Scientists rock. That's it.

I wish we could set this up for difficult to reach places… we might have picked up the warning weeks ago. 😥

2 more Novaseq 25B plates about to finish. 55 wastewater samples, ~30 million people, 3 coasts. Before anyone asks - yes, we would be able to detect Ebola Bundibugyo. If it has an RNA or DNA genome, we can detect it. www.afro.who.int/countries/de...

So… it seems that unlike C19, seroconverting happens fairly reliably in hantavirus infections, especially if they are symptomatic. Just need to take the sample after enough time has passed to produce antibodies.

"Virus in the vents: Study traces COVID spread in high-rise apartment." According to a study, a COVID-19 outbreak in a residential building in Spain during the early months of the pandemic likely spread through shared bathroom ventilation ducts.

So this is not connected to the Andes virus cruise ship outbreak, but it is interesting. The statement “If I have it and I sneeze on you, you're not going to get it." is really and truly asking for it. 13wham.com/news/local/s...

Well done to them. www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/gen...

When I was young I did a stint as an electrical apprentice. We laid the conduit for the Agricultural Department Merredin Laboratory before the slab was laid. I was told that it would have a negative pressure Autopsy of laboratory room to prevent contamination and escape of deadly diseases.

This person is wrong. N95 offers one or more orders of magnitude better source control. Also bacteria can transmit by aerosol — a virus is no problem. Sorry.

Have you tried dish washing and cleaning while listening to Sandstorm by Darude? It halved time I spent doing chores. Sure enought I was knackered after that.

Confirmed. Listening to the Chemical Brothers increases dish washing and laundry sorting by 1000%. Possibly closer to infinity considering I wasn’t planning on getting out of bed today… but too much to do to really stay in it.

How to mess up a response despite building some of the best quarantine facilities in the world? Mess with the recommended quarantine time for both rescuers and travellers. Still. Lot depends on how well PPE was used.

Dear @who.int Amoy. Gardens. Like. I. Said. No further evidence was required. Please apologise for the decision you made to not inform the public. Millions are dead. www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/vir...

Aren’t you all glad you listened to the TV doctors and infected your kids with every virus going as much as humanly possible?

ASHRAE has a new infection control resources page, provided as a service to the public. A large library on engineering controls for a healthy indoor environment. www.ashrae.org/technical-re...

"Why COVID could be to blame for the rise in deadly meningitis, according to scientists" Experts say COVID enters cells by binding to receptors, leaving cells more vulnerable to bacteria. This could help explain infections like pneumonia and possibly meningitis in some people after COVID infection.

So the last time Orthoebolavirus bundibugyoense was detected in the DRC in 2012, it had a fatality rate of around 30-40%. So. Voluntary quarantine globally, wander about the Netherlands shopping in a mask for that too then.

There is a video of a guy in no PPE strolling past the decontamination area where people wearing hazmat suits are being hosed down. If that guy was downwind, he should be isolated. Not because we know the mist is infectious and can survive 20-40m in the sun, but because we don’t know.

Maybe the media are starting to catch up?:

I really feel the same. I owe so much to the scientists and engineers calling this out publicly - it’s how I knew to swap my surgical for an N95. Employers still consistently deny airborne transmission outside of AGMPs and our union has not explained the situation to staff.

I have no idea why hantavirus was or is not in anyone’s pandemic radar. It’s been causing loads of zoonotic spillovers that seem to be increasing. It can infect via inhalation. All it needed to do was adapt a bit more… to infect more efficiently and to transmit a bit better…

I still recall the relief I felt when I was told respirators would be used for C19, and then waking up to THAT TWEER from WHO saying it’s not airborne… and immediately having to start the fight to regain that protection that we had already painfully earned after SARS1.

My guess. It costs the wrong people money. Just a guess though.

It's widely accepted that hantavirus transmits from rodent excreta to humans via inhalation of aerosolized virus, so I don't understand why we're so reluctant to acknowledge the inhalation route for human-to-human transmission. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/h...

Schroedinger's hantavirus

Calm-mongers: "There is no asymptomatic transmission of hantavirus." Precaution-pushers: "How do you know that?" CM: "We've never seen it." PP: "Do you test asymptomatic people who have been exposed?" CM: "No." PP: "Why not?" CM: "Because there is no asymptomatic transmission of hantavirus."

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social just interviewed Don Milton @donmilton.bsky.social about our paper in @bmj.com on #hantavirus and the need for airborne precautions. substack.com/@erictopol/n...

I know that no one wants to swallow giant pills, and we shouldn’t put extra stuff in our bodies that we don’t need… But what is up with the size of the topiramate tablet! It’s tiny. I can barely pick it up.🤣 (I’m not on topiramate.)

For anyone that still cares. Viral infections can predispose people to bacterial infections. www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

Let’s hope the staff are, and that the engineering does its thing.

Chatter has already picked up about C19 in the US… so… all those articles asking “where did it go? I vote we wait at least 18 months before asking that question again. K?

Australia: "Northern Territory records Australia's first diphtheria death reported in almost a decade amid outbreak." "Cases have been recorded in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, with a total of 161 testing positive for diphtheria nationwide."

Nice! I've noticed a lot more discussion about it here in the US as people were surprised to find out that COVID is airborne things to the WHO's comparison with hantavirus.

People are having a meltdown over there because Spain is using centralised testing for the Andes virus, instead of using portable kit. Portable labs have pros and cons.

Every year now, the pre-monsoon heat (the hottest time of year in South Asia with temperatures well over 40°C) starts earlier & lasts longer - due to human-induced climate change - exposing 1billion people to deadly heat. @wwattribution.bsky.social www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-chan...

"Hantavirus Doesn’t Spread Easily, but Officials May Be Downplaying Risks" According to health officials, "close, sustained contact" is the only way it spreads, "but scientists who have studied hantaviruses for decades are far less certain." Source: archive.md/cuJ19

allafrica.com/view/group/m... #cdc #ebola #medsky

Dutch Health Council urges government action on long Covid. The Dutch Health Council says around 400,000 people in the Netherlands may be living with long Covid, many with severe symptoms. There’s still ongoing debate over whether long Covid treatment should be fully included in regular healthcare.

Hubby is getting dinner… I’m on strike. Going to lie down and contemplate the ceiling. There’s no plates left. No banana leaves either. I don’t know what he’s getting but I hope I only need two forks.

#Ebola Oh 😒

May the universe send rainbows to the educator that first asked permission to talk about C19 and then taught the kids about airborne transmission. I think we might be winning. 🏆

“It’s all about who is swapping air, and we are not talking about that. Investigators need to think about who swapped air with whom.”

Osterholm on hantavirus: We’re missing ‘main point of this outbreak’ "Respiratory person-to-person transmission is not new with the Andes hantavirus," CIDRAP Director Michael Osterholm points out www.cidrap.umn.edu/m... Photo: Chris Cooper / University of MN

COVID-19 Virus Found Rapidly Mutating Even in Non-Immunocompromised Individuals and Even During Acute Infections www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-1...

COVID-19 death toll far higher than official numbers, says WHO "The World Health Organisation estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic caused 22.1 million excess deaths globally between 2020 and 2023. The figure is more than 3 times higher than the officially reported 7 million COVID deaths worldwide"

It’s interesting to note that past investigations of Hantavirus transmission noted increase chance of infection between people that had sexual contact… and apparently it’s been identified in semen for extended periods. Not the only way it spreads perhaps, but something to note.

Another reason to keep cats indoors… www.iflscience.com/for-the-firs...

Commentary on the origin investigations for this outbreak... the challenges, and using a bird watching app! #hantavirus www.scientificamerican.com/article/doub...

Did you think that letting the virus rip, killing thousands of people (millions worldwide), disabling kids, and even making grandma care for my kid impossible, with no repercussions, would make me give up? #SaferAir