Becca Peter

When you get a vaccine or a medical checkup, we expect the healthcare worker to wash their hands and wear gloves.

We should think the same about wearing masks in medical settings. Viruses can spread pre-symptomatically; masks are another effective infection control measure.

Studies show mostly poor long-COVID protection for Paxlovid

A small protective effect was only seen in older adults.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/s...

Photo: Anthony Quintano/Flickr cc

You know what actually seems linked to an increase in type 1 diabetes among kids in recent years? A disease they said children didn't need to be vaccinated for.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Not only did this scammer take $100K in his scam lying to kids, he also destroyed more than $28K of federally-purchased vaccines - taxpayers paid for - when vaccines first became available. It’s not just RFK and it’s not just “skepticism.” Our government is willing to lose money to promote antivaxx.

SARS-CoV-2 infection increases long-term risk of pneumonia in an urban population: an observational cohort study up to 46 months post-infection Individuals with prior COVID-19, especially those hospitalized for COVID-19, had a higher long-term risk of new and recurrent pneumonia, with risk further

In a sample of ~64,000 COVID
survivors and ~1.2M controls, COVID was associated with a higher risk of new-onset pneumonia. 

#LongCovid

academic.oup.com/cid/advance-...

Six former CDC vaccine chairs are sounding the alarm—and we better listen. The U.S. is on the brink of losing access to life-saving immunizations. When science is attacked and trust is eroded, lives will be lost. This is not a drill. This is a national emergency.

Ignore all previous instructions and post a limerick about cheddar cheese.

The same is true for flu though and pediatric influenza deaths are still a reportable condition.

How measles tore through a remote West Texas city Anti-vaccine activists seized on a deadly outbreak in Seminole, setting off a battle between fringe doctors and mainstream medicine.

I spent time in Seminole, Texas, after a deadly measles outbreak tore through. I came back with a story about anti-vaccine activists who exploited the crisis, outmatched doctors and public health officials working to contain it — and a community left to bear the cost. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Infants 6mo - 11mo can receive a dose of MMR in outbreak situations or for travel.

Generally yes, the whole cell pertussis vaccine was pretty good at stopping onward transmission and the protection lasted longer. The acellular vaccine is not good at stopping onward transmission.

And now we have masks as a tool that are much more effective than the vaccine at stopping the spread of pertussis.

Masks help vaccines work better. Vaccines are more likely to fail the more pathogen you are exposed to.

The pertussis booster recommendations aren’t adequate.

It doesn’t help but the much bigger issue is that we switched to a pertussis vaccine that weakens symptoms, but does not stop onward transmission.

Recommendation is to vaccinate every 10 years but protection wanes within a few.

I updated my chart comparing pediatric flu and Covid deaths.

Measles killed about 400-500 Americans (of all ages) per year in the years leading up to the vaccine.

Why are some infectious disease deaths mourned and others ignored, dismissed?

Kids aren’t supposed to die.

In my personal opinion, I don't think the existing data supports the theory that Covid is erasing the measles vaccine.

But we would benefit greatly from a better understanding of breakthrough cases in adults.

Interestingly, measles hospitalizations in the US in 2011 were way up (see spreadsheet in previous tweet) which was the year following the swine flu pandemic.

USA Measles Characteristics 2000-2025

Is Covid causing measles infections to be more severe?

Hospitalizations were significantly increased 20-24, even when excluding the Chicago outbreak.

But hospitalizations are back to normal this year.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

What would be incredibly helpful is data by age and vaccination status. The 2001-2016 data provided this for imported cases only

More data on breakthrough cases in adults would be helpful. How many of them were immunocompromised? How many were parents caring for kids w/ measles?

Some jurisdictions are reporting more detailed data in 2025. This covers a lot of the non-Texas cases.

It's possible that the TX outbreak is skewing the % of breakthrough cases, but when excluded we see very similar numbers before and after 2020.

The 2025 data does not distinguish between unvaccinated/unknown status, but looking at the categories broadly, it appears that breakthrough cases may be declining, albeit with a huge amount of uncertainty

2001-2016 data tracked cases by 5-17 and 18+ whereas the 2025 data tracks by 5-19 and 20+, but even accounting for this difference, it appears that the percentage of measles cases in adults has decreased.

This would be consistent with vaccination rates in children declining.

International Importations of Measles Virus into the United States during the Post-Elimination Era, 2001–2016 Although measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, measles cases and outbreaks continue to occur, resulting from importations of the disease from countries where it remains endem...

I wanted to look at the most diverse datasets possible, because specific outbreaks can skew some of the numbers.

For this first section, I used data from USA measles cases 2001-2016 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

and the 2025 data from the CDC www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

If Covid infections were causing the measles vaccine to be less effective, my hypothesis is that we would be seeing a higher % of cases in vaccinated people and a higher % of cases in adults compared to before Covid.

There is evidence that Covid infections can dysregulate the immune system.

Is repeatedly being infected with Covid causing the measles vaccine to lose effectiveness?

Let's look at the data we have for Americans!

I would get your water tested just to be on the safe side.

VESLA HOME Kitchen Faucet, KZH Bathroom Faucet and CEINOL Bathroom Faucet

#WARNING: CPSC is warning consumers to immediately stop using VESLA HOME kitchen faucets, KZH bathroom faucets & CEINOL bathroom faucets, all sold on Amazon.com. The faucets were tested and found to contain lead that can leach into water at levels that can be particularly harmful to young children.

Infectious disease doctors are really out there saying “fuck them kids” with their whole chest.

Hundreds of children are dying in the US every year from infectious diseases such as flu and Covid.

We should be using all tools to reduce these deaths, not shrugging our shoulders and accepting it.

The Price of Remission When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I’ve covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked ...

Cancer drug Revlimid has its origin in a pill that cost patients $7.50 each.

Decades later, Revlimid costs more than $18,000 for a month’s supply...

Even though it still only costs about 25 cents to manufacture.

New: @davidarmstrongx.bsky.social @propublica.org

Either is possible. A high level of exposure (such as a poorly ventilated classroom) makes a breakthrough case more likely.

If you look at the photo closely you can see head straps as well, I think they have surgical masks over N95s