Totally valid. I donβt have much complaints outside of his COVID takes but you never know for some topics in which Iβm not as well educated. Although I will say heβs pretty quick to throw around terms like βstupidβ and βdumbβ. Michael Hobbes come up with a non-ableist insult challenge!
I donβt know why Michael fell into Covid denialism years ago and hasnβt found his way out but this is false. Our current vaccines do not meaningfully reduce transmission, and they certainly do not meaningfully prevent long covid. This is what any long covid treatment center will tell u day 1
I love your podcasts specifically for your ability to get to the real shit with things, which makes this take hard to read man. If I didnβt know better & stumbled upon some rando who tweeted this I wouldβve thought it was bait π how would one not interpret this as bad faith
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. Canadaβs 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.
hereβs 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 youβre 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.
Thereβs no such thing as A.I βart.β Itβs 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
Itβs a very good time to get used to doing the right thing even though youβre 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.
As kids get sicker, media ignores scientific papers pointing to immune damage after COVID. Instead, parents are urged to βwatch outβ 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.
Thatβs 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?
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.
#medsky #pedsky #IDsky #immunosky π§ͺ
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:
