This Winter, we’re dedicating our book club to Alice Wong’s Year of the Tiger. Her legacy lives in her words - and in how we carry them forward. 🐅 We’ll read together, reflect on her advocacy, and discuss the stories, research, and ideas that shaped her work. 🖇️👇

👋 Welcome to our Master Thread 🧵 We’re here to shift the paradigm for #LongCovid + #ME 🖖 This is our low down in what we do, what we offer and why it matters. Our 1st principles: ⚖️ Legislate 🔍 Investigate 💨 Ventilate 📚 Educate Let’s go 👇 1/18

Authors say these could be potential biomarkers for Long Covid - objective, measurable blood features linked to ongoing symptoms. Paper: Thierry et al., 2025 (Journal of Medical Virology) 8/ t.co/phleRPqDZX

This matters because NETs are inflammatory and pro-clotting. Their sticky DNA–protein webs can stabilise microclots, making them harder to break down and disrupting microcirculation. 6/

They also had higher NET activity: myeloperoxidase, neutrophil elastase, and cell-free DNA - all signs of neutrophils being abnormally activated. 4/

People with Long Covid had significantly higher levels of microclots. These were large enough to detect visually and biochemically. 3/

Researchers compared blood from Long Covid patients with healthy controls, focusing on two features: microclots and NETs (neutrophil extracellular traps). 2/ www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

#LongCovid in The Independent today about the new #teamclots paper that shows clear biological abnormalities involving microclots + immune activation. Let's unpack the findings 👇 1/

And this, too. From a Bishop.

'People coming to UK are being ‘scapegoated’ for years of policy failures'. See Chris Osuh in @theguardian.com 🛑 If you removed all those who were born abroad, or whose parents or grandparents were born abroad, then the country would come to a standstill, PDQ! www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The 'human flu season is officially on', writes virologist, @angierasmussen.bsky.social. And, 'a flu strain that emerged over the summer is causing 'unprecedented' outbreaks in Japan, as well as in Canada and the U.K.', noted @erikaedwards.bsky.social @nbcnews.com. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene blasts President Trump for his attacks against her in recent weeks suggesting it could be responsible for a recent pipe-bomb threat at her construction company as well as hoax pizza deliveries.

International student enrollment rates at American colleges and universities fell sharply this year, driven by visa application issues as prospective students are caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

🇬🇧🇺🇸 The UK and US are failing to manage 'flu risks. 🇯🇵 Japan has declared a 'flu epidemic. People asked to: 😷Mask when appropriate 🧼Wash hands 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧Avoid crowded places 🏫Some schools have even closed temporarily 1/

For some, the first 48 hrs of 'flu are critical. Call your GP or 111 for treatment if you receive an NHS 'flu vaccine based on risk, even if you have only been exposed. ❤️+ ♻️ + bookmark [You may save / share our image]

💔 Clinically Vulnerable Families, including children, are still being left behind. We're fighting for clean air, vaccines, antivirals, legal recognition etc. - but we can’t keep going without your help! Every £ supports our work. Please donate if you can🙏 & share if you can't. Thank you!

"Something as simple as breathing in shared indoor spaces has become a barrier to accessibility and inclusion for millions of people, and it's time to change that!"

H/T Mark Warling on x Avian Flu is causing disruption to the travel and tourism industry. We remain totally unprepared in the UK with zero health messaging on ffp2/3 respirators or #CleanAir. The window is closing on action. www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article...

I'd love to say lots of nice things about this invaluable preventable disease tracker from @monscience.bsky.social and team at Think Global Health. It's an incredible resource. But I can't get over my anger & sadness that this resource is even needed. www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/vacc...

150,000 aged 90 and above wait 12 hours in England’s A&Es each year. Older people left in excrement, wet beds, denied pain relief, forced to watch/hear other patients die. NHS money pilfered by PFI and privatisation But ... Govts have fiscal rules and don't want to tax the rich.

Patients are “paying the price” for a shortage of anaesthetists, experts have warned as a report laid bare the “growing scale of the workforce challenge” facing UK hospitals www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/nationa...

Hannan and Frost in the Telegraph. Sunak in the Times. Kwasi Kwarteng in the iPaper. Johnson in the Mail. Gove editing the Spectator. Farage everywhere. All of them shamelessly honking out their ‘Listen to me!’ garbage, as the country flails around in the unbelievable mess they’ve made. Nauseating.

Covid boosted. I wish it wasn’t £100 a pop but having had covid wipe me out 4 times already I need all the help I can get.

Public Health To Drop ‘Health’ And ‘Public’

NHS staff on the frontline are being forced to plug gaps in services that should be filled by skilled managers and admin staff, according to a new report www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten. "I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA

"We would never tolerate a government that chose to defund 70% of neonatal services, gambling that charities would fill the gap. Yet this is exactly the situation for end-of-life care." Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Oh look. There really are "no go areas" in England. And they're marked by St George's flags www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.

‘Complete and utter bollocks’ you say, Mr Johnson. Oh well, we’ll put all the actual evidence in the shredder, shall we?

“on article 8 of the ECHR in particular the right to family life ..we want to constrain in legislation the way that that is applied in immigration cases” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood tells Sky’s Trevor Philips Who would have imagined we would ever hear this from a Labour government

🚨 For millions across England NHS dentistry has effectively ceased to exist. People in agony are pulling out their own teeth - it’s not Victorian, it’s medieval! We cannot allow this to be normalized youtu.be/FuMcq1HFatQ?...

COVID-19 has not disappeared. It continues to spread, disable, and disrupt lives - yet national strategies still appear to fail to acknowledge its persistence or the need for stronger infection prevention... open.substack.com/pub/joepajak...

COVID-19 has not disappeared. It continues to spread, disable, and disrupt lives - yet national strategies still appear to fail to acknowledge its persistence or the need for stronger infection prevention. joepajak.substack.com/p/covid-19-p...

🚨This is so important: "After years of denial the international consensus is now shifting,” according to physicist @yaneerbaryam.bsky.social COVID-19 is: 🛑creating a 12.9% increase in workplace absences compared to pre-pandemic 🛑causing a 2% increase in excess deaths vs. pre-pandemic 1/

Six years in, COVID isn’t “over.” Repeated infections raise risks for heart disease, dementia, immune dysfunction, higher infection rates for many diseases, and cancer. These harms are cumulative — every act of prevention matters.

COVID continues Circulation of COVID variants has created a new year-round baseline for work absences and excess deaths (the level of mortality above what it was before the pandemic) remains significantly elevated). And within these, Long COVID. @yaneerbaryam.bsky.social thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

I appreciate Andrew Nikiforuk at @TheTyee for highlighting the continuing science of COVID and the importance of prevention. The virus keeps reshaping health and society — we can still choose to act wisely. thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

New Data: COVID-19 infection causes many times more serious health problems in kids than vaccination does. Vaccines reduce risk — not just of infection, but of long-term complications. Explainer in The Globe and Mail: www.theglobeandmail.com/life/wellnes...

Tom Hanks on mask wearing: “I’ve had COVID enough in my life” www.thecanary.co/global/world...

Canada has just lost measles elimination status. The U.S. will undoubtedly follow shortly. Elimination means that there is no continuous spreading of measles within the country for a year or longer. Canada and the U.S. have blown it, and it’s largely the fault of the anti-vaccination movement.

I have a lot of travel coming up, and it's that time of year, so I just got my flu and COVID shots.

Healthy indoor air is a proven prescription for public health that can help fortify our buildings and enhance people’s health, protecting against respiratory diseases and illnesses, cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline. resources.wellcertified.com/press-releas...

Could a “smoke alarm” for airborne contaminants monitor and improve the quality of the air indoors? (Where Americans spend 90 percent of their time!) An interdisciplinary research team led by @linseymarr.bsky.social will create such a system that could cut respiratory illnesses by 25 percent. 👏

Thanks to Erica Hartmann for leading a newly published paper, "Ten questions concerning indoor dust." What is it? Where does it come from? How does it mediate environmental exposures? How does it affect chemicals indoors? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Evidence continues to accumulate linking exposure to air pollution with dementia. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/h...

There’s more flu around earlier this year. I’ve had my flu jab, have you had yours yet? Get yourself booked in as it can make a big difference to you and others around you.

Evidence suggests COVID vaccination 'continues to help protect against severe illness, hospitalisations and deaths arising from COVID-19', according to @ukhsa.bsky.social . Source: ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2025/06/26/w... Please sign this petition Thank YOU! www.change.org/Make-Covid-V...

Most people contract COVID-19 after inhaling SARSCoV2 virus in surrounding air. @ukhadds.bsky.social @chemistryworld.com 👉Note: critical importance of ventilation and maintaining low CO2 concentrations in indoor environments for mitigating disease transmission. www.chemistryworld.com/news/elevate...

If you're curious as to why inhaling particles in your lungs will affect your blood pressure, I put an explainer video that gets into all of that: youtu.be/idddJ-JsV_o