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Michael Plank

@michaelplanknz.bsky.social

2.6K followers 1.7K following 990 posts

Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Canterbury, NZ. Fellow @royalsocietynz.bsky.social. Math modelling in biology and epidemiology. Bicycles make the world a better place. He/him https://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/~m.plank/

www.math.canterbury.ac.nz

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · Jan 16

We are advertising two PhD scholarships to work on models of the interaction between ethnicity and infectious disease dynamics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Open to international students.

Please share!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

@iddjobs.bsky.social

Modelling the interaction between ethnicity and infectious disease dynamics at University of Canterbury on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - Modelling the interaction between ethnicity and infectious disease dynamics at University of Canterbury, listed on FindAPhD.com

www.findaphd.com

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 2d

Great thread explaining UKHSA's Covid and influenza excess death estimates

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 2d

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has been estimating excess deaths in the UK due to Covid-19 and influenza since 2022.

Here’s a visualization of their latest results. I’ll walk you through it.

www.gov.uk/government/s...

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · 4d

So tragic: Alberta baby born with congenital #measles (mother contracted measles late in pregnancy) died shortly after birth.
The province, which has had a massive measles outbreak this year, says this is the 7th case of congenital measles in 2025. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Premature baby dies of measles in Alberta outbreak's 1st death | CBC News

Alberta is reporting its first measles death since outbreaks of the highly contagious illness began in March. The province says a baby, who was born prematurely after the mother became sick, died shor...

www.cbc.ca

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 5d

Ah I see, yes agreed (I thought you were commenting on the difference in A(nfd) specifically, rather than A vs B)

Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 5d

Looks like almost all GP samples are subtyped but only a subset of the hospital samples are? Am I missing something?

Reposted by Michael Plank

Marc Veldhoen @marcveld.bsky.social · 5d

Long Covid Risk for Children Doubles After a Second Infection, Study Finds

The new research provides evidence that Covid reinfections can increase the risk of long-term health consequences.

Oh dear, this is not good from the NYT.

www.nytimes.com/2025...
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Long Covid Risk for Children Doubles After a Second Infection, Study Finds

The new research provides evidence that Covid reinfections can increase the risk of long-term health consequences.

www.nytimes.com

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 5d

What's even the point of this?

Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 6d

This is a very nice visualization. Independence is a foundational concept but can be counter intuitive and is one of those words that means something a bit different in maths than in everyday usage

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 8d

I love this. Explainer: There are 100 outcomes (all squares) each equally likely. Wiggly lines event happens 20% of the time; grey event happens 30% of the time. >

David K Butler @davidkbutler.bsky.social · 8d

This came up in the staff meeting today: how the ordinary English meaning of the word “independent” does not describe at all how a Venn diagram looks, and what to do to fix that. #MathSky www.adelaide.edu.au/mathslearnin...

Reposted by Michael Plank

Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · 6d

This study seems riddled with selection and detection biases and I can't see how any knowledgeable expert could just take the results at face value and conclude a doubling of risk of long-covid with reinfection.

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 7d

Children and teens who had a Covid reinfection had a doubling of #LongCovid risk (PASC) and a significant increase in many other adverse outcomes (Figure) www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 6d

They're related of course in the sense that pre-existing health conditions predispose to more severe Covid, but even after controlling for baseline there will be some intrinsic variation in severity. Or do you think they've controlled for this?

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 6d

Thanks for this. As well as differences in baseline health, isn't there an additional issue that as testing has become more clinically focused over time, the reinfections are more skewed towards the severe end of the spectrum than 1st infections?

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 6d

A few comments on this study which finds a doubling of long covid risk with reinfections in children.

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 7d

Children and teens who had a Covid reinfection had a doubling of #LongCovid risk (PASC) and a significant increase in many other adverse outcomes (Figure) www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 7d

At our recent @lshtm.bsky.social event on misinformation, Chris Whitty gave some useful reflections on common causes and some important considerations for handling it.

Full event: www.youtube.com/live/H_nClQ2...

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 7d

Very very cool!

David Hodgson @dchodge.bsky.social · 8d

🚀 New tool: Reversible Jump MCMC running in your browser!
Built an interactive widget for fitting mixture distributions when you don't know how many components you need.

Check it out: dchodge.github.io/rjmc-widget-...

Dynamic Mixture Model Analysis

dchodge.github.io

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 8d

The only reason we've avoided having more huge outbreaks is that most ppl are immunised and this is v effective at preventing measles. When vaccination rates are too low, it lets measles back in.

Two doses of MMR vaccine is the recommendation for anyone born since 1969.

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 8d

Reminder that measles is a dangerous virus & one of the most infectious diseases there is...

Measles outbreak: Two new cases in Northland www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Measles outbreak: Two new cases in Northland, new locations of interest

There are also several new locations of interest, primarily in Queenstown and Cromwell, but also in Northland, following ongoing contact tracing efforts.

www.rnz.co.nz

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Science Media Centre NZ @smcnz.bsky.social · 8d

High nitrate levels found in rural NZ drinking water – Expert Reaction

High nitrate levels found in rural NZ drinking water - Expert Reaction - Science Media Centre

Tens of thousands of rural New Zealanders could be drinking water with harmful nitrate levels, researchers say. The first-ever national rural drinking water survey found 5% of the private bore samples...

www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Charlie Mitchell @comingupcharlie.bsky.social · 8d

This is gaining traction in anti-COVID vax circles but none of them have clocked that it comes from a dataset spanning 2000-2020. The shots are so powerful they transcend time.

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Diego Silva @dsilvaphd.bsky.social · 12d

What are the ethical parameters of modelling infectious diseases, particularly during an outbreak or pandemic? Sara Del Valle, Michael Plank, & I answer this question in our new paper looking at the ethics of disease modelling for public health policy, particularly as it pertains to school closures.

Ethical considerations in infectious disease modelling for public health policy: the case of school closures | Interface Focus

Mathematical models of infectious diseases are frequently used as a tool to support public health policy and decisions around the implementation of interventions such as school closures. However, most...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 9d

Was there for a week in May - beautiful location, and great science!

Reposted by Michael Plank

Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · 10d

Neat study—following 320 healthcare workers for almost a year, with 152 of them being infected, the authors examined whether or not COVID-19 associates with more upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs). It didn't (yay!).

But, having a kid <5 associated with a 74% increase in the risk of URTIs.

Is COVID-19 Associated With an Increased Risk of Subsequent Upper Respiratory Tract Infections in Adults? A Prospective Cohort Study

AbstractBackground. In Autumn 2022, a surge in upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) was observed worldwide. Individuals anecdotally reported increase

academic.oup.com

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 10d

This is great journalism, like "Seymour said X, here are some uncontroversial facts that show he's talking nonsense".

Charlie Mitchell @comingupcharlie.bsky.social · 11d

The deputy Prime Minister this week admonished a regional council for enforcing its rules (which it is legally required to do) on the basis that the RMA will be overhauled at some point www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Are Cantabrians living in ‘the republic of ECan’?

The deputy PM is urging Environment Canterbury to pause its enforcement of consenting laws. Is this even possible? The Press fact checks David Seymour’s comments.

www.thepress.co.nz

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 11d

The ACIP panel by @glaucomflecken.bsky.social

youtube.com/watch?v=TA2r...

The ACIP Panel

YouTube video by Dr. Glaucomflecken

youtube.com

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 11d

Left unchecked, openAI and other infotech providers will destroy any remnants of the American education system that manage to escape the Trump administration.

Read the full thread.

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11d

OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

www.nytimes.com

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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 11d

🤣

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Reposted by Michael Plank

Clare Griffiths @statsgeekclare.bsky.social · 13d

New CMO report out today on health trends and variation in England. My team delivered this using a RAP developed in R, which made a nice change from lots of people running around putting numbers into excel then pasting into powerpoint... Was not without challenges though! www.gov.uk/government/p...

Health trends and variation in England 2025: a Chief Medical Officer report

An overview of the health of England’s population, including trends over time and geographical variation.

www.gov.uk

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