July 17th Update: A notable uptick is visible on WWScan, with numbers doubling in the past month. We are still only about half or our previous lull levels, but we should continue to see increases. This wave should be limited in potential. 🔸~88,000 new inf/day 🔸~1 in 750 currently infectious

People think the Canada fires have an easy fix (they don't!). Canada has 10x more forest per capita than the US, and it is far, far more remote, most hundreds of miles from civilization. Significant drying caused by increasing temps and lower humidity from climate change are driving these fires.

🔸️Wastewater levels on both WWScan and Biobot remain at rock bottom levels. 5-8x lower than previous lulls and 50-80x lower than our last big waves in 2024. 🔸️<40k infections/day 🔸️We may still see a small late summer wave for the West and South.

📉 Wastewater numbers are currently incredibly low, about *7 times* lower than the spring lulls in years past. We're approaching flu-in-the-summer style prevalence.

It's difficult to nail down because we still appear to be in case discovery mode, but if we take the death trend from Ebola at face value, the doubling time would be ~7 days. That would be quite fast. I really worry for the people in this region.

Modeling the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak: If we assume an R0 of 3 and a generation interval of 12 days, that would put patient 0 back around the beginning of March. 2.5 months ago. We need much better surveillance than this.

Even though I don't think Hantavirus will become the next pandemic, public health needs to step up immediately to control the outbreak. ▶️Thorough contact tracing ▶️Quarantine of contacts & cruise passengers ▶️Serial PCR testing contacts ▶️Full PPE (respirators, coveralls) for caregivers

I think we can finally put to bed the hypothesis that population wide immune damage from Covid would lead to accelerating Covid cases and severity. Wastewater derived cases ⬇️ 75% Hospitalizations ⬇️ nearly 90%

I'm not very concerned at the moment about a wider risk of Hantavirus outbreak from the cruise ship. Cruise ships can double or triple R0 vs its native R0. A virus with a 0.7 R0 can look like a 2.0 on a cruise ship. Very unlikely this becomes a larger threat.

The price of a dozen of eggs decreased $3.65 since 2024, and the average American consumes 23 dozen eggs per year. Eggs cost/cap/yr= -$76/yr In that same period, gasoline has increased $1.60/gal, and per capita consumption was 407 gal/yr Gas cost/cap/yr= +$651/yr Nearly 9x the impact of eggs

April 24th Update: We are at the lowest transmission levels in almost 5 years, 40% lower than our recent spring lows. This remarkable lull should last 6+more weeks. Estimates: 🔸90,000 new infections/day 🔸~1 in 750 currently reasonably infectious (5 day window)

I'm having major February 2020 vibes, where a major impact is coming in the near future, and again it feels like markets and most people don't see coming. This time it's not a virus, but a supply shock. 15-20% of the oil production is offline, the same amount as during global lockdown.

April 10th Update: Both NWSS and WWScan data sets suggest the lowest transmission levels in more than 4 years. BA.3.2 (Cicada) modestly impacting primarily the under 18 group. Estimates: 🔸118,000 new infections/day 🔸~1 in 550 currently reasonably infectious (5 day window)

It's absolutely nuts that the CDC still has BA.3.2 (Cicada) under 1%, buried in the "All Other" category. This was modeled all the way to mid April. ➡️ The reality is BA.3.2 was likely ~10% over 4 weeks and is ~20% today in the US... 2000% higher than what they modeled.

Honest question, why hasn't the market crashed yet? This feels like Feb 2020, when we saw what was coming, but no one flinched. And this is a supply shock, not a demand shock!

In hindsight, the name "Cicada" fits like a glove for BA.3.2. All cicadas are ages 0-17, and that is precisely the most susceptable age group for BA.3.2.

There are 10,000x MORE stars in the universe than grains of sand *on all the beaches and deserts on earth* In that context, our radio signals first sent out 100 years ago have not even reached the next grain of sand. The rest of the universe has no idea we're here.

Anyone with even a high school background in biology would know "cross breeding" with aliens is an insane impossibility. If aliens were on earth (they're not), their genetic code language and cellular mechanisms would be different than earth life. You'd have better luck crossing humans with a radish

↘️ @kkjetelina.bsky.social 's YLE has a wonderful analysis here, calling out the continuously receding peaks in hospitalizations over the past 4 years. We see the same trends in wastewater. The question that plagues WW is whether the signal/infection has decreased over the past few years.

March 29th Update: Nearing record lows in transmission since Omicron in late 2021. Midwest and South are low, while Northeast and West are at very low transmission levels. Estimates: 🔸135,000 new infections/day 🔸~1 in 500 currently reasonably infectious (5 day avg window)

Very interesting trend of EPIC ED data... note the overrepresentation of kids compared to 50+ (and overall average) since Feb compared to prior years. Could this be due to BA.3.2 targeting kids?

A few of us were looking into this recently as well in Luxembourg, & it was remarkable how few BA.3.2 sequences were from the elderly, and how many were from younger groups. We may have narrowed the co-circulation target. Worth digging further. Ty @josetteschoenma.bsky.social for pulling these data

While the final outcome for BA.3.2 is uncertain, its distinct characteristics—extensively remodeled/shortened spike NTD & SD1/SD2, novel S2 mutations, & wholesale deletion of ORF7a/7b/8—make it the best candidate for co-dominance we've seen yet, which could mark a new era in SARS-2 evolution. 1/34

This is the worst type of messaging, and further undermines trust in public health 🔸️Meningococcal meningitis absolutely spreads through respiratory droplets 🔸️Masks significantly limit transmission, especially via source control. 10% Case fatality rate. I'd be wearing one if I were at Kent.

Flu A has almost fully retreated, but Flu B has picked up some of the vacancy. The worst part of Flu season is clearly behind us. Data from Biofire

March 10th Update: After a relatively low transmission winter, we had a long shoulder, but numbers are starting to trend further down. Still elevated in the Midwest and Northeast. NWSS & WWScan: Estimates: 🔸325,000 new infections/day 🔸~1 in 200 currently infected

Shot/chaser! Within 3 hours of this tweet, we've had three massive flares!! X8.1 🔆 X1.5 🔆 X2.7 🔆 Wow this could be an exciting week

BA.3.2 is behaving differently than any of the other variants we've seen. I've been wondering for some time if this is our first example of co-circulation, where only part of the population is susceptable to infection. It is starting to look stabilized in Germany, does not look like a sweep.

What a stupid waste of possibly the strongest impact in decades on a fully positive Bz. This better turn around This would be overhead in Mexico if we had fully negative Bz

THIS IS EASILY THE STRONGEST SHOCK I'VE EVER SEEN. Bt near 90 is insane! *Severe* solar storm inbound! If the Bz stays negative, this will be one for the books

Get your cameras ready for tonight! SWPC is predicting a G4 OR GREATER storm!! If that intensity is reached, expect it visible on camera all the way to the Mexico border

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