joe

Lyft driver picked me up from UNC, turned out he was a medicinal chemistry post-doc in a building near mine, until his grant got cut last month.

Worked on novel antivirals.

Diagram showing the ancestry of Nimbus (NB.1.8.1). The evolution of NB.1.8.1 has including three recombination events, including XBB (Kraken) and BA.2.86 (Pirola) lineages.

Evolutionary tree of SARS-CoV-2 variants showing the small fraction of diversity covered by every variant with a Greek letter except "Omicron", and the enormous diversity within "Omicron", including Nimbus NB.1.8.1.

Meet "Nimbus", aka SARS-CoV-2 variant NB.1.8.1.

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We tried to warn everyone that every Covid infection ages you, and we tried to warn them it would take a few years for the impact to manifest. On cue, everyone's talking about Gen Z's "accelerated aging," and they still refuse to acknowledge one major source of the problem.

This image describes the Canadian COVID Forecast for the fourteen-day period between May 10-23, 2025, which is produced by COVID-19 Resources Canada. Canada’s COVID Forecast outlook is HIGH (no change) with a COVID INDEX SCORE of 10.0 About 1 of every 134 people is infected. Estimated infections this week: 207,450-323,400 What these numbers mean: MODERATE 1-5, HIGH 5-10, VERY HIGH 10-15, SEVERE >15 COMPARED TO THE LOWEST POINT IN THE COVID PANDEMIC IN CANADA How much higher are key indicators compared to the lowest point in the COVID pandemic in Canada? Waste water, infections: HIGH; 8.1X higher Long COVID estimate: HIGH; 5.9X higher Hospitalizations, ICU: VERY HIGH; 11.1X higher Deaths: VERY HIGH; 11.2X higher HOW TO HELP: EVERYONE: UPDATE vaccines every 6 months WEAR N95-type masks Who is HIGH RISK? People 60 and older, babies < 1 year, pregnant ALL AGES: immunocompromised OR medically at-risk OR no vaccine or infection in the last 6 months Recommendations are based on the COVID-19 Risk Index from the Peterborough ON Public Health Unit COVID-19 Resources Canada is a grassroots organization of volunteer scientists supporting Canadian COVID responses. Sources, data and methods for the COVID Index are available at www.Covid19Resources.ca

Canadian COVID Forecast May 10-23, 2025

CANADA

HIGH (no change)

About 1 in every 134 people infected

Compared to lowest point of pandemic in Canada:

-Infections ~8X higher
-Long COVID ~6X higher
-Hospitalizations ~11X higher
-Deaths ~11X higher

this is not true either legally or in a colloquial sense, but an NYT reporter says it like he's telling you the weather.

here’s my life advice: you only get ONE LIFE in this body, ONE, and the thing has been depreciating since you drove it off the lot. are you really going to hand it back to god in pristine condition like you’re some security-deposit-groveling little bitch?

I wrote about this a bit in my last book but it really shakes me that a defining feature of this catastrophic era is that we just keep going to work. We work through pandemics, we work through natural disasters, we work through economic calamity, we work through coups, we work, we work, we work.

Been thinking about this Zappa quote a lot lately.

There’s no such thing as A.I “art.” It’s a soulless amalgamation of plagiarised data. That is the antithesis of art.

I literally have covid RIGHT NOW

It does seem to be getting out of hand.

How does a society reestablish the cultural taboo against lying out out of your ass?

nobody is immune to propaganda, but it does help if you can develop a moral framework independent of a book you read when you were twelve

BlueSky becoming more useful for news basically every day. Simple reason: None of that Elon trash code that punishes direct links. People share stories and we click, like God intended.

Pretty sure the decisive test of our society in my lifetime was when an actual full scale pandemic happened with millions of deaths and people were fine with that as long as they could go to restaurants and concerts. If you think the two things are not connected, think more.

Quote from Chico Mendes, an activist who was killed in 1988 by landowners who wanted to deforest the Amazon

It’s a very good time to get used to doing the right thing even though you’re afraid of it or there might be consequences.

Really really nice to see Rep Keating speak up like this. This is how it all starts, by not letting them disrespect the most vulnerable person in the room.

Kids keep getting sicker as evidence for COVID immune damage builds As the press pushes "immunity debt" past the breaking point of believability, are parents ready to wake up to the illness crisis?

As kids get sicker, media ignores scientific papers pointing to immune damage after COVID. Instead, parents are urged to “watch out” for unusual waves of RSV, flu, pneumonia, & more, while masks, clean air and the pandemic are pointedly never mentioned.

www.thegauntlet.news/p/kids-keep-...

Idk, sounds exactly like what most people have said about Covid.

That’s how you write a headline, people.

Canadian research discoveries funded by non-profit and government mechanisms led to the development of:

1. Insulin

2. Polio vaccine

3. Cardiac pacemakers

4. Stem cell treatments

5. Ozempic

How many people are alive in the world today because of this funding?

An intense flu season is filling hospitals with severely ill patients | CNN The US is in the throes an unusually intense and severe flu season, with hospitalization rates topping the levels seen with Covid-19 at some points of the pandemic.

The US is in the throes of an unusually intense and severe flu season, with hospitalization rates topping the levels seen with Covid-19 at some points of the pandemic.

Malicious Measles Myths: Memory-Holing a Monster Measles is already having a great 2024. We ought to put a stop to that.

#medsky #pedsky #IDsky #immunosky 🧪

I published this a bit more than a year ago.

You should expect to hear a ton of falsities about measles in the coming days, mostly concentrated on purported benefits of the disease and the low severity. Here's why measles is best remembered as a monster:

WSJ sub: “Indian Partition went smoothly enough, right? Will try to remember to check this before publishing.”

It’s the shooter from Degrassi.

if your beans didn't soften while cooking it's not because you salted too early. it's not because you added too much acid. it's not because the beans are too old. it's because you're impure of heart and the beans Know