mRNA vaccination, possibly through reactive oxygen species-mediated necroptosis signaling. This study shows that mitochondrial vulnerability increases the risk of myocarditis after mRNA vaccination by promoting inflammatory cell death in cardiomyocytes, identifying a potential mechanism underlying rare but severe cardiac adverse events.

Mitochondrial vulnerability underlies myocarditis from COVID-19 mRNA vaccine

If mitochondria are vulnerable, inflammatory stress from inflammation inlcuding vaccination can precipitate myocarditis through ROS‑driven necroptosis.

www.nature.com/artic...
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