Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Flu is definitely still going down. Everything else is making small enough moves that it’s hard to tell if it’s noise or part of a trend. In the most recent data (ending 7 Feb 2026) as reported on 12 Feb 2026, among influenza-like illness (i.e respiratory diseases) cases… Continue reading 2026-02-20 BC
Author: Ducky
2026-02-20 General
Multiple Pathogens This report from Spain (2026-02-19) says that 8.8% of hospitalized patients got a hospital-acquired infection (HAI) and they were about twice as likely to die as patients who did not get an HAI. The authors think at least half of those are preventable. The authors note that there are three times as many… Continue reading 2026-02-20 General
2026-02-13 BC
Addendum: This originally had the date of 2026-01-13 and not 2026-02-13. Ooops, sorry. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Flu is going down, RSV is going up, everything else is holding pretty steady. In the most recent data (ending 7 Feb 2026) as reported on 12 Feb 2026, among influenza-like illness (i.e respiratory diseases)… Continue reading 2026-02-13 BC
2026-02-13 General
I’ve got almost nothing on COVID-19 this week. There have been some extremely technical, boring, non-actionable papers; there have been news stories about the (*sigh*) normal fecal tornadoes in the US health administration, there have been stories about people convicted of defrauding various other governments of COVID-19 relief funds, stories of Olympians *gasp* wearing masks,… Continue reading 2026-02-13 General
2026-02-05 BC
This week’s postings will be short because I have Things To Do for the next few days. This means that the wastewater information will be delayed. I might revise this blog on Friday or Saturday to add in the wastewater chart, but otherwise you’ll need to wait a week. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization… Continue reading 2026-02-05 BC
2026-02-05 General
This week’s postings will be short because I have Stuff To Do for the next few days. COVID-19 Long COVID This paper from USA (2026-01-27) reports that women who had both depressive and anxiety symptoms pre-pandemic and got a COVID-19 infection were 78% more likely to get Long COVID in 2020 and 2021 of the… Continue reading 2026-02-05 General
2026-01-30 BC
COVID-19 is steady and pretty low, influenza is falling fast, and RSV is climbing. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Influenza case counts continue to go down. COVID-19 continues to be about the same. RSV continues to go up a little bit. In the most recent data (ending 24 Jan 2026) as reported on… Continue reading 2026-01-30 BC
2026-01-30 General
COVID-19 COVID-Related Excess Death and Sickness This paper from Greece (2026-01-19) reports that children who had a confirmed COVID-19 infection had worse global longitudinal strain (GLS) — a measure of how much the left ventricle of the heart can contract. Kids who had more severe infections had worse GLS. This paper from Japan (2026-01-21) reports… Continue reading 2026-01-30 General
2026-01-23 BC
COVID-19 Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Influenza levels are definitely, clearly down. At this point, it looks like this season won’t end up as bad as many people (including me) thought it would be. Last week there was a slight drop in RSV cases, but I said that I thought it was just… Continue reading 2026-01-23 BC
2026-01-23 General
COVID-19 Long COVID 👧 There has been a lot of hand-wringing about high absentee rates among children, with very little mention of the fact that maybe, y’know, children are sick more than were before everybody started collecting COVID-19 infections like they were baseball cards. Finally, a paper from USA (2026-01-16) does something that starts to… Continue reading 2026-01-23 General