Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · May 22

One of my favorite papers I have ever written....and one of the least cited :-)

Reposted by Justin Lessler

Social Security Works @socialsecurityworks.org · Mar 14

Seniors came to JD Vance's event to demand the Trump Administration stop cutting Social Security.

JD's response:

"Don't you all have jobs?"

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Bryan Toporek @btoporek.bsky.social · Mar 12

Cutting off funding to the institution that INVENTED CPR definitely seems like a smart idea. How did no one ever think of this before?

An excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

"Johns Hopkins was founded in 1876 “to foster independent and original research” and now spends more than $3 billion annually on that effort—more than any other U.S. school, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Scientists at the school invented cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, confirmed the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls, introduced the rubber glove to surgery and landed the first spacecraft on an asteroid. Twenty-nine people with links to the institution have won Nobel Prizes."

An excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

"A long list of Johns Hopkins’ USAID-funded projects have already been halted, including a nearly complete eight-year effort with half a billion dollars in funding to convince people in more than 50 countries to adopt behaviors such as sleeping under mosquito nets in Mozambique, breast-feeding in Baltimore and using contraception in Nigeria.
Another project halted: An effort to provide chlorine tablets and soapy water and messages about good hygiene to help prevent diarrhea deaths in Bangladesh. "

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Bryan D. James, PhD @bryandjames.bsky.social · Feb 28

Ran out of room to tag the original post #episky (read it to see @justinlessler.bsky.social on @npr.org describing the contagiousness of measles given different vax rates)

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Peter Rebeiro, PhD, MHS @prebeiro.bsky.social · Feb 28

Wonderful explanation of contagion, reproductive numbers, & the reason #measles outbreaks *are* a big deal (courtesy of @npr.org & including insight from brilliant ID Epi @justinlessler.bsky.social):

www.npr.org/sections/sho...

As the Texas outbreak grows, how contagious is measles, really?

Vaccination eliminated measles from the U.S. 25 years ago. But it can still spread in pockets where vaccination rates are low, like the west Texas county with a current outbreak. Here's how fast.

www.npr.org

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

The Onion @theonion.com · Feb 21

DOGE By The Numbers
theonion.com/doge-by...

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · Feb 15

“The Maryland National Guard must decline events which celebrates individuals based all or in part on immutable characteristics,” the memo said.

Douglass was an abolitionist, suffragist, orator and author. That’s what we celebrate him. Let’s be clear: This bars celebrating him because he was Black.

Maryland National Guard out of Frederick Douglass parade after DoD order

Strict guidance from the national defense department crushed plans for a parade held in honor of Frederick Douglass’ 207th birthday because it was being held during Black History Month.

www.thebaltimorebanner.com

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · Feb 14

Goodnight friends. We end today with this quote for ourselves and for our new secretary of HHS.

But again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. The schoolteacher is well aware of this. And the question is not one of knowing what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is one of knowing whether two and two do make four.
― Albert Camus, The Plague

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Ruth Ann Crystal @drruth.bsky.social · Feb 1

✨PLEASE SHARE! CDC GUIDELINE ARCHIVES✨

▶️STI GUIDELINES
buff.ly/4jReLT4
buff.ly/3EmjR9B

▶️Medical Eligibility Criteria (MEC) for Contraceptives buff.ly/3PZzQNf
buff.ly/4aKMEko

▶️VACCINE VIS buff.ly/4jJ1603

▶️Others from @jessicavalenti.bsky.social
LGBTQ CDCGuidelines.com

#medsky #pedsky #IDsky 🛟🧪

Yellow background. Different CDC websites that have been removed. Some are in black and white. Others are purple or red and green.

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Flo Débarre @flodebarre.bsky.social · Dec 30

Five years ago (Monday 30 Dec 2019), a turning point: the news of an outbreak in Wuhan spread on messaging apps, social media (Weibo, then Twitter), and got out of China, culminating with a ProMED alert sent to the international medical community on 30-31 Dec. ▫️1/

screenhot of the "red letter" document (details in the next posts)

screenshot of the documents that spread on social media (more details below)

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Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · Dec 11

Due warning that they can be a little persnickety about the verification.

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Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · Dec 11

I thought that was free to teachers/students? At least appears to be for me. docs.github.com/en/copilot/m...

Getting free access to Copilot as a student, teacher, or maintainer - GitHub Docs

Learn how to use Copilot for free as a student, teacher, or open-source maintainer.

docs.github.com

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Joseph Lemaitre @josephlemaitre.bsky.social · Dec 6

The studies informing stratified parameters in IDD models often have partitions (e.g age group) different from the model partitions. Most papers takes the median/mean estimates, but a correct solution exists: see this great paper/R pkg (C. Pearson, @lucygoodfellow.bsky.social @mert0248.bsky.social)

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Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · Dec 6

Congrats to team member Carl Pearson and his co-authors @lucygoodfellow.bsky.social and @mert0248.bsky.social. An important tool for a pervasive problem in modeling infectious disease data www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

paramix : An R package for parameter discretisation in compartmental models, with application to calculating years of life lost

Compartmental infectious disease models are used to calculate disease transmission, estimate underlying rates, forecast future burden, and compare benefits across intervention scenarios. These models ...

www.medrxiv.org

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · Dec 2

Now is a great time to get flu & covid vaccines before holiday travel & parties lead to an uptick. Flu cases are rising. Covid deaths are down compared to other yrs *but still outnumber flu*.

Re-sharing my piece on why vax, masks & tests are the best defense.
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

‘Emergency’ or Not, Covid Is Still Killing People. Here’s What Doctors Advise to Stay Safe. - KFF Health News

Thousands of people are still dying of covid, but government has mostly handed over responsibility to the people to weather the seasonal surges with their own strategies.

kffhealthnews.org

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · Nov 27

Note to journalists: important to communicate that the stated aim of GBD was to have a massive epidemic (immediately before vaccines became available), and also somehow keep it away from older population at higher risk (which would be about 25% of UK population if take age 60 as cutoff)

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · Nov 24

[email protected] reports finding #H5N1 #birdflu virus in raw milk. The producer, Raw Farm LLC of Fresno County, has agreed to recall a batch of a whole milk product called "cream top."
Milk from infected cows contains staggering levels of virus. www.statnews.com/2024/04/29/b...

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Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · Nov 19

In a month of bad news, this one hits especially hard. Simon's Rock was an incredibly special place that changed my life. Early college at Bard will be no substitute. www.bard.edu/news/bard-ac...

Chicken Fajita

Bard Academy and Bard College at Simon’s Rock Announce Relocation to Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley

The Bard College Board of Trustees and the Bard College at Simon’s Rock Board of Overseers today jointly announced that Simon’s Rock will be relocating from its Great Barrington, MA, campus to a new c...

www.bard.edu

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Sara Loo @loosaraliyen.bsky.social · Nov 19

Our framework for combining standard epi models with an economic dynamic decision model is up on medRxiv! super flexible and excited to see where this project goes next www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Modeling dynamic disease-behavior feedbacks for improved epidemic prediction and response

Human behavior significantly influences infectious disease transmission, yet traditional models often overlook this factor, limiting predictions of disease and the associated socioeconomic impacts. We...

www.medrxiv.org

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Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · Oct 8

We are hiring a postdoc to work on projects related to scenario modeling for public health with scenariomodelinghub.org. Apply at unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/288...

Home - Scenario model hub

Projections of Flu scenarios.

scenariomodelinghub.org

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Bloom lab @jbloomlab.bsky.social · Sep 15

Here is analysis of HA mutations in H5 influenza case in Missouri resident without known contact w animals or raw milk.

TLDR: there is one HA mutation that strongly affects antigenicity, and another that merits some further study.

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

NPR @npr.org · Mar 15

Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the world's first commercially-available karaoke machine, has died in Japan. He was 100 years old.

Karaoke inventor Shigeichi Negishi dies at 100

Negishi was in his 40s when he came up with the idea of prototyping a mass-produced, coin-operated karaoke machine, branded "Sparko Box" in 1967.

www.npr.org

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Reposted by Justin Lessler

Espoir Bwenge Malembaka @esbwenge.bsky.social · Jan 19

Excited to see our working out in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on the effectiveness of one dose of oral cholera vaccine (OCV) in DR Congo. One dose of OCV protects against clinical cholera for up to 24-36 mo
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
with @justinlessler.bsky.social @andrewazman.bsky.social

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Justin Lessler @justinlessler.bsky.social · Dec 4

We are recruiting for Research Assistant Professor positions at UNC to work on projects aimed at making epidemic projections and analytics more accurate and more relevant to those who need them most. Consider applying to join our team!
unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/270...

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