Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

JPWeiland

@jpweiland.bsky.social

10K followers 72 following 510 posts

Scientist+Engineer. Infectious disease modeler. Posts and spelling mistakes my own

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · Nov 19

❄️ Holiday Season Forecast:

🔹The wildest forecast I've ever made was for Dec 2021, predicting multiple millions of daily infections. This one is easily second place. A very muted holiday wave relative to all prior years, due to weak evolution and large summer numbers.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 19h

Yes, different timelines in different places.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

Not necessarily true. Evolution speed is a really large factor.. check out 2022, Tsunami winter, large summer and winter waves thereafter. This was during a period of rapid antibody evasion evolution

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

Definitely*

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

What you say is defined true. They're not going to be perfect apples to apples comparisons by default. But studies show that people get multiple Rhino infections per year (many more for highly exposed kids!), where covid is in the 1 in 18-24month range currently. Combining those with + rate is usfl

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

Hopefully we continue with the lack of meaningful evolution, which could lead to a more modest winter like last year. Ba.3.2 is probably the wild card.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

Right now there is a surge in Rhinovirus, which typically causes congestion and coughing etc. The significant majority of those out and about with cold symptoms indeed have common colds. Dissimilar to July/Aug where more of it was C19.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

Both emergency dept and wastewater data suggest a rapid decline in prevalence after a relatively modest summer peak. The lull in evolution continues... with no new fast variants close behind XFG.

That being said, we're still watching BA.3.2*

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 1d

It's still cratering. One final warning that these constant nit picky nonsense responses will earn you a block.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 5d

The data I've seen over infectious period people are (on average) highly infectious for about 4 days, with a moderate level the day before and after, and a low level a few days after that (faint +). Those in the lower categories are much less likely to infect in short-medium contact lengths.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks, it's the correct description.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 9d

Sept 28th update:

Wastewater daily inf estimate are cratering, just as anticipated via the model. This trend should continue for at least the next month.

🔸510,000 new infections/day
🔸1 in 66 currently infected
🔸1 in 165 highly infectious

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 14d

Im in the process of revising my calibration that will raise the 2022 and beyond by about 11%

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 14d

About 1.2 for 2022, 0.6 in 2023 and slightly under 0.6 in 2024.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 14d

I heard somewhere recently that if you want your child to excel in math and science, all you have to do is pop a bunch of Tylenol?

Big if true

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 20d

Get ready for late October! Comet "Lemmon" is forecasted to reach an apparent magnitude of 5 to 2, which suggests it could be brighter than last year's comet!

And it's green! This is due to the presence of a molecule you'll never find on earth: C2 (diatomic carbon)

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 21d

There are obviously going to be outliers on either side, and some situations with extended close contact out of the household (sharing a small office all day with another person, etc) where infection can reasonably happen.

Remember the avg infected person spreads to between 0.8-1.3 people.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 21d

I can clarify, typically these days the large bulk of the infected are highly contagious for ~4 days. There is an extended window of being less contagious where you may likely only infect a spouse or other house mate that you have extended close contact with (child, sleeping partner etc).

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 21d

If you don't want to celebrate today, you can wait 100 years until the next

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 21d

Happy Pythagoras day to all you nerds! (9/16/25)

3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 23d

👀

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 25d

Here are the new and less precise public trends for positivity and %ED that both peaked around Sept 1. Both of this indicators typically slightly lead wastewater.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · 25d

Sept 12th update:

Wastewater daily inf estimate increased to 600k this week. Positivity and ED data have both peaked and begun to retreat, and I expect wastewater will soon follow.

🔸600,000 new infections/day
🔸1 in 55 currently infected
🔸1 in 140 infectious out of household

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · Sep 6

Yep, it's all been damaged.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · Sep 6

The CDC quietly neutered the best Covid data on the planet yesterday. ED data visualization has been stripped of age stratification, and state-by-state trends.

ED data has been far better for state by state trends than WW. Poof.

JPWeiland @jpweiland.bsky.social · Sep 6

That's baked in to the model, the school aged kids have peaked already this past week.