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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀

@mackayim.bsky.social

12K followers 2.9K following 7.1K posts

forever virologist, researcher, PCR guy. past lab manager. husband. dad. reader. writer. fixer. bad typist. learner. australian. #MasksWork https://virologydownunder.com/

virologydownunder.com

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 2d

Quick update of Australian #flu numbers -07OCT
FluA subtype A(H1N1), derived from our *last* pandemic #influenza virus, dominates.
2025=thick red dashed line/red monthly dots. The last pink dot just marks September as an incomplete month.
1,368 added daily over 14 days (19,147).
➡️slowing continues

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 6m

Here's hoping.

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 8m

You've answered my earlier question here in this different thread.
Does this ref show an increase in infectiousness or the capacity for immune escape? How does immunity affect the R0?

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1h

Have you got a value for SARS-CoV-2 Reff to hand?

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 2h

Why we corrected our estimates for the reproduction number of two #COVID subvariants
[from 2022]
theconversation.com/why-we-corre...

Why we corrected our estimates for the reproduction number of two COVID subvariants

We published an article earlier this month that contained incorrect estimates for the basic reproduction number (R0) for COVID subvariants BA.4/BA.5 and BA.2. We have now corrected the error, but I wa...

theconversation.com

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 2h

SARS-CoV-2 uses international transport as effectively as influenza viruses, but without the decades of layered underlying community immunity.

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 2h

Prof Johnston has a long and storied history in this area.
He knows this stuff.
Great to see him in print (that part I can access anyway).

Slate @slate.com · 7h

A new common-cold vaccine helped mice and monkeys get over rhinovirus. Next stop, humans. slate.trib.al/iQ0uKjk

There’s No Vaccine for the Common Cold—Yet. This Scientist Is Getting Closer to Changing That.

Imagine a winter without Emergen-C and Kleenex.

slate.trib.al

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 5h

When they happily chomp it's just mutterings, but when they start vying for Boss of the Block - its gets pretty loud!

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 5h

Big news agglomeration summary for Ukraine.

MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 @maks23.bsky.social · 8h

VERY BIG TOP NEWS TODAY 🔝

🇺🇦 Zelensky: I agreed with SBU on some plans, our responses to the Russian war are asymmetric.

💥 Novosibirsk. Fire on the territory of "Zavod Pripoev" plant.

🔥 Fire at "Ekaterinovskaya Pumping Station (PPS)", namely at the electrical substation. Rostov region.

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Reposted by Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀

UNITED24 Media @united24media.com · 7h

⚡️ Russia’s stock market suffered its sharpest drop in three years after its Foreign Ministry said hopes of ending Russia's war against Ukraine have “practically vanished.”

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 6h

Update on the uptake of the new seed block by Cockatoos....
#Lorikeet

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 17h

Nasturtiums. I've never eaten them but I've heard that.

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 17h

Indeed! I've never seen\looked for the species name before.
Nasturtiums.

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 19h

Happy Wednesday evening fellow space rock descendents

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Reposted by Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀

Croakey Health Media @croakeynews.bsky.social · 19h

The Health Wrap: latest on Trump et al, research matters, global health updates – and scenes from Sweden www.croakey.org/the-health-w... #publichealth

The Health Wrap: latest on Trump et al, research matters, global health updates – and scenes from Sweden

www.croakey.org

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Reposted by Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀

Jacob Kaarsbo @jkaarsbo.bsky.social · 21h

Yep the recently developed "TACO version" of the Tomahawk cruise missile is particularly fearsome🤡😂

H I Sutton @covertshores.bsky.social · 1d

Quick guide to Tomahawk cruise missile variants

TLAM - land attack

TSAM - anti-ship

GLCM - ground launched

TACTOM - improved “tactical” version

TACO - version talked about but never delivered to Ukraine

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Reposted by Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀

🤖 SBS News bot (unofficial) @sbs-news-bot.bsky.social · 21h

Australia's cancer survival rates are improving — but there are also some 'concerning' trends

Australia's latest snapshot of cancer incidence and deaths has been released.

www.sbs.com.au

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 21h

States & Rates, 2025.
The higher rate per 100,000 NSW population might simply be due to more testing\more being conducted...or they're more 'festy'. It cannot be determined from the available data.
Similarly, VIC may have less testing available/done. Pathology lab gurus may know the answer to this.

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 22h

Annual totals.
Free unreferred PCR testing scaled back from 2023 nationally, but was being wound down in e.g. Qld, from March'ish 2022.
The massive peak reflects unusual levels of testing-they're real positives, but there are far more than we'd see during normal levels of respiratory virus testing

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 22h

Could you elaborate a little on that?

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1d

But neither aged care trends nor SARS-CoV-2 case numbers specifically quantify #longCOVID or cardiovascular or neurological sequelae of infection.
We currently only have estimates - which vary widely and can be stridently defended by each 'side'. 🤷‍♂️

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1d

That graph also has - probably controversially - shaded areas for rising➡️peak➡️falling cases. These are around summer & winter (biannual).
You can see that a bit more clearly if you look at the most acutely impacted age groups via residential aged care (from virologydownunder.com/in-australia...)

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1d

This abbreviated monthly version excludes the huge 2022 and the late rise in 2021. It plots 2023, which also had a strong start, to the present. 2025 is a red dashed line with circular markers, except for the current month, which is a pink dot.
The other years have diamond markers.

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1d

b) It includes a period (end of 2021, & 2022) where laboratory testing was at exceptionally high levels (1.8 million in Jan 2022!), widely & readily available, free & included symptomatic & asymptomatic people.
Long story short - I won't use this graph again, I'll build on the next one instead.

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1d

I think we can all agree that a) monthly data & b) plotting *all* years aren't super helpful for watching this forecast over the coming years. Why do I say that?
a) Can't see finer detail changes, but this is the best national public data I have access to, & I'm not checking/scraping daily.

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Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him) 🦠🤧🧬📑🦟🧀 @mackayim.bsky.social · 1d

A few graphs of the Australian numbers of laboratory-confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - by month with some thoughts (this will be a slow thread ('cause lunch & digging up some numbers).
First, the graph of cases for all COVID-19 years.

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