H5N1 infections in wildfowl and poultry are increasing quickly in North America and Europe as a result of the southward migration of wild birds. With a severe flu season ahead of us, driven by H3N2, the risk of reassortment has significantly increased. www.bbc.com/news/article...

1. Rather than, 'Two of the worst winter flu seasons of the past decade have been seen in the last three years, something partly attributed to the *bounce-back of the virus after Covid restrictions were lifted combined with immunity being low*'... www.bbc.com/news/article...

The reason for this is multi-factorial, but the fact that Long Covid is not mentioned once is extremely telling. Especially since the article makes an explicit comparison with 2019. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Considering the vast amount of evidence that Covid can cause serious long-term health problems, mitigating risk of infection is absolutely logical. This should be utterly uncontroversial. But alas, politics, tribalism, and a desire to conform trump logic for most people. Not me.

1. My background is in CBRN defense. I was involved in the field long before the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. I used to essentially discount comments on social media - especially this platform - as fringe, not representative of the real world. Sadly, this is no longer the case.

1. Fundamentally, a significant part of what I do is the prediction of both the behaviour of pathogens in the future and our likely collective response to future pathogenic threats. I have an excellent track record in this regard for two main reasons:

1. The possibility of low-level human to human transmission of H5N1 occurring under the radar is something that has concerned me for several months now. www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influe...

1. I read a study that hinted at this over a year ago. Although the overall individual risk seems to be small, there will be impacts at the population level. The effects of pathogens are an inconvenient truth for MAHA. Non paywalled link in next post. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

I believe that the state and media backed changing of the meaning of the word, 'Covid' to 'the period of time when non-pharmaceutical interventions were in place' rather than the disease itself will, in the future, be seen as the most damaging linguistic trick in history.

I try to be professional on this platform but there are times, like now, when it hits me hard on a visceral level that we are in the midst of a catastrophic global public health crisis and it seems, as a species, we've somehow decided that ignoring it is the best plan we've got.

1. Please read the article (linked in the next post). What galls me is that there is nothing 'astonishing' about this; it was absolutely predictable. The reasons are multi-factorial, but low uptake of flu and Covid vaccines (and very tight eligibility for the latter) are a large part of the problem.

The pandemic has, and continues to have, significant effects on global politics. I am certain that in the future entire books will be written on this subject, but these effects can be distilled to one concept: the vast majority of people have normalised that which is abnormal.

Every time I hear someone who was in government in the UK in 2020 mention lockdown, I immediately remember walking through the streets of Belfast during the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, seeing throngs of people packed in restaurants, and thinking this will kill so many.

I don't know what pathogen will cause the next pandemic - Disease X - but what I do know is that the combination of the immune dysregulation effect of SARS-CoV-2 and the political legacy of our response to Covid means this pandemic makes us much more vulnerable to the next one.

1. There has obviously been considerable discussion regarding the differences and similarities between HIV / AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 / Covid-19 on this platform over the past few days.

1. I've recently returned from a week-long sojourn on the beautiful North Coast of Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, during my stay there, I had to see two optometrists on an emergency basis (thankfully, I'm fine, just a quite dramatic posterior vitreous detachment).

1. Before 2020, I never, ever remember getting sick being portrayed as a good thing. "Most people will get one or two respiratory infections every year. In some ways, it's a *good thing* when you are a child or healthy adult". *my emphasis. www.bbc.com/news/article...

This is why one of my mantras is 'politics itself can be a biological risk'. Wildfowl migration has already begun in North America, which will mean a significant increase in H5N1 infections in poultry, dairy cattle and humans. Yet politics is dismantling the defence. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

I'm old enough to remember when almost everyone smoked, knowing just how bad smoking was for health. A lot of people still drink well above recommended weekly limits, even though they are not physically dependent on alcohol. I think about this a lot when I think about Covid.

The coastal path from Dunseverick Castle to the Giant's Causeway earlier this afternoon. One of my favourite places on Earth.

1. I've had a surprising number of conversations about Covid-19 over the past week or so, all sparked by the fact that I was, as always, wearing an FFP2 respirator. People in healthcare facilities, taxi drivers, people on trains and buses.

Looking out on the Atlantic Ocean from West Strand, Portrush. From the early days of the pandemic, the rugged coastline between here and Ballycastle has been my sanctuary. The photograph is not filtered; the concrete-like, flat, monotone light is typical of October here.

Vaccination is highly effective at preventing hospitalisation for acute Covid-19. The NHS is under unprecedented pressure. A sensible, evidence-based policy decision would thus be to significantly widen eligibility for free Covid-19 vaccination. inews.co.uk/news/health/...

The residents of this community are quite correct to be concerned about groundwater contamination; the dead chickens that are being dumped there were culled due to H5N1 infection. These dumping practices are significant biological risks. www.tmj4.com/news/jeffers...

Why has an intelligent and articulate woman wearing a mask and speaking at the UN provoked an aggressive response from some media outlets? Because her mask and her words have profoundly perturbed people at a deeply subconscious level. The nature of that perturbation is fear.

Let me be clear. As someone who has been professionally involved with the biodefense / biosecurity sector for nearly 20 years, and has worked on biological risk analysis for Covid-19 since early 2020, reducing one's risk of being infected is not health anxiety. It's just smart.

1. The intense and all-encompassing institutional and societal pushback seen in some countries against any intervention to mitigate the impacts of Covid-19, whether that be vaccines, or air filtration / purification, or masks, is not simply as a result of mandates or lockdowns.

1. Superb article by Tess-Finch Lees published today. 'Six years into forever-Covid, the evidence is unequivocal. Coronavirus is an airborne, disabling, neuroinvasive vascular disease that can damage children’s immunity, blood vessels and organs,... Link in next post

I have no issue with this piece - other than the now-expected omission of the word, 'Covid'. What I find interesting is just how mainstreamed 'brain fog' has become. BBC News - Creatine - can muscle-boosting supplement help with brain fog? - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Fundamentally, the reason I avoid Covid is because all - all - of the elements of my life that bring me joy and fulfillment rest on my cardiovascular fitness and / or my cognition. I'm not going to risk a virus wrecking that, as I've seen happen to way too many people I know.

My mother passed away two years ago today. She had a wicked, mischievous sense of humour, prone to extended episodes of the giggles, and a joy in discovering new things or places - which is why I'm sharing this photo of her discovering IG filters for the first time in 2016!

1. Pandemics shape politics and societies. Collective trauma is a powerful force, as is societal reaction to governmental responses to reduce transmission. This is not controversial; humanity experienced it after The Spanish Flu.

This article has now been amended by the BBC listing Long Covid as a cause.

When a virus that commonly causes cognitive dysfunction has been infecting and reinfecting the global population for years but is simultaneously being collectively ignored this is precisely the kind of normalisation you get. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Very impressed with the young guy - mid-thirties - I saw standing on the platform at the train station earlier today, with a slight cough but wearing a well-fitted blue surgical mask. It really is that easy to protect other people.

In my experience, the general public often don't understand the extent to which critical infrastructure systems rely on very small groups of highly-trained individuals. In addition, some of these controllers will have lingering cognitive effects. 7news.com.au/news/covid-o...

This is precisely why Covid-19 vaccines should be available free of charge for everyone in the UK. The government not purchasing enough vaccines to make this possible is the definition of a false economy. inews.co.uk/news/hospita...

The mindset that drives me to avoid Covid is exactly the same mindset that has kept me sober for over 18 years: recognition of the dangers of normalisation and complacency, a desire to optimise my health, and knowing that fleeting doubts are easily quashed by seeing consequences.

What you are all witnessing now in the US - and, to a lesser extent, in other parts of the world - can be traced back to the tacit promotion of the erroneous idea that SARS-CoV-2 infection was somehow beneficial. Hybrid immunity is an immunological concept, not public health.

Cases of H5N1 in which the source of infection cannot be traced always unnerve me. One of the children in California - infected in Dec of last year - is now in that category . These cases always raise the suspicion of an as-yet unknown mode of transmission. www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influe...

1. While it is heartening that some individual state governors in the US are guaranteeing continued and unrestricted access to Covid-19 vaccines in their respective states, it is vital to remember that what is also urgently required is robust surveillance of H5N1.

This illustrates exactly how the term, 'Covid' has come to mean, 'the non-pharmaceutical interventions adopted during the emergency phase of the pandemic', not the disease itself. The 'Covid effect' mentioned in the piece is actually acute C-19 and its sequelae. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/educ...

'The unexpected finding that vaccination-only participants showed superior cross-neutralization compared to individuals with hybrid immunity challenges conventional assumptions about hybrid immunity advantages'. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is an outstanding development.

1. I was at my local pharmacy this morning to pick up a prescription, and as I walked up to the counter, I immediately noticed that the elderly woman in front of me in the queue was wearing a blue surgical mask. She was adjusting it, pulling it up over her nose.

Biological risks are inseparable from politics.

1. The single most pernicious and damaging societal imperative I see in action right now, with Ireland in a Covid wave, is this: 'There's no need to test'. Why? Not just because it tacitly normalises unmitigated transmission, but, more importantly, it hides Long Covid.

1. Biological risk is both multifaceted and additive. Any of the following individual risks would be concerning; when combined, they effectively constitute a powder keg waiting for a spark:

1. 'Overall, our findings raise compelling questions about the potential role of SARS-CoV-2 infection in accelerating or triggering neurodegenerative diseases linked to protein amyloidosis'. An example of such a disease is Parkinson's Disease (PD). pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

1. 'The findings of this study unveil a silent yet profound legacy of COVID-19: genomic instability as a potential driver of long-term health complications in survivors... bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....