Prof. Michael Fuhrer

This one keeps me up at night.

Untargeted longitudinal ultra deep metagenomic sequencing of wastewater provides a comprehensive readout of expected and unexpected viral pathogens Wastewater surveillance has become a powerful tool to monitor circulating viruses at a community level. Currently, most wastewater surveillance efforts use target-based approaches such as quantitative...

Can you take a quarter cup of composite sewage, simply ask ‘what’s in there?’, and find out all of the pathogens circulating in that community?

That is the question we asked in our latest pre-print.

Turns out you can.
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www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

everyone was alive, by labyrinthine oceans 5 track album

This debut EP from Labyrinthine Oceans hits a sweet spot for me in the grunge-emo-shoegaze indie thing happening now. Have a listen.

[If this isn't your cup of tea, or even if it is, QT and tell us what new artist has recently struck your fancy!]

labyrinthineoceans.bandcamp.com/album/everyo...

No worries, Marc and I are in agreement. I understand the problems, as the term "immunity debt" got hijacked by people who I think had disingenuous motives in conflating it with the hygiene hypothesis. But it is what it is, and most people understand what it means (I hope!)

Here’s How the AI Crash Happens The U.S. is becoming an Nvidia-state.

so @matteowong.bsky.social & I wrote on data centers: arguably the most important buildings in the world & are, in a way, holding the economy hostage. Byzantine financial instruments, private equity, depreciating tech, hype, $trillion valuations. it’s all there. an ai crash prob starts here.

Yes! (I knew this would be confusing 😀)

Oh come on, I'm not an idiot. It's fair to say that this one study is hardly representative of the state of knowledge on respirators preventing respiratory infection. If you've got a useful comment, go ahead and make it, but don't waste my time.

Nope, Leslie made the claim. I don't even know who you are. Why should I spend my time justifying something (that is, in fact, correct) to you? It's correct. If you think it's not, you go prove it to whoever cares about it.

bsky.app/profile/lesl...

1) You are welcome to look up the studies for yourself.
2) Leslie was talking about wearing masks in public, not the healthcare setting.

The authors didn't even discuss the fringe "immunity theft" hypothesis (Covid-19 is damaging immune response to other diseases).

But the robust finding of a net negative impact of the pandemic on other inf. diseases argues strongly against "immunity theft".

(No, Covid isn't airborne AIDS)

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The authors also identify some disease scenarios where a short-term positive net impact is observed ("pertussis-like" in figure below) but the long-term impact is still negative.

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Collateral effects of COVID-19 pandemic control on the US infectious disease landscape Using data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disease surveillance systems, we sought to quantify the indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the possibilit...

Important study in Science today.

Infectious disease suppressed during pandemic did rebound afterwards (due to immunity debt) but, the net impact was negative (net disease burden reduced).

➡️Avoiding infectious disease is a good thing!

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www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Both numbers significantly underestimate the true toll of these diseases.

Take Covid-19 and influenza seriously. Get a flu shot and covid booster annually. If you're sick, stay home. If you can't, wear a respirator around others.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has quietly noted a grim milestone today; more deaths due to influenza than due to Covid-19 were recorded in August (and also so far in September) in Australia this year, first time since March 2020.

www.abs.gov.au/statistics/h...

I am as much a covid researcher as the authors of that paper.

The difference is that I don't go around stating my personal fringe theories as scientific fact to the public.

(I am also not the one hurling the insults. And if I don't matter, and you don't care what I think, then we can be done.)

I think you're conflating two things, which is why I asked you to clarify. Long covid and post-viral diseases are real. Long covid posed and still poses an enormous problem, due to the novelty, severity, and high prevalence of covid at the peak of the pandemic.

There is scientific consensus that Covid-19 is deadly.

Long covid and post-viral syndromes are an important problem which we don't fully understand yet and are the subject of a huge amount of research worldwide; we aren't waiting, we are searching for answers.

That paper clearly doesn't represent scientific consensus. The title is phrased as a question!

Think this one over. You and I agree that RFK Jr is a dangerous buffoon damaging public health. In fact, I'd bet we're highly aligned politically on many issues!

But you've come here to attack me, rather than try to convince me you're right. Maybe try a different approach?

Amazing that we got to anti-vaccine misinformation so fast. Study after study has shown that vaccines are more effective than N95s.

(N95s *are* effective, but not as effective as vaccines. Both together even more effective, of course!)

All you just said is that you and I agree that there's no scientific consensus, and therefore my statement was correct. Can you actually point to something I said that you think is factually incorrect?

Could you maybe just give one little weensy hint of just one thing I've written that you think is factually incorrect? Throw me just one bone here that indicates we're having a discussion, and not a one-sided rant.

I take covid very seriously.

Yes.

Oh come on, I said neither of those things.

I've written a little thread to answer.

bsky.app/profile/mich...

I sense you came here for an argument. I left X to get away from anti-science nuts who just argue and are immune to evidence.

I hope that's not you! But forgive me if I want to be convinced otherwise before engaging. Can you explain, without appeals to emotion, what you think I've got wrong here?

COVID-19 is “Airborne AIDS”: provocative oversimplification, emerging science, or something in between? Immune dysfunction and systemic effects in HIV and SARS-CoV-2 infections are distinct, but share relevant similarities and downstream consequences. We…

The people trying to push this idea to the public are not like AIDS activists. They're putting the conclusion before the science. That's what RFK Jr. does.

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www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

There is no scientific consensus today that SARS-CoV-2 is special among respiratory viruses in damaging the immune system; in fact the idea is on the scientific fringe.

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bsky.app/profile/mich...

Leslie provides an excellent illustration here. In 1988 when this picture was taken, AIDS was known to be caused by HIV, a retrovirus, which weakens the immune system. Activists were lobbying the gov't and public to focus resources and attention on finding treatments and a cure.
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