For the BA.3.2 aficionados, the latest PHF Science COVID-19 Genomics Insights Dashboard report for New Zealand is out. They conclude that children are over-represented in BA.3.2 samples.
www.phfscience.nz/digital-libr...
That's a lot of sequences!
The number of 5-17 year-olds hospitalized with covid in NY, MD, NJ, and MA in the last week was ... two.
(Not 2 in 100,000, just 2 children. 1 in NY, 1 in NJ).
I guess the sequences are older than that?
data.cdc.gov/Public-Healt...
Australian Hobby looks somewhat similar. But if you got the impression of a muscular falcon with a dark hood, then Peregrine. And if it was in the city/suburbs, almost certainly Peregrine.
Wow, ten meters is pretty special! I have seen them on top of the Menzies Building a few times. Or zooming overhead here and there. The Noisy Miners are good at sounding the alarm.
One (maybe the best one?) of the birds you can see almost anywhere*
*New Zealand excepted
Online discourse seems powered less by the exchange of ideas than the constant hunt for conceptual objects that the listener can have and express strong feelings about. Indignation Objects, Rage Objects, and Self-Righteousness Objects seem especially highly valued
Does BA.3.2 epidemiology imply a change in SARS-CoV-2 evolution? - The Lancet Infectious Diseases www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
But that was the point of the model, to test that hypothesis. So far so good!
I was agnostic when I made this model. But now I am a believer. I think seasonal factors--climate and behaviour--primarily determine wave timing, and variants/waning immunity can only move the waves a few weeks(!) later or earlier.
Should add that the below is true (peak-to-trough doesn't vary) for normally distributed data, which this data...isn't. bsky.app/profile/mich...
One other crazy thing I noticed: The aggregate value is the *median* (not the mean, or weighted mean, or...) of the WVALs for the region being aggregated.
Which explains some weirdness, as in how you can "average" some things that are all 1 or greater than 1, and get exactly 1.
I agree that the peak-to-trough ratio is determined only by the methodology, and doesn't vary with the actual peak-to-trough ratio. It's not as clear to me that this explains why e.g. the average WVAL for all of 2025 is still 57% of the average WVAL for 2022.
Idling jet engines at airports produce incredible amounts of CO2. The outside air often has very high CO2 when you're on the ground. And low CO2 in the air.
But when there's air blowing out of the vents/nozzles in the ceiling the air handler is on, and when it is on, the air is HEPA filtered.
Yikes. High-quality respirators and mRNA vaccines are the two things that will make the most difference in the next flu pandemic, and we've screwed both of those up.
Yes. I even think it's worse than learning nothing--we learned everything wrong. As bad as covid was, the mistakes next time may be worse.
You were much more optimistic about covid than I was 😆
Anyway, do you have any stock market picks? Who's going to win the election in '28?
But did you expect it to keep dropping through 2026? That's the part I find surprising. By end of 2022 almost everyone in US had experienced covid (via vaccination or infection) twice, some more (e.g. 3X vax + 1-2X infection).
Yes, I think Moderna and Pfizer are researching mRNA flu vaccines. I think the biggest advantage is that they can be employed rapidly, so will be useful for A/H5N1 if it becomes pandemic.
This is a terrific new album from a great local indie band. I could tell you more about how cool it is, carving a line between gritty and pretty, but why not just go to Bandcamp and pay the paltry sum of AUD$14.50 and feel good about supporting artists?
hotgluetheband.bandcamp.com/album/again-...
I don't think it was at all clear in 2022 that it was going to go that way. It wasn't clear how much the immunity of people who are less vulnerable to covid would protect the more vulnerable. Now it's clear that it is a substantial effect.
(Doesn't mean other measures aren't warranted!)
...compared to 2022, there's probably ~5X less covid around, so it's 5X easier to avoid.
Totally understand. For people who don't need to take any particular precautions, it's good news (they're less likely to get covid, and if they do, it's less likely to be severe). But for people who really need to work to avoid getting a respiratory infection, it's also good news...
Instead the drop is almost completely driven by immunity from past infections which has both lowered the prevalence of covid and lowered average severity.
I think vaccination rates *do* have a significant effect on how much severe disease from covid there is, but, also, they're low and dropping over time so they don't have much effect on the *change* in the amount of severe disease.
I find the continued decline in the incidence of severe acute respiratory illness due to Covid-19 even into 2026 quite surprising, but the data are convincing that that's what's happening.
At any rate, it's good news!
3/3
Emergency department visits for Covid-19 have fallen by about a factor of 7 since their peak in 2022 on a one-year rolling average basis.
Covid-19 is less than half as likely as flu to bring you to the emergency room in the US, on a year-round basis.
2/
The percentage of emergency department visits in the US for Covid-19 has fallen to its lowest level since March 2020.
1/
ai art is pretty cool gotta admit
(If you do work for the CDC, maybe you can get them to put the rest of the methodology on that page? It's missing a lot of steps including the inverse log transform at the end.)
Amazing. CDC just updated their methodology page, and now they indicate that they *do* update all historical values to reflect the new baseline.😮
You don't work for the CDC, do you? 🤣😬
www.cdc.gov/wastewater/a...