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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Jul 2

rdcu.be/euiRS. Spatial patterns of COVID-19 2nd booster uptake is well predicted from 1st booster patterns via deprivation, age & gender. Spatial patterns deviated w/ later boosters, w/ men under 60 showing markedly lower uptake than predicted. Kudos to Anthony Wood for his excellent analysis.

Long-term spatial patterns in COVID-19 booster vaccine uptake

Communications Medicine - Long-term spatial patterns in COVID-19 booster vaccine uptake

rdcu.be

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Jun 26

Interested in applying data science to practical health problems? At Lancaster University learn a mix of programming, stats, and health economics. For an international flavour there is a summer school on Pemba just beside Zanzibar. www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/postgr...

Health Data Science MSc - Lancaster University

Find out more about studying Health Data Science MSc at Lancaster University

www.lancaster.ac.uk

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Jun 25

Very proud of the links I have with scientists in BioSS - long may it continue

BioSS @bioss.bsky.social · Jun 25

Congratulations to BioSS associate @rowlandkao.bsky.social who was recently recognised with a CBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for his work in understanding infectious diseases!

www.bioss.ac.uk/people/rkao

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · May 29

@ewancolman.bsky.social analysed the impact of individual person shedding variability on virus detection in #wastewater-based epidemiology and ability to identify rises and falls in COVID-19 trajectories in Scotland during the pandemic journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... Elegant analysis Ewan!

The impact of signal variability on COVID-19 epidemic growth rate estimation from wastewater surveillance data

Testing samples of wastewater for markers of infectious disease became a widespread method of surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic. While these data generally correlate well with other indicators...

journals.plos.org

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Reposted by Rowland Kao

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · Apr 2

Great PhD opportunity with @edmhill.bsky.social @profbuchan.bsky.social and others, please circulate to anyone interested!

www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/postgr...

Optimising Vaccination Outreach Through Epidemiological-Behavioural Modelling and AI

Vaccine hesitancy is a complex, time-varying problem leading to suboptimal vaccination coverage for individuals, groups and populations. In turn, this has serious consequences for individuals and popu...

www.liverpool.ac.uk

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Reposted by Rowland Kao

Ed Hill @edmhill.bsky.social · Mar 28

📰 DEFRA avian influenza update: 28 Mar 2025 #IDSky #IDEpi #OneHealth

2️⃣ premises with HPAI H5N1 confirmed

🐔 Commercial poultry at premises near Wymondham, Norfolk

🐦 Poultry & captive birds at premises near Blaydon, Durham (previously suspected case)

🔗 Avian influenza: latest situation in England👇

Bird flu (avian influenza): latest situation in England

Find out about the latest bird flu situation in England and guidance for bird keepers and the public.

www.gov.uk

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Mar 29

With proper development Wastewater surveillance could be used to track epidemics even when driven by asymptomatic infections www-cbc-ca.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cbc....

Amid Canada's largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, experts say this COVID-era tool could help

www-cbc-ca.cdn.ampproject.org

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Mar 24

H5N1 found in sheep for the first time - no obvious immediate risks but another indication of the potential for a well known virus to surprise. No indication yet of whether or not its an isolated case or evidence of onward transmission. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Influenza of avian origin confirmed in a sheep in Yorkshire

Influenza of avian origin (H5N1) has been confirmed in a single sheep in Yorkshire.

www.gov.uk

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Mar 18

Good point- and it’s not just cheating is it? Even as we develop ways to assess that acknowledge gen AI it’s far too easy to “press the button” even when not needed

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Mar 17

Increasingly thinking about my research groups computing energy use. We are generating only a tiny fraction of the consumption of course but it’s just far too easy to let the computers do the work rather than thinking through what really needs to be done www.oneninenine.agency/articles/the....

The Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry

The internet is now responsible for up to 4% of all total carbon emissions. So how can we make The Cloud green with our growing dependence on technology and AI?

www.oneninenine.agency

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 28

It's been coming - but its still the end of an era: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Skype announces it will close in May

The internet chat and phone service, which is owned by Microsoft, made the announcement on X.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 26

if you have to bet on when a randomly occurring event will occur always bet on the 1st day; any other day is conditional on the event having not yet occurred and therefore has lower probability. I.e. the 1st allowable day is the mode of the distribution

dist.is

Reposted by Rowland Kao

Ed Hill @edmhill.bsky.social · Feb 25

📰 Recent highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 confirmations in other captive birds in England #IDSky #IDEpi

🐔 25 Feb 2025: Confirmed case at premises near Fownhope, Herefordshire

📊 22 cases of HPAI H5N1 in England in 2025

🔗 Avian influenza: latest situation👇
www.gov.uk/government/n...

Bird flu (avian influenza): latest situation in England

Find out about the latest bird flu situation in England and guidance for bird keepers and the public.

www.gov.uk

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Reposted by Rowland Kao

IDDjobs @iddjobs.org · Feb 26

PhD position (Glasgow, UK)
Quantifying the contribution of livestock movements to AMR in East Africa
with @researcherJess
at University of Glasgow
More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2277

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Reposted by Rowland Kao

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · Feb 19

Some answers to my question about what would trigger use of #H5N1 vaccine being purchased by Canada. #NACI, the advisory group that recommends vaccine policy in Canada, has issued preliminary guidance on how/when to use H5 vaccine in a non-pandemic context. www.canada.ca/en/public-he...

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 19

We don’t know yet the conditions under which they’ll be deployed of course but a sensible precaution given current sitrep in the US www.sciencealert.com/new-strain-o...

New Strain of Bird Flu in Nevada Reveals a Concerning Mutation

An emerging strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza has spilled over from wild birds to dairy cows in the state of Nevada, and officials at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and some scienti...

www.sciencealert.com

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 19

Giving poultry workers bird flu vaccines protects them and reduced the chances for either recombination with seasonal flu or further strain adaptation in humans www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

Ottawa purchases 500,000 doses of bird flu vaccine for people at higher risk of catching virus

The majority of the doses will be handed out to provinces and territories, which will decide when and where to deploy the shots

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 19

New spillover of HPAI into cattle. A regular event now ... www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program... - hard to know how much is about looking for it harder, how much is because there is so much circulating HPAI in US birds, and how much is due to the strain of virus itself.

APHIS Identifies Third HPAI Spillover in Dairy Cattle | Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

On February 13, 2025, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) confirmed by whole genome sequence a detection of highly pathogenic a...

www.aphis.usda.gov

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 12

Given his approach to Gaza I’m sure we are in good hands www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Trump says he has spoken to Putin and agreed to negotiate Ukraine ceasefire

US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth says Ukraine would have to cede territory, alarming Kyiv and European allies

www.theguardian.com

Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 11

Permanent PDRA position @pirbrightinst.bsky.social working in one of the most important disease systems/challenges we face lnkd.in/eR-27gNY

The Pirbright Institute hiring Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Woking, England, United Kingdom | LinkedIn

Posted 10:37:37 AM. Postdoctoral Scientist – (24P-80)The Pirbright Institute Salary: £38,500 - £40,000 per…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.

lnkd.in

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Reposted by Rowland Kao

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · Feb 3

#USDA reported 5 new #H5N1 #birdflu infected herds today, 4 in ... wait for it ... Nevada! & 1 in California. The Nevada herds are the first there since early December. I hope the people who study sequences can find these & figure out if they are all part of the same outbreak or new introductions.

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Feb 3

Workshop for younger researchers interested in complexity science. There is a nice list of projects here in #complexsystems

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Reposted by Rowland Kao

Ed Hutchinson @socialinfluenza.bsky.social · Jan 30

Our study on pasteurising influenza viruses in milk is now out! It's a nice simple story: influenza viruses (including H5N1) are killed really effectively by pasteurisation, but in raw milk they stay infectious - obvious public health implications of both points... (1/2)
rdcu.be/d73te

A picture of a Fresian cow whose markings resemble influenza viruses

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Jan 30

New EU dashboard for Wastewater surveillance for infectious diseases joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and...

Tracking diseases from the sewer

The EU Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard provides near real-time insights into the spread of pathogens.

joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu

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Rowland Kao @rowlandkao.bsky.social · Jan 29

Further twists in the bird flu saga www.reuters.com/business/hea...

U.S. reported first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in poultry, WOAH says

The United States reported a first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu on a poultry farm, the World Organisation for Animal Health said on Monday.

www.reuters.com