James Sessford
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sessford.bsky.social
James Sessford
@sessford.bsky.social
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Long covid research
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Reposted by James Sessford
jvipondmd.bsky.social
This.
This is the problem.
OH and S standards are different for HCWs and for the life of me (and them) I can't understand why.
December 19, 2025 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
drjenirwin.bsky.social
Read this twice.

“Our findings redefine SARS-CoV-2 infection as a condition of long-lasting immune compromise.”

www.sciencedirect.com:5037/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com
December 6, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
Meanwhile, the convergence between the "Evidence Based Medicine" authoritarians in politics and in institutional medicine continues as expected.

Funny how a heuristic that claims to substitute for science and lets 2+2 be 5 if you want it to is popular with both.

thehill.com/policy/healt...
Kulldorff formerly taught at Harvard University’s medical school until he was fired in 2024 for what he claimed was his refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. He was also an author of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which called for promoting herd immunity early on in the COVID-19 pandemic by allowing the virus to spread unmitigated. “Martin Kulldorff transformed ACIP from a rubber stamp into a committee that delivers gold-standard science for the American people,” Kennedy said in a statement. “I’m glad to welcome him to my team to help develop bold, evidence-based policies to Make America Healthy Again.” Kulldorff said he was honored “to join the team of distinguished scientists” at HHS. “I look forward to contributing to the science-based public health policies that will Make America Healthy Again.” Pediatric cardiologist and former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon Kirk Milhoan will replace Kulldorff as chair of the ACIP. Milhoan is also an ardent vaccine critic and previously argued that vaccines were ineffective, arguing only natural immunity could end the COVID-19 pandemic.
December 5, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
The sheer dedication to avoiding any mention of COVID when talking about things that we know for certain are heavily impacted by COVID is...impressive.

The "after pandemic" bit is a red flag too - someone's either not keeping up, or deliberately trying to manipulate the narrative.
November 30, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
The information that could have stopped the pandemic in 2020, that Dr. Morawska was desperately trying to teach WHO infection control leaders in 2020, was known for 👉84 years👈 before these events (documented in @carlzimmer.com's excellent book AIR-BORNE):

(figure: academic.oup.com/aje/article/...)
A page from Carl Zimmer's book AIR-BORNE: Kerkhove started the conversation off politely, but it quickly devolved. Some WHO representatives rejected Group 36's concerns out-right, dismissing their evidence as weak. Julian Tang, a British virologist with Group 36, pushed back, pointing out that WHO was claiming that fomites and large droplets spread SARS-CoV-2 while it had no rigorous proof of its own. Before long, Jimenez recalled, the temperature hit the boiling point. He watched John Conly scream at Morawska. "He kept yelling, 'But, Lidia, where is your evidence? Where is your evidence?" Jimenez recalled. "I was thinking, 'Jesus Christ, what is this?" The Group 36 scientists would later publish a collective account of the shocking experience. "After the call was finished, disappointed and frustrated, we wondered, Why are they acting like this?" they wrote. "Why are they so bluntly rejecting our arguments?" I later asked Conly about Group 36's account. He stressed that he was not directly involved in the conflict over WHO's guidelines. With over thirty advisors from around the world helping to develop the guide-lines, he wasn't that high on the WHO ladder. Conly thought that scien-tists like Li and Morawska did great work, but he saw many gaps in the evidence about how Covid-19 spread. They all deserved careful scientific inquiry. With so much complexity and uncertainty to contend with, dis-putes were inevitable. "The flattest pancake in the world has two sides," Conly told me. Reeling in frustration after the April 3 call, Group 36 conferred about what to do next. "We were like, 'Okay, we need to find more evidence," Jimenez said. They had to find an outbreak of Covid-19 that they could document, taking proper account of the role that air played in the infections. A plot from Wells' 1934 paper showing particles on the order of 100 microns or less will evaporate to airborne aerosol size before they have time to fall to the ground from head height. Associated text reads: residues or nuclei physically comparable with particles of fine dust may be of considerable hygienic importance. The size of droplet nuclei depends upon the amount of solid matter contained in the evaporating droplet. Because of the high percentage of water in body fluids, nuclei will be small in proportion to the size of the original droplet. Yet they will remain large in comparison to the mass of a bacterium. Normal saline droplets would reduce to salt nuclei roughly one-fifth of the former diameter, having a volume of some ten thousand bacteria. The nuclei of such droplets would settle slowly and be carried long distances by light air currents.
November 21, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
sameo416.bsky.social
The irony.

Designed and proven using entirely mechanistic method and observational data, with a healthy side order of biochemistry.

And fielded for decades with huge successes, without a single randomized trial as proof.

& today, groups of MDs work tirelessly to prove N95 don’t work vs viruses.
cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social Canadian History Ehx @cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · Nov 16
On this day in 1966, Cluny Macpherson died.
Born in St. John's in 1879, he invented the gas mask during the First World War. His design was adopted by the British Army. He later became the president of the St. John's Clinical Society and the Newfoundland Medical Association.
Sepia-toned portrait photograph of a man in World War I-era military uniform. He wears a peaked cap with insignia, a high-collared jacket with epaulettes, collar badges, and a cross-belt strap. He has a mustache and faces forward with a neutral expression against a plain light background.
November 16, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
greymoran.bsky.social
During the height of the pandemic, Tyson used Palantir to predict Covid-19 infections among meatpacking workers down to a nearly exactly figure. But rather than using this data to increase worker protections, Tyson used it plan for labor shortages + plant closures
My latest for @sentientmedia.org
November 13, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
sansnom.bsky.social
Amputating a limb provides strong long term protection against losing same limb from frostbite.
November 11, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
philnobilejr.bsky.social
Good morning! AI is being force-fed to you by a handful of billionaires who will lose a bunch of money if they fail to convince you that you need it. You do not need it 🫶
November 6, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
beansproutsmom.bsky.social
This is a critical thread for every Canadian to read.

I began the pandemic as an avid CBC listener. I can't listen anymore. The lack of journalistic integrity, the dangerous anti-science rhetoric, the simping & attacks from @ianhanomansing.bsky.social destroyed my faith in it.

#cdnsky #canpoli
stairway-to-kevin.bsky.social Kevin Ball @stairway-to-kevin.bsky.social · Nov 2
🆄🅽🆂🅰🅵🅴 🅸🅽 🆃🅷🅴 🆆🅾🆁🅺🅿🅻🅰🅲🅴

how the CBC forced me to resign over COVID

and why we’re all worse off for it—especially our kids

a 🧵

(on the occasion of my son’s [5th] and the CBC’s [89th] shared birthday, nov. 2)

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

[links to referenced articles in ALT text]
November 2, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
We need to start calling misrepresentation of COVID-related harms as due to "lockdowns" what it is: fraud, and a breach of academic integrity.

There's room for good research, but studies that ignore direct effects and mindlessly attribute e.g. changes in mental health to mitigations are dishonest.
mark-ungrin.bsky.social Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · Nov 25
I'll try hanging a bit of a branch off the main thread here breaking out more information from the NASEM long COVID report for those who need it. Annex Tables 3-1 through 3-13 go through selected long COVID impacts, and are organized by body system: nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/c...
FIGURE 3-1 Lasting impact of COVID-19. (figure showing the many organ systems impacted by long COVID) from https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/chapter/5#58
November 5, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
🧵This "public" Nov 5 forum highlights the hypocrisy of public health institutions. Topics include misinformation and public trust, and an attendee sent me this: questions for the panellists must be submitted in advance (so hard ones on e.g. PPE, aerosols etc can be censored).
ubccdc.med.ubc.ca
Program – Global Health Security Forum Time Agenda 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM Registration and Lunch 12:30 PM – 01:00 PM Opening Remarks from Siem Te Ta-in (Coast Salish Knowledge Keeper) Opening Remarks by BCCDC 01:00 PM – 1:45 PM Keynote Presentation Rethinking Global Health Security in the Post-COVID Era — Are we better prepared Maria D. Van Kerkhove, Director a.i., Epidemic and Pandemic Management, Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme, World Health Organization 01:45 PM – 4:00 PM Presentations (20 minutes each) 1:45 PM – 2:05 PM Indigenous health and rights at the forefront of health security Shannon Waters, Deputy Provincial Health Officer, British Columbia, Canada 2:06 PM – 2:26 PM Public trust and health security Heidi J Larson, Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK 2:26 PM – 2:46 PM Misinformation and tackling misinformation—what is needed at the global scale Tara Kirk Sell, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Johns Hopkins University, USA 2:47 PM – 3:07 PM Data, equity and intelligence: Building inclusive surveillance systems Naveed Janjua, Director, UBC Centre for Disease Control, University of British Columbia, Canada 3:08 PM – 3:28PM Are we ready to tackle another pandemic: vaccine from development and to uptake? Natasha Crowcroft, Vice President, Infectious Diseases and Vaccination Programs, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada 3:29 PM – 3:49 PM One Health approach to tackle emerging threats Hung Nguyen-Viet, Regional Director Asia, International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM Break and Networking 4:30 PM – 5:50 PM Panel Discussion Where do we go from here? Building a resilient global health future Panelists: Maria D. Van Kerkhove, Director a.i., Epidemic and Pandemic Management, Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme, World Health Organization Natasha Crowcroft, Vice President, I… Program and Speakers The final program and speaker bios are available on the Global Health Security Forum website, here. Questions and Engagement The Zoom Q&A and chat functions will be disabled during the event to ensure a smooth virtual experience. We encourage you to submit your questions in advance or during the event through Sli.do: During the keynote presentation and panel discussion, there will be opportunities for questions from the virtual audience. To help us manage both in-person and virtual participation, we encourage you to submit your questions in advance through Sli.do. As there will not be time for questions immediately following individual presentations, we encourage you to submit any presentation-related questions through Sli.do, and we will do our best to address them during the panel discussion. Event code: 6307623 (enter at https://www.slido.com/) Direct link to join: https://app.sli.do/event/i82pph2eHYmSajQwWN8zzG When submitting your question through Sli.do, please select the appropriate label (e.g., keynote, specific presentation, or panel discussion) to indicate who your question is directed to. This will help us ensure your question is shared with the right speaker or session. We look forward to connecting with you online for a day of engaging dialogue, learning, and global collaboration. Warm regards, Dr. Naveed Janjua Director, UBC CDC On behalf of the UBC Centre for Disease Control Naveed Zafar Janjua, MBBS, MSc, DrPH Director, University of British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (UBCCDC) Clinical Professor, School of Population and Public Health University of British Columbia
November 4, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
stairway-to-kevin.bsky.social
🆄🅽🆂🅰🅵🅴 🅸🅽 🆃🅷🅴 🆆🅾🆁🅺🅿🅻🅰🅲🅴

how the CBC forced me to resign over COVID

and why we’re all worse off for it—especially our kids

a 🧵

(on the occasion of my son’s [5th] and the CBC’s [89th] shared birthday, nov. 2)

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

[links to referenced articles in ALT text]
November 2, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
chantzy.bsky.social
Minimizing COVID-19 is maximizing social harm

One of the best articles I've read all year because it centers social justice and equity. Published today

Gift link 🎁 www.thespec.com/opinion/cont...
Hamilton Spectator article titled "minimizing COVID-19 is maximizing social harm" with photo of crowded indoor space and people in medical and respirator masks
October 31, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
It's instructive how rapidly infection control and public health influencers are rushing to bend the knee now the anti-vaxxers and overdiagnosis types have power.

Almost makes you think we should be listening to scientists about science, instead of relying on shortcuts and opinion-laundering.

🤔
October 29, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mjnabuurs.bsky.social
Isaac, honestly. Didn’t think you could promo Covld sickness more than you already have.

Your constant minimizing of this virus and its impacts has likely already put many people at risk of poor outcomes. Most of them won’t even know it. Let’s not also use your platform to put them further at risk.
October 29, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
Links to sources aren't working for me, but with public health and IPC AWOL on ventilation and PPE it'd be pretty irresponsible to start back-pedaling on vaccines now too without considering #longCOVID.

Is there even a plan to deal with the impacts in this thread? Thoughts and prayers? Ignore them?
mark-ungrin.bsky.social Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · Nov 25
From populists on the right, but also from establishment figures desperate to bury their responsibility, there's an ongoing push to bury the harms of COVID.

Long COVID alone costs 7M life-years (QALYs) and on the order of a trillion dollars a year in the OECD.
www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issue...
1. While a precise estimate of long COVID prevalence is still emerging, current research suggests that up to 10-30% of people who contracted COVID-19 exhibit symptoms corresponding to long COVID in the weeks and months following acute infection. Across OECD countries at a minimum, this would represent upwards of 39 million people who had or are currently living with long COVID. Sustainable investment in long COVID research is crucial to inform health and social care resource allocation. As the evidence base grows, developing standardised measures of symptoms and functional impact to support a more precise definition that enables the disaggregation of levels of long COVID severity could be useful to better understand the condition, assess its impact, and to tailor care and support. 3. Long COVID can severely limit people’s ability to undertake basic activities of daily life and can dramatically hamper quality of life. More than 7 million quality-adjusted life years may be lost annually across OECD countries due to the condition. Studies from across a range of OECD countries suggest that one sixth to more than one-third of people may have persistent cognitive symptoms, often lasting more than 12 weeks, after a COVID-19 infection. 4. Even conservative estimates of long COVID prevalence would indicate that long COVID may be reducing the workforce by nearly 3 million workers across OECD countries, amounting to an economic cost of at least $141 billion USD from lost wages alone. Moreover, even among those who were able to return to the labour force, a significant proportion reported needing to reduce the number of hours they worked, compared to before their infection. 5. The economic and social welfare costs of long COVID are dramatic: Even excluding the direct costs of health care, long COVID is likely costing OECD countries as much as $864 billion $1.04 trillion USD per year due to reductions in quality of life and labour force participation. The limitations in activities experienced by long COVID patients, including dropping out or reducing their participation in the labour force, as well as direct medical care costs, can have dramatic implications on their financial well-being. Costs to health and social protection systems may also be high over time. 6. Long COVID could further exacerbate inequalities: The COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to longstanding socioeconomic and demographic inequalities in health. Evidence from some countries suggests that certain groups – including populations with lower education attainment, and those living in more deprived areas – may be at risk of developing long COVID, and of experiencing more severe symptoms. 7. Patients have played a critical role in bringing attention and action to long COVID: Throughout the pandemic, countries deprioritized many key aspects of person-centred care in exchange for rapidly implementing policies intended to contain the virus. While the need for rapid action was clear, the lack of patient voice in the process was notable. In contrast, patients and patient groups have been at the forefront of advocating for both a recognition of long COVID as a legitimate condition, in articulating their care and support needs, and in spearheading research into the condition. In many cases, countries have responded by actively working together with patient groups to disseminate information and develop patient-centred support services.
October 29, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
leslieleeiii.bsky.social
Dropping at noon EST, my conversation with Dr. Jonathan Howard about his book We Want Them Infected: How the Failed Quest for Herd Immunity Led Doctors to Embrace the Anti-Vaccine Movement and Blinded Americans to the Threat of COVID.

Listen at patreon.com/strugglesession and everywhere else!
October 22, 2025 at 3:16 PM
sessford.bsky.social
I am giving a webinar next week, mostly aimed at rehabilitation clinicians/researchers, on EDI considerations for long COVID. This is through the READII committee at U of T’s Rehabilitation Sciences Institute. I’m looking forward to it :)
October 22, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
The 3rd annual Canadian Long COVID symposium wrapped up yesterday. It was a great meeting, and I got some nice news at the end!

PDF of the poster is here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e8wh6...

MP3 of a 5-minute verbal overview is here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ej0lw...
A photo of a projection screen reading "Long COVID Web Impact Poster Awards: 1. Mark Ungrin 2. Kayli Jamieson 3. Kriti Agarwal 4. Jill Cameron This poster contains too much text to fit in the ALT text box, or to condense to a meaningful summary that would fit. The full text is accessible in the PDF linked directly from the post.
October 22, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
rchusid.bsky.social
Covid has created an increase in work absences year round comparable to a year round flu season. This is due to both Trump & Biden mishandling Covid with a vaccine-only approach, opposing other needed action.
#Medsky
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Enduring Outcomes of COVID-19 Work Absences on the US Labor Market
This cohort study examines the extent to which COVID-19 continues to generate work absences and decrease labor force participation beyond the pandemic period in the US.
jamanetwork.com
October 11, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
Excellent work from @michellegamage.bsky.social - a breath of fresh air!

Put the word out if BC's legion of airborne-transmission-denier quacks come after you for this. We've got your back.

#Standupforscience
October 7, 2025 at 1:45 AM
Reposted by James Sessford
maryfernando.bsky.social
I wrote this back in 2021 (found on my squarespace on profile) and all the evidence of waning still holds true. The once a year option is absurd and doesn’t fit with existing data. It seems like a money saving venture.
This graphic explains what is missing in the guidance by the NACI and Ontario: the time from the second COVID-19 vaccine dose. Some crucial groups need boosters because their immunity wanes more quickly as a result of drugs or illnesses. Also, there is a failure to recognize age per se as a vulnerability, therefore excluding many community seniors despite the fact that about 90% of seniors over 75 live in the community, so this leaves the most vulnerable unprotected. 3 The time out from the second booster is crucial for all of us too, because that is what the experts who reviewed the evidence around the world agree upon. Graph showing waning starting at 4 months and severe waning by 8 months
August 25, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
mark-ungrin.bsky.social
OK took a look at another one of the NACI references, #22: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

I just have a minute but this looks seriously sketchy.

#1: 👉why can't I find an overall COVID incidence rate?👈 Did they really only count "medically attended" cases (p17) - so e.g. 7.5% annual incidence?
June 27, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by James Sessford
beansproutsmom.bsky.social
Read this and weep.

F**k all of @ipaccanada.bsky.social. We cannot adopt new CSA respiratory protection standards fast enough.

"There is limited evidence with which to draw conclusions on the comparative
effectiveness of PPE to prevent exposure to and transmission of VHFs to HCWs."
Is there sufficient evidence to inform personal protective equipment choices for healthcare workers caring for patients with viral hemorrhagic fevers? Amanda Graham1 , Steven Ettles1 *, Maureen McGrath1 , Toju Ogunremi1 , Jennifer Selkirk1 , Natalie Bruce1 Abstract Background: Ugandan health authorities declared an outbreak of Ebola disease (EBOD), caused by the Sudan virus, in September 2022. A rapid review was conducted to update the Public Health Agency of Canada’s guidelines for infection prevention and control measures for EBOD in healthcare settings to prepare for potential introduction of cases. Objective: Summarize the available evidence on personal protective equipment (PPE) use by healthcare workers (HCWs) to prevent exposure to and transmission of viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs), including Ebola virus. Methods: Electronic databases were searched to identify peer-reviewed evidence published from July 2014–October 2022. Peer-reviewed primary studies and literature reviews, in English or French, reporting on PPE for VHFs and filoviruses in the healthcare context were eligible for inclusion. Literature review processes were conducted by two reviewers using DistillerSR® systematic review software and the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Infection Prevention and Control Critical Appraisal Toolkit. An environmental scan of grey literature was also conducted to inform the rapid review. Results: The database search yielded 417 citations and 29 studies were considered eligible for critical appraisal. In total, 20 studies were included in the narrative synthesis of evidence. The evidence base was limited regarding comparative effectiveness of types of PPE for preventing exposure to and transmission of VHFs to HCWs. Four studies reported on exposure to and transmission of a VHF. Sixteen studies provided data on other relevant topics, such as simulated contamination and lab-based tests of PPE integrity. Conclusion: T…
August 24, 2025 at 5:52 PM