JPWeiland

❄️ Holiday Season Forecast: 🔹The wildest forecast I've ever made was for Dec 2021, predicting multiple millions of daily infections. This one is easily second place. A very muted holiday wave relative to all prior years, due to weak evolution and large summer numbers.

In essence, this is no different than running risky Gain-of-Function research on a dangerous pathogen... Uncontrolled H5N1 outbreaks on mink farms are a global risk, as Mink have α2,6 receptors similar to humans. The virus could evolve that infection route in Mink www.propublica.org/article/bird...

Possibility of a huge northern lights show tonight for Europe and/or North America 👀 👀

PJ.2.1 is a brand new, highly mutated variant (from a BA.2.86 Pirola base) It's looking to me like it may have some speed 👀 Will continue to monitor this one. Most interesting variant in a good while.

July 17th Update: A notable uptick is visible on WWScan, with numbers doubling in the past month. We are still only about half or our previous lull levels, but we should continue to see increases. This wave should be limited in potential. 🔸~88,000 new inf/day 🔸~1 in 750 currently infectious

People think the Canada fires have an easy fix (they don't!). Canada has 10x more forest per capita than the US, and it is far, far more remote, most hundreds of miles from civilization. Significant drying caused by increasing temps and lower humidity from climate change are driving these fires.

🔸️Wastewater levels on both WWScan and Biobot remain at rock bottom levels. 5-8x lower than previous lulls and 50-80x lower than our last big waves in 2024. 🔸️<40k infections/day 🔸️We may still see a small late summer wave for the West and South.

📉 Wastewater numbers are currently incredibly low, about *7 times* lower than the spring lulls in years past. We're approaching flu-in-the-summer style prevalence.

It's difficult to nail down because we still appear to be in case discovery mode, but if we take the death trend from Ebola at face value, the doubling time would be ~7 days. That would be quite fast. I really worry for the people in this region.

Modeling the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak: If we assume an R0 of 3 and a generation interval of 12 days, that would put patient 0 back around the beginning of March. 2.5 months ago. We need much better surveillance than this.

I'm not very concerned at the moment about a wider risk of Hantavirus outbreak from the cruise ship. Cruise ships can double or triple R0 vs its native R0. A virus with a 0.7 R0 can look like a 2.0 on a cruise ship. Very unlikely this becomes a larger threat.

April 24th Update: We are at the lowest transmission levels in almost 5 years, 40% lower than our recent spring lows. This remarkable lull should last 6+more weeks. Estimates: 🔸90,000 new infections/day 🔸~1 in 750 currently reasonably infectious (5 day window)

It's absolutely nuts that the CDC still has BA.3.2 (Cicada) under 1%, buried in the "All Other" category. This was modeled all the way to mid April. ➡️ The reality is BA.3.2 was likely ~10% over 4 weeks and is ~20% today in the US... 2000% higher than what they modeled.

Honest question, why hasn't the market crashed yet? This feels like Feb 2020, when we saw what was coming, but no one flinched. And this is a supply shock, not a demand shock!

In hindsight, the name "Cicada" fits like a glove for BA.3.2. All cicadas are ages 0-17, and that is precisely the most susceptable age group for BA.3.2.

There are 10,000x MORE stars in the universe than grains of sand *on all the beaches and deserts on earth* In that context, our radio signals first sent out 100 years ago have not even reached the next grain of sand. The rest of the universe has no idea we're here.

Anyone with even a high school background in biology would know "cross breeding" with aliens is an insane impossibility. If aliens were on earth (they're not), their genetic code language and cellular mechanisms would be different than earth life. You'd have better luck crossing humans with a radish

↘️ @kkjetelina.bsky.social 's YLE has a wonderful analysis here, calling out the continuously receding peaks in hospitalizations over the past 4 years. We see the same trends in wastewater. The question that plagues WW is whether the signal/infection has decreased over the past few years.

Very interesting trend of EPIC ED data... note the overrepresentation of kids compared to 50+ (and overall average) since Feb compared to prior years. Could this be due to BA.3.2 targeting kids?

While the final outcome for BA.3.2 is uncertain, its distinct characteristics—extensively remodeled/shortened spike NTD & SD1/SD2, novel S2 mutations, & wholesale deletion of ORF7a/7b/8—make it the best candidate for co-dominance we've seen yet, which could mark a new era in SARS-2 evolution. 1/34

This is the worst type of messaging, and further undermines trust in public health 🔸️Meningococcal meningitis absolutely spreads through respiratory droplets 🔸️Masks significantly limit transmission, especially via source control. 10% Case fatality rate. I'd be wearing one if I were at Kent.

Flu A has almost fully retreated, but Flu B has picked up some of the vacancy. The worst part of Flu season is clearly behind us. Data from Biofire

March 10th Update: After a relatively low transmission winter, we had a long shoulder, but numbers are starting to trend further down. Still elevated in the Midwest and Northeast. NWSS & WWScan: Estimates: 🔸325,000 new infections/day 🔸~1 in 200 currently infected

Shot/chaser! Within 3 hours of this tweet, we've had three massive flares!! X8.1 🔆 X1.5 🔆 X2.7 🔆 Wow this could be an exciting week

What a stupid waste of possibly the strongest impact in decades on a fully positive Bz. This better turn around This would be overhead in Mexico if we had fully negative Bz

THIS IS EASILY THE STRONGEST SHOCK I'VE EVER SEEN. Bt near 90 is insane! *Severe* solar storm inbound! If the Bz stays negative, this will be one for the books

Get your cameras ready for tonight! SWPC is predicting a G4 OR GREATER storm!! If that intensity is reached, expect it visible on camera all the way to the Mexico border

I can't express enough how nice it is to receive feedback like this in my replies! It's a large part of what makes me continue to do this work.