UPDATE: After advocates submitted thousands of comments, the rule passed! US hospitals will be required to report key COVID, flu, and RSV hospitalization data again outside of public health emergencies, after initially ending the requirement earlier this year. Advocacy works!

Prediction 1 month ago.

The cause of #LongCovid is an immune system that will not turn off, because it is either looking for leftover virus, or it's made a mistake and thinks your liver, thyroid, gut etc is infected when it's not. All the problems are downstream of this. Biomarkers for each is hard.

US West & South approaching peak-winter Covid WW levels, with the Midwest & Northeast a few weeks behind. The release of new vaccine—early September last we heard—will be after this wave's already done its damage & schools have been in session for weeks. Worst timing possible.

US: Covid wastewater readings in six states are already HIGHER than winter levels Florida, Oregon, Washington State, Arkansas, Louisiana and Wyoming have all seen readings exceed those of last winter. CDC cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID1…

Back to school is going to be particularly rough

Imagine if we had the breathalyzers that have been sloooowlyyyy in development for over 4 years. Schools could check students & send home anyone with COVID. Students safe. 70% of COVID is spread is from child at school. Keep in mind many schools have metal detectors already

Your periodic reminder to post job and internship opportunities in high performance computing, research software engineering, and related fields to the hpc.social/jobs board to increase breadth of your announcements. See hpc.social/projects/jobs/ for details.

August 16th update: Cases flat this week near 1 million. This is likely the national summer peak. Some states in Midwest and Northeast are expected to increase further. 🔸980,000 new infections/day 🔸1 in every 34 people currently infected 🔸68% higher than 12 month avg.

Hey Raspberry Pi : You post here and on threads.net/@raspberrypi - can the latter be followed and interacted with on the Fediverse? Thanks.

Dear Best Buy: Your new opt-out privacy policy is unacceptable. You can’t rely on a separate cookie in each and every browser and BestBuy app on each device to track opt-out conditions. I’ll stop using the website and app or shopping there in person if you implement this policy.

Duration of exposure matters when quantifying risk of infection: No masks = 15 minutes N95 vs no mask = 2.5 hours N95 + N95 = 25 to 2,500 hours Omicron and subsequent variants are known to be much more spreadable than the original strains, so these durations are likely shorter.

How to stop an airborne virus. Please consider sharing or posting to help others understand.

August 23rd update: Once again, infections are flat (peak) near 1 million per day. A high shoulder is anticipated as kids return to school and KP.3.1.1's recent dominance. 🔸967,000 new infections/day 🔸1 in every 34 people currently infected 🔸66% higher than 12 month avg.

1. 17th IEEE/ACM UCC 2024 will be held in Sharjah, UAE in December, 2024. 2. 11th IEEE/ACM IBDCAT 2024 is also co-located with UCC 2024. The deadline to submit papers is September 20, 2024. Calls for papers are available at: uccbdcat2024.org/ucc/calls-for-… uccbdcat2024.org/BDCAT/calls-fo…

CDC: Knock ✊ knock ✊ Us: Who’s there? CDC: We are warning you about airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Us: 👀 What the hell took you so long? We know. Mpox transmits through the air too. Where are you on that?

Because of the CDC’s lousy isolation release guidance of “24 hrs fever free,” doctors are telling patients that it means they aren’t contagious anymore. What a disaster! Most infected people exhale large amounts of viral RNA for a minimum of 8 days, even if testing negative.

August 30th update: Transmission remains stubbornly high near 1 million infections per day. Forecast suggests a steep decline in cases in coming weeks. 🔸980,000 new infections/day 🔸1 in every 34 people currently infected 🔸64% higher than 12 month avg.

My comments in ⁦Healio⁩ on the importance of Covid vaccines beyond reducing risk of hospitalization, but also to reduce both risks of long COVID and heart illness, link attached to this tweet