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  This week's Pandemics in BC blog posts: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/09/26/2026-09-26-general/ BC: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/09/26/2026-09-26-bc/ The province is now reporting all their data every week, so I should be posting a BC post every week now until the spring. #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #rsv #measles

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  ⚠️ 🇺🇸 Heads Up US Citizens Living Abroad 👇️ US Citizens who live outside the US, you still have a constitutional right to vote, and you can register/request your ballot very easily online by going to https://www.votefromabroad.org Please vote! This year especially, voting is really important. It's getting close to the election, so DO THIS NOW! Registration deadlines in many states are coming up! PLEASE BOOST! The VoteFromAbroad (VFA) website steps you through everything you need to do,...

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  According to figures released today by the Province of BC, FluA has already started to climb. This is surprisingly early! In 2023, 2024, and 2025, we didn't reach this level until late November or early October. Go get your flu shots as soon as you can! (Unfortunately, it looks like BC isn't going to get the shots until October.)

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  Babies born with congenital toxoplasmosis, syphilis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, or herpes simplex had WAY higher rates of autism than those without: https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-tracked-3-7-million-births-rare-factor-linked-autism-12474923

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  This week's Pandemics in BC posts: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/09/05/2026-09-05-general/ BC: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/09/05/2026-09-05-bc/ #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #measles

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  I was quite cheery last week, especially on the long weekend. Oh. It's because two of my major health news sources took the week off, and I didn't look at any health news over the weekend, and a lot of English-language health news is about the fuckery going on in the USA. I had managed to ignore it for a week, but no more. Back to glumness...

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  This week's Pandemics in BC post: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/09/12/2026-09-12-general/ No BC-specific post this week. The province will resume publishing data when we get back to "the fall schedule", whenever that is. #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #measles

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  There was a fire in Vancouver BC which looked like it was slightly east of the stadium. It appears to be out now. #yvr #fire

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  @elana@babka.social Oh, it's coming, it's coming! It's just really slow. I have been writing a blog on COVID for six years, summarizing research papers and news articles about COVID (with a filter on what is interesting for residents of British Columbia). There have been a LOT of papers about vaccines that work really really well in mice: are durable and/or broadly protective and/or stop onward transmission.... but then usually I don't hear any more. The pace of vaccine devel...

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  This study found that people who sat a lot while watching TV had greater changes in areas of the brain associated with dementia than people who sat a lot at work, especially in men: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260722/Frequent-TV-watching-links-to-higher-white-matter-lesion-volume.aspx The article speculates that TV is more passive. I wonder if it's simpler than that: people who watch more TV are exposed to more ads urging them to engage in unhealthy behaviour.

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  Me, I think it's even easier: people close their windows when it gets too hot or too cold, and poor ventilation increases your chances of getting sick.

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  Is there anybody who is getting articles of impeachment ready for Trump -- with a list of all the laws he has broken (with citations and precedents) in a nice timeline?

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  This study gives more evidence that the Epstein-Barr Virus is -- if not *causal*, definitely *implicated* in Multiple Sclerosis: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adz6566 EBV is a MF. It causes or is implicated in mononucleosis, several cancers, MS, lupus, and maybe Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. I won't benefit personally, but I can't WAIT for them to make an EBV vaccine.

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  RE: https://journa.host/@samlitzinger/116927585198360919 Obviously the liner faded because of vandals using really big knives.

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  This week's Pandemics In BC blog post: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/07/11/2026-07-10-general/ BC: no BC-specific post this week, see the General post #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #measles #rsv #influenza

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  I have copied it, and I will add to it -- but it's not my primary focus and I won't do as good a job at it. My copy is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14TjIlYNwT_2oyHbjSr4hX9IpYHNbPF-eixp8DtkIHv0/edit?usp=sharing Thank you for all your work on it!

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  It seems like there are a number of laws and norms in the USA which have no enforcement teeth in them, in part because of judicial "standing". If the Trump doesn't make his tax returns public, regular citizens don't have standing to ask for them. If Trump destroys taxpayer-owned buildings (like the East Wing), regular citizens don't have standing to stop him. If Trump won't release food aid sitting in warehouses, who has standing to compel him? Thus there seems to b...

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  This week's Pandemics in BC blog post: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/07/03/2026-07-03-general/ BC: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/07/03/2026-07-03-bc/ #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #measles

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  Vancouver people: do you like the gardens under the Burrard Street Bridge? They are being threatened by construction. https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-destruction-of-burrard-bridge-gardens The gardens there are *entirely* run and financed by (very friendly) volunteers. Please sign and share with Vancouver people!

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  I missed this when it came out, but the US FDA approved inhaled insulin for children with diabetes: https://www.ajmc.com/view/fda-approves-inhaled-insulin-for-children-adolescents-with-diabetes This seem like absolute wonderful news.

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  Metro Vancouver is on Stage 3 water restrictions. Partly this is because one of the three big water tunnels is currently undergoing maintenance, but mostly it's because we have no snow. Yay climate change. :-( From https://metrovancouver.org/services/water/reservoir-levels-water-use :

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  @samohTmaS@mastodon.social @cpkimber@scicomm.xyz Thanks!!

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  This week's Pandemics in BC blog posts: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/05/01/2026-05-01-general/ BC: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/05/01/2026-05-01-bc/ #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #measles #rsv

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  This week's Pandemics in BC blog posts: General: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/04/18/2026-04-18-general/ BC: https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2026/04/18/2026-04-18-bc/ #covid19bc #covid19 #covid #measles #h5n1

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  I have been working on this for quite a while, and am finally done! This page has a list of all the different "off-target" benefits of various vaccines -- where they made a vax against X and it also turned out to have some benefit against Y. https://covidbc.webfoot.com/off-target-vaccine-benefits/ (It's long, and a lot of it is just summarizing study after study after study after study. If you just want to see what vaccines have what off-target benefits, you can j...

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  Deaths in USA for 25-44 year-olds went up by A LOT in 2020 and haven't come all the way back down. COVID-19 deaths were part of it, but there were even more drug overdoses. There were significantly more traffic accidents and homicides, and all kinds of diseases were a bit higher.

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  I just noticed that Moderna is looking for participants with MS for an Epstein-Barr vaccine study: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06735248 They are looking to see if the EBV vaccine will delay/slow MS progression. There are locations in seven US states (all east of the Mississippi), one in Queensland Australia, and eight in the UK.

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  There have been two research groups which have found nasal treatments which prevent many (all?) respiratory diseases at the expense of increased (low-level) inflammation. I keep thinking that this is such an amazingly useful discovery that it really ought to be fast-tracked as hard as Operation Warp speed fast-tracked vaccines. The USA clearly isn't going to do it though; maybe some other rich country could pick it up? I also fantasize about everybody in the world taking a dose which...

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  @Lkdc@dmv.community Yeah, that would be good to know. I don't know, and I suspect that nobody does at the moment. 😠 I also wish more people knew how beneficial vaccines were for things they weren't supposed to be good for (AKA "off-target" benefits). I am working on a page that collects all the off-target benefits, but I'm not quite done yet.

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  Cool! Dolphins and orcas hunt together: https://science.ubc.ca/news/2025-12/orcas-and-dolphins-seen-hunting-together-first-time It reminds me of badgers and coyotes hunting together: https://www.treehugger.com/coyote-and-badger-hunt-together-4868739