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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

Plenary Popehat Power @kenwhite.bsky.social · 13h

These people are evil. Never stop saying so. Don’t be intimidated into shutting up.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 15h

Here’s video of the incident

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 18h

Yes, good question. I still don't know the answer. Interesting that it varies a lot from country to country. UK detects only 1 flu death in 28. Pre-covid in the US it was about 1 in 8 (comparing excess deaths to flu deaths), and today it might be as many as 1 in 4.

bsky.app/profile/mich...

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

The blue dashed line is the average influenza excess for years 2012-2019, and the solid blue line (very close to zero!) is the averaged registered flu death toll each year.

Only about 1 flu-associated excess death in 28 is registered as a flu death in the UK.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 1d

I'm a physicist and used to spherical-cow level approximations, but treating people is completely uncorrelated particles on a 2D surface is not going to be a useful model!

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 1d

What the fresh hell is this?

Isn't this just a map of population density?!?

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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

Plenary Popehat Power @kenwhite.bsky.social · 1d

It’s important to flood social media and news channels with news about how ICE lies, so that potential jurors see it.

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 1d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

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 Prof. Michael Fuhrer

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

No, covid does not exhibit co-circulation in the sense that flu (and RSV) do. So far, each new variant either becomes dominant, or dies out.

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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 4d

"I believe that Americans would agree that the government can’t just make people disappear without any process or explanation. Second, because I want to give the government a chance to admit that they were wrong.

So far the government has not done so."

newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-us-ci...

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.

Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

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

Reducing the amount of covid, and flu, circulating each year is still important. Both are vaccine-preventable diseases. And vaccination protects not just the vaccinee but everyone. Raising annual vaccination rates could still save 1,000s of lives each year in US&UK.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · Apr 17

For this reason, in the endemic phase, vaccines are *by far* our best tool to protect individuals, and also reduce population prevalence so that even those who can’t be vaccinated (e.g. infants) and those who don’t benefit as much from vax (some immunocompromised people) are also protected.

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

NB: Covid remains a big problem for infants who are born with almost* no adaptive immunity to it. (Here, showing covid still hospitalizes more infants than flu in the US. But note, RSV hospitalizes more than both combined!)

*infants CAN get some immunity from maternal vaccination--important!

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

("flu" meaning two pandemic strains, plus one endemic strain of influenza!)

I didn’t expect to see the burden of covid retreating so rapidly even in 2025. But it’s a good thing, I’ll take it.

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

The first part isn’t a surprise: we knew that novel covid was ~10-20X worse than influenza.

The second part is starting to surprise me: my central expectation was that covid, with immunity from vaccination and past infection, would become ~10X milder, and still carry a burden similar to flu.

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

The graph shows that covid deaths exceeded the average flu season by 5-10X in 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Since the pandemic height, covid deaths have been dropping exponentially, roughly halving each year for the last three years, and are now substantially below the average flu season.

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

Registered covid deaths somewhat exceed the unexplained excess in 2019-20 and 2020-21. But the excess will include some negative excess due to lack of flu and other respiratory diseases. In 2021-2025 the estimated covid excess is in (surprisingly) good agreement with registered covid deaths.

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

The registered covid deaths are the dark red solid and dashed lines (solid includes summer with fewer covid deaths, bringing the yearly rate down).

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

The blue dashed line is the average influenza excess for years 2012-2019, and the solid blue line (very close to zero!) is the averaged registered flu death toll each year.

Only about 1 flu-associated excess death in 28 is registered as a flu death in the UK.

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

I’ve normalized the Covid-19 deaths by the length of the study period, but assumed that the winter study period captures all the flu deaths for the entire year.

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

Here are the results from the UKHSA study, shown in the columns of the graph below.

I’ve also added the registered Covid-19 deaths for each year’s study period, and also including the summer period (not included in the study).

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

The respiratory deaths are modelled from roughly the start of October to mid-May (epi weeks 40 through 20). Note that they didn’t model Covid-19 in 2029-20 and 2020-21; the Covid-19 deaths will show up in the unexplained excess during those years.

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

Briefly, the model takes weekly all-cause deaths, and fits them to a model including a seasonal baseline (black), terms proportional to flu prevalence (red), extreme temperature days (green), and registered Covid-19 deaths (blue).

khub.net/documents/13...

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

I discussed the methods used by UKHSA previously in this thread:

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bsky.app/profile/mich...

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · Oct 15

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) released a report on winter mortality that got some recent press (below) for the comparison of flu and covid mortality.

I wanted to go into the basis for the findings a little more deeply.

A thread.

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www.bbc.com/news/health-...

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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 Prof. Michael Fuhrer

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 3d

A WILD ONE: A man broke his leg during an arrest by ICE at a car wash south of L.A.

ICE has held him under 24/7 guard at a hospital, registering him under a pseudonym, for *37 days* without telling him why.

A judge has ordered his immediate release.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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

I have no problem explaining my views at length if you ever want to know.

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