Blake Murdoch
@blakemurdoch.bsky.social
1.2K followers 95 following 170 posts
JD, MBA. Canadian health policy academic, bioethicist and science communicator.
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Reposted by Blake Murdoch
naberu.bsky.social
Five and half years since we’ve known covid is transmitted by aerosols and a provicial health authority has released an AI chat bot that disseminates droplet disinformation.
nbcovidinfo.bsky.social
Asking NS’s official health AI about airborne transmission, aerosols, etc #NSPoli
Screenshot of asking NS health AI if Covid is airborne. Is Covid airborne?
Wednesday, 10:02 a.m.
0 COPY
• Nova
Wednesday, 10:02 a.m.
The primary method of COVID-19 transmission is through droplets, which quickly settle on surfaces within two meters. However, airborne precautions are used during aerosol-generating medical procedures (AGMPs) to minimize the risk of transmission. More information on AGMPs can be found here. Screenshot of asking NS health AI about aerosol transmission. Tell me about aerosol transmission
Nova
Wednesday, 10:02 a.m.
Airborne transmission occurs when airborne particles remain suspended in the air, travel on air currents, and are inhaled by others nearby or some distance away from the source. Control of airborne transmission requires control of airflow through special ventilation systems and the use of respiratory protection.
An aerosol-generating medical procedure (AGMP)
is any procedy
production of
+ Go to bottom
aerosols of va
roplet nuclei.
Examples of AGMPs include bronchoscopy Screenshot of asking NS health AI if breathing generates aerosols You
Wednesday, 10:03 a.m.
Does breathing generate aerosols?
•Nova
Wednesday, 10:03 a.m.
While normal breathing does produce some droplets, activities like talking, screaming, coughing, or sneezing produce larger droplets.
Labour and delivery are also not considered aerosolized events. Aerosol Generating Medical Procedures (AGMPs) are specific medical procedures that generate aerosols. The AI claimed that breathing generates fewer aerosols than AGMPs so I tried asking for more info. How many aerosols are generated by breathing compared to an AGMP?
0 coPY
Nova
Wednesday, 10:04 a.m.
To best answer your question, could you clarify what context you're interested in? For example, are you concerned about a specific medical setting or a particular activity? #NSPoli
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
onlypianos.bsky.social
i miss the time when most liberals could identify the policies suggested in the great barrington declaration as evil, eugenic, and unsupported by science!
blbalthaser.bsky.social
The Great Barrington Dec. aka the “let covid rip” policy, legitimated the death of over a million Americans, is disabling of tens of millions more, & failed to achieve its own instrumental goal, ending the pandemic. It did succeed hwvr in gutting public health & eroding public trust in science
Five years ago today, we authored the Great Barrington Declaration, arguing for focused protection instead of lockdowns. A wholehearted thank you to the almost one million co-signers. We were proven right.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
mrsbettybowers.bsky.social
One thing I've learned from the Internet is that a lie needs 0% proof to be believed, but the truth requires thousands of pages of proof and still won't be believed.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
thedailyshow.com
Excited to introduce Vibes from Meta. Eat your slop, piggies!
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
jmcrookston.bsky.social
Right-wing authoritarians are now buying our video game companies.

They already own almost all of the media.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
chantzy.bsky.social
I find this site has little content on Covid. The world's running amok with so much else going on, but I'm determined to keep banging the Covid drum because I believe it’s in part fueling the crumbling fascist political state we see now
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
christosargyrop.bsky.social
Many of the weird things that you hear people say or do are, at core, a rejection of reality because the problems of the latter are hard to contemplate and solve by those who were raised in the culture of the make believe. The crash landing will be very hard.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
rosiemund.bsky.social
I think it's really telling how many of the "it's just health anxiety!" people are really angry about it. It's multiple layers of ableism - pathologising a response to a real threat to discredit it, as well as acting as though hostility is an acceptable response to people's mental health problems.
brownecfm.bsky.social
Let me be clear. As someone who has been professionally involved with the biodefense / biosecurity sector for nearly 20 years, and has worked on biological risk analysis for Covid-19 since early 2020, reducing one's risk of being infected is not health anxiety. It's just smart.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
luckytran.com
Yesterday, history happened at the UN: For the first time hundreds of orgs signed a global pledge declaring that healthy indoor air is a human right.

Healthy indoor air is a key tool for preventing pandemics, building climate resilience, and increasing health equity. We need it everywhere!
People signing the Global Pledge for Healthy Indoor Air at the UN
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
juliamwright.bsky.social
Misinformation makes everything worse, but we are witnessing collapse in peer review: $ cuts and precarity mean fewer people have the time necessary to do basic work. Experts can't do all the reviews so editors go far down the list to the inexpert, editors don't have time to sort out conflicts, etc.
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
Just got rejected from the Journal of Medical Ethics. It was pretty illuminating in terms of how far society has fallen.
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
They solicited more reviews so that’s good. I clarified in an additional post. But they should have excluded or clearly discounted in writing the second one.
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
I should specify there were two other reviews as well and they weren’t great. But while I accept critiques of my work, even rejection, the editors should have at least noted that they discounted peer reviewer 2 (or not included them). I also am writing in a hyperpoliticized space (pandemic ethics).
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
I should specify there were two other reviews as well and they weren’t great. But while I accept critiques of my work, even rejection, the editors should have at least noted that they discounted peer reviewer 2 (or not included them). I also am writing in a hyperpoliticized space (pandemic ethics).
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
Just got rejected from the Journal of Medical Ethics. It was pretty illuminating in terms of how far society has fallen.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
darinself.com
Infant mortality in the USA
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
It’s sustainable in that it’s actually not hard to do most of the time, it’s unsustainable as it relies on broad behaviour change in a hyper-politicized context
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
samuelhurtado.bsky.social
It seems to me that a "comprehensive overview of cardiovascular prevention strategies across all stages of COVID-19" should start with the most important one: "try to not get covid". It's weird that this step is not mentioned, given all the other things they talk about.
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
mehdirhasan.bsky.social
Silly Jimmy Kimmel. He should have just called for all homeless people to be killed and he’d still have a job.
blakemurdoch.bsky.social
"However, he said that for people not in at-risk groups, vaccination against COVID-19 and the flu "is not a step we necessarily recommend."

Apparently Quebec's government is anti-vax.

Welcome to the dark ages of kakistocracy.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Quebec to stop offering free COVID-19 vaccines to the general population | CBC News
COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be free for all Quebecers starting this fall, the province’s Health Ministry announced Wednesday.
www.cbc.ca
Reposted by Blake Murdoch
sharonk.bsky.social
ah, well
sharonk.bsky.social
a good arbiter of how close we are to bad hybrid regime shit is if the political comedy shows start getting pulled for whatever reason