A time series for London, but a similar pattern everywhere. Measles vaccine in UK: 1968. MMR in UK: 1988. You can see the impact of each, because MMR boosts uptake enormously. Most of the lives saved by MMR are from measles. Reversing this will - predictably - kill a large number of children.

We haven't quite seen the peak yet (almost there), but weekly Covid-19 deaths in the US are at half the 2024 average, 1/3 of last summer's peak, and below any point in 2023. We'll know more in a couple weeks, but this is an extraordinary change. 1/

The UAE put $2B into a crypto firm largely owned by the Trumps and Witkoffs (as in Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy to the Middle East)—then got export restrictions lifted on AI chips. And let's not forget Trump's other gift from the Middle East, his private jet from Qatar. trib.al/IiVL63t

I found out that the Netherlands has been running a Covid-19 infection survey continuously since October 2020! Let’s have a look! 1/

I’ve written quite a bit about accounts like @michael-hoerger.bsky.social & @jpweiland.bsky.social who purport to divine the prevalence of covid from wastewater. Why? I think they’re selling an unscientific answer to a question science can't answer yet: How is the pandemic changing over time? 1/

How do people imagine he’d do it? With who? To match what Nazis had w the Brownshirts they’d need over 10m street fighters but they’re having a hard time hiring 10K more ICE agents Federalism is a thing He’s very unpopular We need to think about what they have the capacity to do & fight that

Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.

I usually believe in "slow news" and tend to write about things the next day, but this Kimmel shit is such a mess, I put this together quickly. Key points: 1. Most people are pretending Kimmel said stuff he didn't. 2. SCOTUS just last year said that you can't do shit like this.

Respectfully I think this is too charitable. It's not like the survival of Disney depends on any particular merger going through. Its executives already have generational wealth. They're unquestionably in a position to tell Trump to eat shit and they've chosen to collaborate instead

the reason that i specify the disney+ subscription is that wall street loves monthly recurring revenue, disney+ has been growing at double digits year over year, and you eliminate viewership on several of their properties all at once, cancel it for at least a couple quarters to send a message

In the quoted thread I looked at simultaneous infection survey and wastewater data from Wellington, NZ. Today I'll look at a paper which examined more extensive and finer-grained infection survey and wastewater data in UK to try to estimate covid-19 prevalence. 1/

Scroll social media and you’d think racism, xenophobia, bullying and fascism were just everyday opinions. Is this really new, or have platforms given these views a megaphone? 1/6

Addendum: I took a deeper dive, so to speak, in the steaming pool of wastewater data, so you don’t have to. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, a thread (data sources at end) 1/

Related. And this is regarding 2024 covid deaths. The drop in deaths from 2024 to 2025 is shaping up to be quite significant. I find this surprising, 5+ years into the pandemic, that we don't seem to have found the bottom yet. www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Big news: I found one jurisdiction that has a covid-19 infection survey along with a complete time series of wastewater covid-19 RNA concentration. Comparing the two gives a lot of insight! (Unfortunately the only two people who might enjoy this thread have blocked me) 1/

The US has passed the peak of its summer Covid-19 wave (positivity peaked week of 23 August, emergency department visits peaked week of 30 August). The biggest unreported story, I think, is that the percentage of deaths due to Covid-19 remains surprisingly low this wave. 1/

Celebrated Navajo (Diné) artist Marilou Schultz recently completed a striking weaving. Although this rug may appear abstract, it is a representation of the wiring inside an integrated circuit. It shows the 555 timer, said at one point to be the world's most popular IC. Let's take a closer look...

The argument is: We're all meant to sacrifice a bit, so that tariffs can help rebuild American manufacturing. Let's ask American manufacturers whether they're helping.

It is nearly always clear from context that when people use "during Covid" they mean "during the emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic" (too long to write every time!) and are not making any statement at all about the continued circulation of the virus or the effects of the disease.

🚨Border Patrol arrested two firefighters who were actively fighting a wildfire at the time. When the other members of the crew asked for a chance to say goodbye, a Border Patrol agent told the crew member “you need to get the f*ck out of here. I’m going to make you leave.”

🇧🇷 Tiê-de-topete ♂ 🇺🇸 Black-goggled Tanager ♂ 🔬 Trichothraupis melanops (Vieillot, 1818) 📍 Miracatu/SP/Brasil #Birds #BirdWatching #BirdsOfTheWorld

Want to learn to write songs and play guitar? Now you can have an app do it for you! Apologies in advance, rant incoming. Think hard about what you are doing when you let AI watch nature for you. 1/ apnews.com/article/ai-n...

Man, like I said. Starting that graph at January 2025 is more or less the same as lying.

Three weeks later, this is still holding up--percentage of deaths due to pneumonia/influenza/covid in the US is still at 2019 levels, as we approach the peak of the summer covid wave. Lines mark Week 34 in each year. 1/

This is quite a message! 👇

Severe covid outcomes (ED, hospitalizations, deaths) in US have been dropping--down ~2X in last year vs. previous. What about Australia? Harder to get data, but NSW publishes emergency dept visits and admissions, both also down 2X in past year vs. previous. Thick dark red line is year avg. 1/

The salami sub throwing guy WAS NOT indicted by a DC federal grand jury. Guess they didn’t see it being a felony assault on a LEO. But the Banksy-inspired murals have been fabulous!

the CDC had quite a run, its history was one of remarkable success My heartfelt thanks to all the devoted professionals who helped make the world a safer, healthier place Its willful destruction is a monstrous act

HOLD THE PRESSES: Even though HHS says Monarez is out (see tweet) her lawyer says otherwise. What a shitshow. bsky.app/profile/mark...

In a functional government, this would be a five alarm fire where Congress calls in Kennedy and asks him what the fuck is going on

yeah I don’t think RFK can fire her, she’s a presidential appointee

Abbe Lowell and I represent CDC Director #SusanMonarez. Contrary to govt statements, Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor yet been fired. She will not resign. We have issued the following statement:

been waiting for someone, anyone, to threaten these monsters with future consequences. it’s one of the only cards they can play and it has taken far too long. now they need to say it over and over.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker vows to pursue Trump officials who participate in an illegal National Guard deployment to Chicago: "If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me - not time or political circumstance - from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law."

Arguably one of the greatest shortcomings of today's intellectual environment is the widespread failure to understand how digital power works. You can reclaim a bar/town hall/public square by showing up. You ABSOLUTELY CANNOT do that with a digital platform.

Its a worthwhile question to ask if knowingly compromising your ethics is worth 40k followers on a dying social media platform, and I'm perfectly within my rights to be confused why you're still doing the thing you know is bad for nothing

Generative AI loves it, and so the em dash — elegant, gentle friend to writers — is under attack (don't @ me...) www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/p...

That was one of the most batshit press conferences of Trump's public life. He brandished a photo of Putin and promised to deploy the US military to occupy Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. A sane country would be moving toward impeachment and removal right now.

At least equally concerning, istm, is where the cesium-137 on the shipping containers came from.

It's strange to say this, but I think there's a fair chance that Covid-19 may just squeak below influenza as a cause of death in the US in 2025. Quite a change, as Covid-19 was almost 5X higher than influenza in 2024. A few reasons: 1/

Looks like the latest covid wave in the US will crest in the next week or so, at least for the adults (right). Under-18s are still on the rise, will likely crash around school start. If so, that would be a close repeat of last year. 1/

This oped builds off this news from last week that I want to share because that's a boss headline www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/08/m...

A quick addendum to this. The CDC updated their methodology for calculating the Wastewater Viral Activity Level today. 1/ www.cdc.gov/nwss/data-me...

Something interesting is going on with the latest covid-19 wave in the US. Hospitalizations in ages 0-1 are up much more than in other ages. (More accurately: other ages remain unusually low, ages 0-1 look normal.) 1/

A rally in Alaska ahead of the meeting between President Trump and Putin.

I'm going to publish the entirety of an exchange I just had with the press office of the DOJ. I want you to see how they are talking about truth.

Increase a band: SR71

You could read reviews that use hundreds of words to tell you how good this is, but maybe it is easier to just go to Bandcamp right now and give $9 (nine dollars!) to some cool artists and spend that time listening to some cool music. @nojoy.bsky.social - Bugland nojoy.bandcamp.com/album/bugland

New Zealand woman and six-year-old son detained for three weeks by Ice in US enduring ‘terrifying’ ordeal www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

There is a broad scientific consensus that significant challenges remain before reliable estimates of community prevalence of disease can be made from wastewater RNA monitoring. It's a laudable goal, but the science is not there yet. 1/ nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2751...