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.

⚠️Flu is at Very High levels across the US, looking as bad as last year. Covid has reached High levels in the Midwest and Northeast, but remain low generally in the South and West. Overall Flu>>Covid at the moment because of the very high prevalence of H3N2.

Very proud to be a co-author on this comprehensive preprint on the novel, growing saltation lineage BA.3.2, together with @tuliodna.bsky.social‬, @darrenmartin.bsky.social, Dikeledi Kekana, and lead author @graemedor.bsky.social. 1/11 bsky.app/profile/tuli...

Walgreens ARI has flu nationally at 6/10 and Cov19 at 2/10. There are a dozen states at 10/10 flu. Some NFL teams have up to 10 players currently ill. Be careful out there!

Seahawks-Rams on Thursday: Best game of the season!! Bears-Packers:

Well, I think recent data suggests ~90% chance that BA.3.2 will quickly take over and replace the BA.2.86 (Pirola) lineages that dominated for more than 2 years. 50-80% weekly advantage noted in Euorpe in recent months is convincing that it's turned a corner

BA.3.2* still appears to be a bit of an enigma, with recent German sequences at only 1 out of 30. This suggests that there is still a lot of uncertainty in its fitness advantage. It's clearly nowhere near dominant today if the samples are any bit random.

Despite what some who aren't privy to the details claim, yes there are absolutely seasonally driven trends ON TOP OF the irregularity of sudden escape evolution. I can confidently say that the northern states will have a similar modest winter peak this year and in '26, a Jul/Aug wave in the south

Uhhhh

Flu "Variant K" appears to be expanding rapidly in the US as noted in BIOFIRE data. Confidence is increasing that this will be a bad flu season.

A potentially concerning reassortment of HPAI H5N1 to H5N5 infected a man at his backyard bird farm in Washington state. He has since succumbed to the virus😔. No evidence of H-H transmission, but every roll of the dice creates more opportunities.

Nov 21st Update: NWSS is back! After what may have been the lowest transmission rates since 2021, we are seeing rises again. Expect this to accelerate into the holiday season, especially in MW&NE Estimates: 🔸150,000 new inf/day 🔸~1 in 220 currently infected 🔸~1 in 550 are significantly infectious

It's taken a full year for BA.3.2* to just get this far, but the 8 new sequences out of Germany makes me wonder if it has finally reached a turning point where it could move toward dominance over BA.2.86*. Up to maybe 10% in Germany. We'll have to continue to monitor this one.

Wow!! The X4 flare that just missed us to the right is clocking in above the May 2024 superstorm levels on our Stereo A 🛰!! Sustained -50 Bz That is a brutal near miss of a superstorm that would have probably been visible in Mexico

Not going to say I called it, but not going to not say I called it.

Despite the clouds, still had a decent view of the Northern Lights tonight! Definitely better on camera tonight than to the eye.

What a great night!

WOOOOOW THIS IS A HUGE SIGNAL, GET YOUR CAMERAS READY!

WOOOOOW!! GAME ON FOR TONIGHT! BZ APPROACHING -60

🔸️Early data suggests we could be in for a worse than normal flu season, brought on by a cluster of escape mutations in H3N2 this year that may lift the Re from 1.2 to 1.4. We are starting to see an uptick in the US. Data from BIOFIRE.

💥A *MASSIVE* CME was launched early this morning with a predicted direct hit to earth tomorrow! 1300km/s would be an insanely fast impact. *IF* it has favorable polarity, we could see a superstorm similar to the two in 2024! Get your cameras charged.

This is one of the coolest visualizations I've seen of waves moving throughout the country over 2 years. Note the seasonal patterns in various states. From Yale school of public health

BIOFIRE and WWScan both show the lowest readings since Pirola (BA.2.86*) swept two years ago. We're in a good lull right now.

Will we have a G4 or G5 geomagnetic superstorm in the next week like we did twice in 2024? Honestly? My gut says yes.

We have a solid CME coming our way, with expected impact tomorrow night into Friday! I don't think this activity is nearly done yet, we could be in for a lot of chances this next week or two!

The sun is ULTRA active right now, two X flares today and multiple CMEs! While not directly pointed at earth, we might still see some impacts. I hope these ARs keep it up as they rotate toward earth!

Pretty dramatic damage to the vegetation in Western Jamaica is visible via zoom.earth satellite imagery. October 22nd vs today

GISAID is now blocking genomic sequencing access to critical resources like Nextstrain, Covspectrum, Outbreak-info, & others. This makes us less safe, as live tracking of viral evolution remains critical for assessment of emerging threats. This needs to be escalated.

Defaulting to surgical masks in health care settings in 2025 is one of the most dissapointing examples of reluctance to change despite overwhelming evidence. Even defaulting to KN95 style would significantly increase protection of the most vulnerable. Infuriating inertia in the HC industry.

Every optometrist's worst nightmare. Seriously though, this is not a world record you want to see broken less than a day before a predicted landfall.

The latest dropsondes into Hurricane Melissa shows ultra rapid intensification is underway. A drop of 8mb in only a couple hours down to 959mb, and eyewall wind speeds of 132mph suggests it's near Category 4 already. Wow

Hurricane Melissa is setting itself up to cause widespread damage in Jamaica over the coming days, with up to 40 inches of rain forecasted, followed by the possibility of a Category 4 or 5 landfall. An awful outlook at the moment.

We have two active data sets; 🔹WWScan wastewater 🔸BIOFiRE positivity Both suggest we are now near multi year lows for transmission. I'd expect this to last for another month before Thanksgiving gives it a boost up.

I didn't realize this last night, but Comet Lemmon actually moved considerably against the background stars over the 20 minutes we looked at it!

Comet Lemmon looks awesome through a telescope tonight!

WastewaterSCAN suggests that we are at the lowest levels in years... but I am not confident in that claim without ED, NWSS or Biobot data for the few of weeks. I do miss having 4 data sets to cross compare...

Lacking CDC data again this week, we turn to our secondary wastewater source @wastewaterscan.bsky.social 🔸The trajectory through September suggests that we may be approaching yearly lows today of 150-200k/day.

Both emergency dept and wastewater data suggest a rapid decline in prevalence after a relatively modest summer peak. The lull in evolution continues... with no new fast variants close behind XFG. That being said, we're still watching BA.3.2*

Sept 28th update: Wastewater daily inf estimate are cratering, just as anticipated via the model. This trend should continue for at least the next month. 🔸510,000 new infections/day 🔸1 in 66 currently infected 🔸1 in 165 highly infectious

I heard somewhere recently that if you want your child to excel in math and science, all you have to do is pop a bunch of Tylenol? Big if true

Get ready for late October! Comet "Lemmon" is forecasted to reach an apparent magnitude of 5 to 2, which suggests it could be brighter than last year's comet! And it's green! This is due to the presence of a molecule you'll never find on earth: C2 (diatomic carbon)

Happy Pythagoras day to all you nerds! (9/16/25) 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2

👀

Sept 12th update: Wastewater daily inf estimate increased to 600k this week. Positivity and ED data have both peaked and begun to retreat, and I expect wastewater will soon follow. 🔸600,000 new infections/day 🔸1 in 55 currently infected 🔸1 in 140 infectious out of household

The CDC quietly neutered the best Covid data on the planet yesterday. ED data visualization has been stripped of age stratification, and state-by-state trends. ED data has been far better for state by state trends than WW. Poof.

Sept 5th update: Wastewater data is trending reasonably closely to the Aug 1st model, which predicts a peak this week. High levels in the south/wetst, but it's the smallest wave since 2020. 🔸480,000 new infections/day 🔸1 in 70 currently infected 🔸1 in 180 infectious out of household

A fascinating new preprint w/one very unexpected finding suggests, I believe, that a large proportion of Long Covid may be due to chronic infection in a particular bodily niche, which could be crucial for finding effective LC treatments. It requires some explaining. 🧵 1/33

Awe, I always really appreciate these kinds of responses. I'm glad to help (for free) and I'll continue doing what I'm doing as long as people find value in it

It's hard to say for sure with the holiday weekend interruption, but we might be close to the peak for the summer. Let's see if Friday's data confirms the slowdown. For comparison, last summer peaked at 2.6%. A peak this week would match my forecast on both timing+intensity.