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JUST ONE PERSON—UK 🇬🇧 scientists think one immunocompromised person who cleared virus slowly & only partially wiped out an infection, leaving behind genetically-hardier viruses that rebound & learn how to survive better. That’s likely how #B117 started. 🧵 https://t.co/bMMjM8Hiuz

 2) The leading hypothesis is that the new variant evolved within just one person, chronically infected with the virus for so long it was able to evolve into a new, more infectious form.

same thing happened in Boston in another immunocompromised person that was sick for 155 days.
3) What happened in Boston with one 45 year old man who was highly infectious for 155 days straight before he died... is exactly what scientists think happened in Kent, England that gave rise to #B117. https://t.co/LBc8eCk3f9
4) Doctors were shocked to find virus has evolved many different forms inside of this one immunocompromised man. 20 new mutations in one virus, akin to the #B117. This is possibly how #B1351 in South Africa 🇿🇦 and #P1 in Brazil 🇧🇷 also evolved. https://t.co/74dr2pFiRg
5) “On its own, the appearance of a new variant in genomic databases doesn’t tell us much. “That’s just one genome amongst thousands every week. It wouldn’t necessarily stick out,” says Oliver Pybus, a professor of evolution and infectious disease at Oxford.
6) “New variants of Sars-CoV-2 are being created all the time but the vast majority of them go absolutely nowhere.
It was only when it became obvious that measures in Kent were failing that Public Health England realised the outbreak was being driven by a new variant.”
7) “#SARSCoV2 isn’t the only virus that can linger for an unusually long time within the human body. Ebola virus RNA has been detected in the semen of men a year after recovery. Some people stay infected with norovirus – a common stomach bug – for more than six months.
8) “One man in the UK has excreted infectious poliovirus for at least 28 years. The man had been shedding mutated virus for so long that researchers writing about his infection said that he, and other chronic excretors, pose an “obvious risk to the [polio] eradication programme”!
9) “But the real problem isn’t chronic infection – it’s a situation where pandemic is so out of control that the virus has endless opportunities to mutate into new variants. That situation is a reality in the UK and in dozens of other countries with dangerously high case rates.
10) ““These are all edge cases, but if you have enough people infected over a long time, you run the risk of hitting those edge cases,” says Hodcroft. It is not surprising that some of the most worrying new variants – from Brazil, South Africa and the UK –
11) ...”emerged from parts of the world with relatively high levels of transmission. “When you have millions of people infected, with millions of viruses replicating in each one, there are lots of chances for the virus to explore new mutations and combinations,” says Lauring.
12) ““If we had control of the virus, we wouldn’t be seeing as many variants pop up, because there wouldn't be as many opportunities for evolution to happen.”
13) Since Sars-CoV-2 infects cells relatively quickly, in most cases it enters a host, replicates and then swiftly infects someone else, leaving little time for the virus to acquire many genetic changes.
14) When the virus enters the body of someone who is already immunocompromised, their body is constantly applying evolutionary pressure on the virus – pushing it to evolve into new and, in some cases, more infectious forms.
15) My take: the moral lesson is that, when given time and opportunity, the virus finds a way. The virus is a cunning mutating beast that will try every way to defeat us if we let it keep proliferating. We must stop it FAST, or else it will evade: https://t.co/Zk46pouYLM
16) And the virus will even evade people who has had prior immunity and prior antibodies to the older common #SARSCoV2. Such as this example — here not even people were protected from severe disease even if with prior immunity. https://t.co/yqgeNJsgzj?
17) Now just look where we are... #B117 is threatening to dominate the US soon next month as well. Florida especially. https://t.co/I7zIjne6nD
18) It’s now growing so fast in Florida, #B117 is already at 10% of all cases. And doubling time in 9 days or maybe even less. https://t.co/DlHtxqaXAr
19) If we go for full suppression, then we can have this too https://t.co/6HkE2IoDTY

More from Eric Feigl-Ding

Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
📍DOUBLE REINFECTIONS—wow, both PM Justin Trudeau and Biden’s HHS Secretary Becerra got *reinfected* with #COVID19–from same conference—➡️when did Becerra last get infected? May 18th 2022—not even a full month ago! Trudeau in Jan 2022. I worry it’s reinfections due to #BA5/#BA4.


2) #BA5 and #BA4 are worrisome. They are surging and they have high reinfection potential. Your past BA1/BA2 doesn’t substantially protect you from #Ba5/4


3) Excess deaths—the new #BA4 & #BA5 variants of the coronavirus are currently the **fastest growing** strains in the US & UK. ➡️They are exponentially replacing all other past strains. Learn from South Africa’s early warning signs and their excess deaths. #CovidIsNotOver #COVID


4) Is it a Paxlovid rebound for Becerra, as some are asking? Unclear—Paxlovid rebound usually only happens at day 10-14 that we know of and have data. The FDA says it’s 1-2% rebound but I counted 12% from this Pfizer graph submitted to FDA.


5) and yes, #ba5 / #BA4 are very problematic. they are 2x more resistant than even BA2 for neutralizing the virus compared to those who had breakthrough reinfections from older Omicron.
CATEGORY PDFMAKERAPP GRAB THIS READWISEIO SAVE READWISEIO SAVE THREAD THREADER COMPILE SUMMARIZE
Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
NEW—CDC was truly suffocated by Trump WH at every turn. Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at CDC, and his deputy, Amanda Campbell, witnessed WH dismissal of science, WH’s slow suffocation of CDC’s voice, meddling in messages & siphoning of CDC budget.
https://t.co/HeuNbUggiw


2) ““Everyone wants to describe the day that the light switch flipped—It didn’t happen that way—more of like a hand grasping something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the CDC”

3) “Mr. McGowan and Ms. Campbell, both 34, say they tried to protect their colleagues against political meddling from WH and HHS but was largely stifled by the Trump administration.

4) “The White House insisted on reviewing — and often softening — the C.D.C.’s closely guarded coronavirus guidance documents, the most prominent public expression of its latest research and scientific consensus on the spread of the virus.”

5) “The documents were vetted not only by the White House’s coronavirus task force but by what felt to the agency’s employees like an endless loop of political appointees across Washington.
Mr. McGowan recalled a White House fixated on the economic implications of public health.
HEALTH
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Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
Wow. 1 in 3 hospitalized with #COVID19 gets readmitted to the hospital within a few months after discharge. ~48,000 UK patients.

Great animated lecture on #LongCovid by @Dr2NisreenAlwan, animated by @VickiGSP using info from UK @IndependentSage experts.


2) Furthermore, 1 in 8 of those who were discharged subsequently die. And many suffer long term ailments like heart disease, liver, kidney, diabetes, and more. This doesn’t even include less clinical critical cognitive effects. #LongCovid is real.


3) How common is #LongCovid overall? UK estimates 1 in 5 at 5 weeks and 1 in 10 have symptoms have even 12 weeks after initial #COVID19 diagnosis.

Lecture again by @Dr2NisreenAlwan


4) Let these numbers sink in... 1 in 10 at 12 weeks still have symptoms!


5) Here is the original study of the above lecture from few weeks ago. We need to prepare our healthcare system long term for the impact of millions with #LongCovid. This is gonna be larger than Gulf War Syndrome or long term health of 9/11 first responders.
ALL
Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
ATROCIOUS big pharma price gouging of insulin:

This crying mother can’t afford the $1000 for her son’s insulin.

📌yet, it only costs pharma $5 to produce.

📌Insulin was invented 100 years ago by Fred Banting—who donated patent for $1 to make it free for all.

Let that sink in.


2) Insulin is one of the most disgusting cases of price gouging ever.

America has long taken a free market approach to pharmaceuticals.
Drug companies haggle separately over drug prices with a variety of private insurers across the

3) “Meanwhile, Medicare, the government health program for those over age 65 — it’s also the nation’s largest buyer of drugs—is barred from negotiating drug prices. That gives pharma more leverage, and it leads to the kind of price surges of EpiPens, opioid antidotes, & insulin.”

4) In 2018:
Johnson & Johnson CEO made $30M
Pfizer CEO made $28M
Merck CEO made $18M
Eli Lilly CEO made $16M
Gilead CEO made $16M

Meanwhile:

📌Americans spent $535B on Rx drugs

📌1/4 of diabetics rationed insulin to survive

📌500K Americans went bankrupt from medical bills.

5) What’s the right price patients should pay for medications? ZERO dollars, because no copay ==> more patients get their medicine ==> saves lives and saves money. Copays decrease adherence, and copays hurt patients who actually need them.
FINANCE
Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
JUST IN — "Camp Auschwitz" insurrectionist of the Capitol siege was just arrested this morning in Newport News, VIrginia.

2) this guy was just arrested.


3) We cannot have a repeat of the fascism from WW2. This is @Schwarzenegger’s speech was so powerful.


4) My wife @andreafeigl1’s 🇦🇹 great grandfather secretly fought Hilter’s Nazi regime & smuggled many Jews to safety as an aircraft engineer. He was thrown into a concentration camp, and escaped.

She knows a few things about Nazi history—Jan 6th was downright fascist. Read 👇


5) So this cover is from a semi-tabloid magazine in Germany, according to @andreafeigl1. But even so, how did such a magazine still get it so damn right?! Maybe Germany 🇩🇪 has seen this kinda fascism before...
LEGAL

More from Science

Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
In physics, energy is that which is causally invariant or symmetric with respect to time. Said differently, energy is never created or destroyed, it is conserved in the universe.

Now there is a question about information. Is information causally invariant? Does information remain the same with respect to time? To understand this, let's first understand what energy is, then attempt to understand what information is.

The strange thing about energy is that it is this universal currency that seems to be interchangeable between the different forces in nature (i.e. electromagnetic, strong, weak and gravity). It is that thing that makes change possible.

Now let's assume that the universe is computational in nature. That is, anything we see in nature is a consequence of computation. That is, there is computation underneath the physics that is driving the universe to change.

What does it mean then that information is conserved in this computational universe? Also, how is energy conservation related to information conservation?
SOCIETY , SCIENCE
foone
foone
@Foone
I think I've permanently confused KiCAD
it's reminding me that I need to connect this capacitor to Nothing


attach this end to ground, this end to +5v, and this end to THE VOID

I accidentally made all the capacitors gigantic and they won't fit anymore

halp


gonna design an ISA card using some of these

it's gonna be tricky to fit in the case


that's from this
SCIENCE
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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
The Nature versus Nurture is a debate about scientific doctrine. It is a debate about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

The Representation versus Non-Representation shares the same debate. It is also about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

It is also the difference between thinking in nouns versus thinking in verbs. Nature and Representation have deep roots in Western thinking. It is a functionalist and reductionist way of thinking that meets its limits when analyzing complex adaptive systems.

It is perhaps due to this Western bias that concepts from the study of complex systems have had little traction in modern society. It is of course, more than a Western bias, but a human bias to seek out simple causal explanations of this world.

But the world is complex and messy. Spiral dynamics which is an evolutionary model of individuals and society explains how models of the world shape ourselves and our civilization.
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agamshastra
agamshastra
@truejainology
Some 1300 years ago in Karnataka there lived a genius who wrote "Gaṇitasārasan̄graha" (which is earliest text devoted entirely to mathematics)

The man who's work later borrowed by Arabs & Europeans

Thread on "Mahāvīracharya" astounding but forgotten legacy


Mahāvirachārya was patronised by rashtrakuta king amoghavarasha

His book"Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha"is earliest text devoted entirely to Mathematics

He has described the currently used method of calculating(LCM)of given numbers.The same method was used in Europe later in1500CE

Mahavira wrote "Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha" (GSS) in 8th century CE which contains some 1100 slokās & contains elementary topics in arithmetic , algebra , geometry , measurements , logic , number theory , dynamical systems etc

A sheer mathematical genius


He was devout jain
His magnum opus "Ganit sara sangraha " start with a sloka bowing to the glory of the jinas

"संख्याज्ञानप्रदिपेन जैनेंद्रन महत्वेशा,
प्रकाशितम जगतसर्व येन तम प्रणमाम्यहम"

He also praised his predecessor aryabhata , brahmagupta & other greats in his works


The importance & popularity of "Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha"was so huge that it enjoyed statues of most important textbook of mathematics in South Indian for over 3 centuries

A large no of manuscript copies of
"Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha"whr discovered in Kerala shows it's popularity
SCIENCE
Michael Lin, PhD-MD
Michael Lin, PhD-MD
@michaelzlin
Fellow academics, when are we going to start fixing our urgent structural problems that strain family bonds and present ongoing barriers to diversifying our educational and scientific leadership? You wonder, what the heck is this guy talking about?
1/n

We’re all very familiar what I am talking about, actually: the impossibility for most academics in the life sciences to do their jobs in a reaonable amount of time, due to more and more demands on writing grants, and to a lesser degree, papers.
2/n

As of yesterday I hadn’t intended to write about this subject, but was wondering as I finished a Saturday of straight work, what happened to all my time? Why has WFH not reduced my pile of tasks to do? Instead why is my to-do list growing bigger and bigger?
3/n

I decided to figure out how much time our jobs actually require. I estimated per year (m=month, w=week, d=day, h=hour):
Teaching: 20h/w x 20w = 400h
Meetings of all sorts: 10h/w x 48w= 480h
Replying to email: 2h/d x 365d = 730h
Attending and giving talks: 2h/w x 50w = 100h
4/n

Papers: If each person needs 2 papers during a 5y stint, and you run a 7.5-person lab, then you need 7.5 papers per 2.5y = 3 papers/y. Throw in a review and it’s 4 papers. If you need 15d at 8h/d per paper, that’s 480h writing papers.
5/n
SCIENCE

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In Academia, people aren’t always supported when they need it. I want to share what @WesternU did when my husband died right after the pandemic shutdown. It should be shared with other uni’s as a model for empathy and proactive care when someone is in crisis.
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meilong
meilong
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一个北大毕业的殡葬工自述武汉封城期间的经历，凄惨。这应该才是武汉的真实情景，跟很多人的叙述是吻合的。


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STEALTH JEFF
STEALTH JEFF
@drawandstrike
Ok I was wrong about theHouse. 2 years of legislative gridlock = not fun. Few bills passing.

Control of the House is useless when it comes to keeping Trump from declassifying all the SpyGate docs. Or stopping an Inspector General from releasing a report.

Trump still gets control of judicial appointments so we can expect another 100 judges over the next two years. This time there’ll be no McCain or Flake playing the Maverick role with their swing vote.

That new margin in the Senate is huge if another Supreme Court seat comes open.

So from the responses I’m getting, people seem to think if Trump declassifies the Spygate stuff now, nothing happens.

Are you under the impression federal prosecutors have to wait until CONGRESS finishes an investigation and makes criminal referrals before the DOJ can act?

There’s a federal grand jury on McCabe right now. Did Congress ever finish it’s investigation and make a referral to the DOJ against him?

No.

BUT INSPECTOR GENERAL HOROWITZ DID. On finishing his McCabe leak report.

Funny how nobody remembers that.
POLITICS
Elon Musk\u2019s Meme \U0001f171\ufe0fot
Elon Musk’s Meme 🅱️ot...
@theMemesBot
why do I hear boss music
FUN
Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
Did you know?
Ahilyabai Holkar was one of India's
greatest women rulers of all time.

Ahilyabai was Born on May 31,1725 in the village of Chondi,Jamkhed distt,Maharashtra to a man named Mankoji Shinde,who was the Patil(Chief) of a village and a member of proud Dhangar Community.


Despite the fact that girls' education was a farther dream in those days, Ahilyabai was homeschooled by her father.
Ahilya didn't belong to any royal family but in a twist of fate she is still remembered as one of the most revered Queen in the history.


While they were living their humdrum lives, one day Malhar Rao Holkar, commander of the Peshwa Bajirao & Lord of the Malwa stopped in Chondi on his way to Pune, where he couldn't help but notice a young 8yrs old Ahilyabai in the temple service feeding the poor & hungry.

He was so impressed by the sheer innocence&beauty with simplicity character of Ahilyabai dat he asked her hand in marriage for his son Khanderao Holkar.Just like that she got married to Khanderao in 1733 at a tender age of 8&became a bride of esteemed Maratha community of Holkars

But destiny had something else in store for her as her husband died in the Battle of Kumbher in 1754 leaving her widow at 29.Distressed Ahilyabai was to commit Sati when her father-in-law Malhar Rao refused to let it happen.
ALL , AHILYABAIITIHAS