Here's the latest variant picture for Europe (excluding the UK), to late January. XFG.* "Stratus" remained just dominant, finishing at 41%. NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" continued growing, to 30%. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" grew to 23%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #EUR 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United Kingdom, to late January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued falling sharply to finish at 38% BA.3.2.* grew suddenly and is challenging for dominance at 34%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #UK #BA_3_2 #Cicada 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Canada, to late January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued falling to 47% frequency, and is now being challenged by NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus", which grew to 40%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Canada #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to late January. The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, flat at 71% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was also flat at 15%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to late January. XFG.* "Stratus" seems clearly dominant, at around 50%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Australia, to mid-January. NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" grew to 50% then fell back slightly to 43%, while XFG.* "Stratus" grew to 29%. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" peaked at 30% but has since fallen back to 14%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to late January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, but fell sharply to 52% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew slightly to 28%,. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" rebounded to 7%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global 🧵

A "Stratus" sub-lineage XFG.5.1.7 (that @siamosolocani.bsky.social spotted late last year from Indonesia) is growing in frequency in Western Australia. XFG.5.1.7 features the Spike K679R mutation, and Federico said the WA branch also has a P139S mutation, which creates a N137 Glycan. #SARSCoV2 🧵

Here’s the January 2026 update I just sent to my GitHub Sponsors. I continued to share results from these projects, here and on other social media platforms mike-honey.github.io/sponsors/Git... 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Canada, to mid-January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, but fell to 57% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew to 37%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Canada #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to mid-January. The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, but fell to 71% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew to 15%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to late January. In a chaotic scene, NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus", JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) and XFG.* "Stratus" are all significant. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" is also present, but at only 11%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #DeFLuQE #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Australia, to mid-January. NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" grew to 50%, while XFG.* "Stratus" grew to 35%. The view is muddied by patchy sequencing volumes. Recent samples are only from NSW & WA. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to mid-January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, but was roughly flat at 60% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was also fairly flat at 27%,. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" fell to 3%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global 🧵

Measles cases in Australia are also off to a steeper start in 2026, after reaching a level in 2025 that was roughly equivalent to the US tally, on a per-capita basis. But not as steep as the recent US growth, thankfully. 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to mid-January. The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, falling slightly to 74% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was roughly flat at 12%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Europe (excluding the UK), to mid-January. XFG.* "Stratus" remained just dominant, but fell to 38%. NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" grew sharply to finish at 32%. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" fell to 19%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #EUR 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United Kingdom, to mid-January. XFG.* "Stratus" remained dominant, but fell sharply to 44% NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" grew steadily to 31%. BA.3.2.* fell slightly to 20%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #UK #BA_3_2 #Cicada 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Canada, to mid-January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, but fell to 60% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew to 33%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Canada #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to mid-January. In a chaotic scene, NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus", JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) and XFG.* "Stratus" are all significant. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" is also present, but at only 8%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #DeFLuQE #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Australia, to mid-January. The overall view is muddied by patchy sequencing volumes. NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" grew to 41%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to mid-January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, but fell to 56% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew to 28%, mostly driven from Western Europe. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" was flat at 5%, #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Europe (excluding the UK), to early January. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" showed a steady growth advantage of 7% per day (49% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus", with a crossover in late December. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #EUR #BA_3_2 #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United Kingdom, to early January. BA.3.2.* soared to 70% of recent samples in Scotland. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #UK #BA_3_2 #Cicada 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Canada, to early January. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, growing slightly to 64% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" fell to 27%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Canada #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to early January. The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, falling slightly to 78% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew slightly to 11%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to mid-January. In a chaotic scene, NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus", JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) and XFG.* "Stratus" are all significant. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" is also present, but at low frequencies so far. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Australia, to early January. The overall view is muddied by patchy sequencing volumes. BA.3.2.* "Cicada", NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus", JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) and XFG.* "Stratus" all finished in the 22-26% range. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia #BA_3_2 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to early January. Globally from November, BA.3.2.* "Cicada" showed a growth advantage of 3.5% per day (25% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus". #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global #BA_3_2 #Cicada 🧵

The discontinued Aged Care data was the basis of my "risk estimate", so I will not be able to continue producing that analysis. bsky.app/profile/mike...

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to late December. The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, finishing at 82% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was roughly flat at 9%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to early January. In a chaotic scene, NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" is being challenged by JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) and XFG.* "Stratus". #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #DeFLuQE #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Australia, to late December. The overall view is muddied by patchy sequencing volumes. BA.3.2.* finished at 27% with NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" just higher at 35%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia #BA_3_2 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to late December. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" showed a growth advantage of 5% per day (35% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus". The low sample sizes for late-December make this even more uncertain than usual. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global #BA_3_2 #Cicada 🧵

Here’s the December 2025 update I just sent to my GitHub Sponsors. I continued to share results from these projects, here and on other social media platforms mike-honey.github.io/sponsors/Git... 🧵

"NSW records the highest number of road deaths in eight years" A few "reasons" given: drugs, alcohol, speeding. Ofc all of those factors long before COVID arrived to infect and reinfect almost the everyone, with known cognitive impacts. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Here's my "2025 - Year in Review". I'm really looking forward to 2026! My New Years Resolution: make more folders. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctTQ...

It looks like there's a fairly easy "two-fer" there - their data clearly shows a dramatic change in momentum, step up and continued acceleration from 2020 onwards. Remind me again which novel disease with known cognitive impacts arrived in 2020?

If do you get a shot at being the Health minister in years to come, it looks like there's a fairly easy "two-fer" there - their data clearly shows a dramatic change in momentum, step up and continued acceleration from 2020 onwards. A novel disease with known cognitive impacts arrived in 2020.

BA.3.2 emerged in Nov 2024 after ~3 years of intrahost evolution with >50 new spike AA muts, but since then, it's changed very little. Could the mutagenic drug molnupiravir (MOV) galvanize BA.3.2 into pursuing new evolutionary paths? A new 89-mut BA.3.2 sequence hints that it could. 1/11

A recent scientific paper compared long-term mortality by vaccination status. I noticed that Table 2 drew a lot of attention, but was actually included in the paper as a static image. So I built a quick dataviz project to explore. 🧵

The unprecedented second wave of influenza in NSW continues to grow, driven by A/H3N2 subclade K - "Kangaroo variant". Even if the peak is imminent (no sign of that), it looks set to continue well into January. No sign of any effective public health response.

The unprecedented second wave of influenza in SA continues to grow. Even if the peak is imminent (no sign of that), It looks set to continue well into January. ED capacity smashed. No sign of any effective public health response.

This piece and the quotes from QLD Health really mischaracterise the current situation. WRT NNDSS case data, there is clearly an unprecedented second wave underway, with cases rising again (after a trough in October) to roughly half the winter peak. 1/

Here's the latest variant picture for Europe (excluding the UK), to the end of November. BA.3.2.* "Cicada" showed a slightly slowing growth advantage of 7% per day (49% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus", which predicts a crossover in late December. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #EUR #BA_3_2 #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United Kingdom, to the end of November. For the UK, BA.3.2.* "Cicada" showed a slowing growth advantage of 3.2% per day (22% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus", which predicts a crossover in late January. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #UK #BA_3_2 #Cicada 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for Canada, to the end of November. XFG.* "Stratus" continued to dominate, up slightly to 73%. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" also rose, to 23%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Canada #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to the end of November. The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, but fell to 81% frequency. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was up slightly to 9%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to early December. In a chaotic scene, NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" is being challenged by JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) and XFG.* "Stratus". #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #DeFLuQE #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for South Australia, to late November. NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" is dominant but generally falling, finishing at 56%. JN.1.* +DeFLuQE (led by PE.1.4) is also very significant at 37%. No further samples of BA.3.2.* were reported. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia #BA_3_2 🧵