Chandler Weiner

Biologist by training, techie nerd at 💙,points/miles travel enthusiast, Dad, hubby, and Hacktoberfest nut. Special Projects at @automattic. #WordPress

[tern @1goodtern]

Another month of data, and another climb in sickness absence at the world's sixth largest employer.

I've pointed out the start of the Covid Pandemic.
Can you point out the end?

[🎒Joanna Teglund✊😷🍉Human life is sacred @JoannaTeglund]

Each SARS-CoV-2 infection causes persistent IQ loss. In the 7th year of the pandemic, each person was infected ~5.2 times and lost 12,5-33 IQ points.
American IQ in 2019 was ~97. After 12 waves of COVID is ~64-84,5. The minimum IQ required for independent living is ~75-80.

[Hannah Davis @ahandvanish]

#LongCovid has not decreased from 2020-2024.

Prevalence is 13-23% of US population, increasing 0.4%-1.5% every 3 months.

Incidence was 10-29%, but began increasing in 2023.

"These findings indicate an accumulating rather than resolving disease burden." https://t.co/SZGm2NFkg0

[The Vertlartnic @TheVertlartnic]

Scientists Baffled Why More Kids Are Off Sick During Pandemic That Makes Kids More Likely To Be Off Sick

[Ruth Ann Crystal, MD @CatchTheBaby]

MIT found Alzheimer's-like amyloid plaques in the brains of people who died of COVID. https://t.co/QbSJWJQhGW

Spike proteins were clustering with amyloid.

This was not in older adults with pre-existing disease.

It was caused by COVID.

[charlos @loscharlos]

Everyday there is new research demonstrating how extraorndarily bad it is to be indefinitely reinfected by this virus.

[Keith @keetmuise]

Those who put in extra effort to avoid Covid, by masking, testing, avoiding risky situations etc. do so because they follow the science, observe and acknowledge the reality, and know that any regrets they may have for doing so, will pale in comparison to the regrets that those who embraced constant infections will have when they realize what they have done to themselves and their kids if they have any.

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

PMC COVlD Update, May 18, 2026

Levels are flat in a relative "lull" with 1 in 275 people estimated actively infectious.

Watch the video for a quick explainer (no audio). For a version with an instrumental background...

1/2

[James LePage @jameswlepage]

Today's my last day as Head of AI at Automattic, and Core AI lead for WordPress. Shocking to think it's been only 18 months since the WPAI acquisition.

https://t.co/byriJVp0l3

So much has happened. We formed Core AI for @WordPress, built the AI Building Blocks (the last ships in 7.0), grew Automattic AI from from ~10 folks to 50+, and #core-ai went from 0 to 1,000+.

@automattic shipped AI site builders, built-in agents, Telex, agentic commerce in Woo, Parsely Sage, MCPs… an incredible group to get to work with each day, async or in the NoHo space.

[Chandler Weiner @C_Dubbs]

@DhravyaShah , the @supermemory SSO for GitHub called "Supermemory login [v3 prod]" says it is coming from your own GitHub account, Dhravya, instead of supermemoryai's account. It gave me pause when it asked to grant "Dhravya" with access to my GH email address, just FYI.

[Sara Anne Willette ♿️🌈👩🏻‍💻𓅆 @amethystarlight]

Throughout winter respiratory virus season and non-seasonal waves, I breakdown US wastewater trends across pathogens for each US region on Sunday nights. Until the next SARS-CoV-2 wave begins in earnest, I will instead publish abbreviated updates on Sunday nights.

Here's the TL;DR:
We are heading toward the nadir between waves of SARS-CoV-2. Norovirus is still higher than it was last year at the time. Rotavirus is high as well. If you aren’t wearing a respirator in shared air spaces, now is good time to start again.

The following states & counties are experiencing a rise in SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater.
West:
-Juneau County, AK
-Riverside County, CA
-San Benito County, CA
-San Joaquin County, CA
-Santa Barbara County, CA
-Solano County, CA
-Garfield County, CO
-La Plata County, CO
-Guam County, GU
-Hawaii County, HI
-Latah County, ID
-Elko County, NV
-Island County, WA
-King County, WA
-Albany County, WY
-Sweetwater County, WY
South:
-Swain County, NC
-Georgetown County, SC
-Orangeburg County, SC
-Nicholas County, WV
-Ohio County, WV
Northeast:
-Strafford County, NH
-Ontario County, NY
-Bristol County, RI

The best things you can do for your health are:
Wear a fitted respirator in shared air spaces.
Clean indoor air with HEPA and far-UVC.
Rest at home when you are infectious and recovering.
Keep all your boosters up-to-date, including SARS-CoV-2 and MMR.

All visualizations are found at https://t.co/3VxxeWiSyN. Data are subject to change as new data populate in state & federal repositories.

[Jerome Adams @JeromeAdamsMD]

Reminder: Long COVID's disability & suffering will be the pandemic's most devastating long-term global legacy. Neither GBD supporters nor critics anticipated its scale or included it in their policy calculus -and “let er rip” strategies prioritizing widespread exposure clearly worsen the toll. Millions affected, with real costs in lives and productivity (on top of 20 million direct deaths globally, which we should never forget or minimize). https://t.co/I48h2XxxfS

[🎒Joanna Teglund✊😷🍉Human life is sacred @JoannaTeglund]

It was clear in 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 was a threat to humanity.
Six years, 12 waves of SARS-CoV-2 later, billions repeatedly infected with the virus that is persistent, gradually damages all organs/systems.
There is no cure. 486k studies. No studies showing clearance or recovery.

[Charles W | Protect the Heart of the Arts 💕😷 @waltz_tales]

“Actor Wil Wheaton, best known for Star Trek: The Next Generation, has been public about mask wearing.

In 2025, he said he caught COVID after Rose City Comic Con after unmaking.

‘Wow Covid sucks. It sucks so much. Do whatever you can to prevent yourself from catching it.’”

[Hiroshi Yasuda (保田浩志) @Yash25571056]

"An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home..
The drug, called ensitrelvir, is made by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Shionogi..
In an international study of more than 2,000 household contacts conducted from June 2023 to September 2024, about 9% of people who got a placebo within 72 hours of a housemate developing symptoms became symptomatic themselves, compared with only about 3% of those who got a five-day course of ensitrelvir.
Rates of viral transmission were lower in the ensitrelvir group, too: confirmed infections, symptomatic or not, turned up in only 14.0% of those who received the drug, compared with 21.5% of those who got a placebo.."

Not bad.

'At last, a pill that can prevent COVID after exposure to infected people'
https://t.co/H6GfHPAvLy

[Danielle Beckman @DaniBeckman]

For #FluorescenceFriday, the work that motivated my move to Germany! I join the @erturklab to help develop novel approaches to neutralize and eliminate residual viral proteins commonly observed in #LongCovid patients, particularly in the brain. Keep an eye out for our work!🧠💪🔬

[Cheryl Josie @cheryl_josie]

Everyone who has ever had Covid is permanently damaged.

‘Long ‘COVID’ affects us all.

[Harry Spoelstra @HarrySpoelstra]

Endothelial dysfunction and metabolic biomarkers in post-COVID-19 syndrome

🚨A nightmare study for many!

FOR EVERYBODY: 9 months after your COVID-19, your blood vessels are STILL damaged, with probably biomarkers to prove it!

1. Study design:
German prospective cohort (n=262 adults) compared blood biomarkers ~37 weeks post-SARS-CoV-2 infection (PCS patients + recovered) versus uninfected controls.

2. Endothelial dysfunction:
- Soluble thrombomodulin (sTM) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), two established markers of endothelial (blood-vessel) damage, were significantly elevated in the combined infected group (UOC PCS + LIFE Cov+) versus never-infected controls.

- So, previously infected individuals had significantly higher soluble thrombomodulin (TM) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), independent of PCS diagnosis or fatigue severity.

- Critically, there were no significant differences between the PCS group and the LIFE Cov+ group for these markers.

3. Metabolic disruption:
- Clear alterations in arginine biosynthesis and taurine/hypotaurine pathways, indicating impaired nitric-oxide (NO) metabolism with reduced L-arginine and taurine levels.

→In plain terms: the vascular damage signal was just as strong in the symptom-free recovered people as in those still suffering from fatigue and other PCS complaints. The same held for the metabolic disruptions (impaired arginine biosynthesis and taurine/hypotaurine pathways linked to nitric-oxide production).

4. Fatigue-specific signal:
- High-fatigue PCS patients (top MFI-20 quartile) showed elevated linoleic acid (LA) plus monounsaturated fatty acids oleic (OA) and palmitoleic (PA).

→The fatty-acid signature specific to high-fatigue PCS adds a potential severity marker.

5. Notes:
- Changes persisted already up to 9 months after infection.
- PCS remains symptom-based, but these markers offer objective, measurable signals of underlying vascular and metabolic damage!
-The discussion and results treat the observed endothelial and metabolic changes as consequences of a single infection and do not speculate on additive damage from subsequent exposures.
- Limitations well noted.

‼️So, COVID-19 leaves detectable, objective blood-vessel and metabolic damage in the bloodstream nearly a year later, even if you feel completely fine and never had Long COVID symptoms.
Specific fatty-acid spikes flag severe post-COVID fatigue. The “it’s all in your head” narrative for many post-covid people is directly contradicted by these biomarkers!
These findings, solidly backed by prior 2021–2025 evidence, prove that COVID-19 inflicts measurable, persistent endothelial and nitric-oxide metabolic damage up to nearly a year later, even in fully symptom-free survivors, thereby supporting the implementation of routine biomarker screening, but even more importantly: #AvoidSars2 #AvoidReinfections. YOU ARE NOW A CV RISK PATIENT!
https://t.co/dkyr9HXTyO

[Carl Hancock 🚀🇨🇷 @carlhancock]

@WPManageNinja I am generally pretty respectful towards you all. @techjewel should be able to attest to that. I've been supportive in the past.

But I have to say something because I think you've gone too far with FluentKit.

Prior to seeing your launch post for FluentKit I had randomly run across Fluentwiz, and my initial reaction was "Did David and GravityWiz branch out into Fluent solutions?!"

The naming caused actual confusion. The name didn't have the potential to cause confusion in the marketplace... it DID cause confusion in the marketplace. And I'm an expert!

Now you've launched FluentKit and I can't not say something publicly this time.

If FluentKit was a language learning app I wouldn't be posting this.

I know for a fact that you are fully aware that GravityWiz and GravityKit are legit brands in the WordPress community. They operate in the same ecosystem as you. They aren't side projects. They are legitimate businesses with legitimate registered trademarks.

Both companies have been operating in this ecosystem longer than WPManageNinja has existed.

Fluent* and Gravity* (including GravityWiz and GravityKit) compete in the same:

- industry
- ecosystem
- target audiences
- channels of commerce
- product categories
- competitive space
- I could go on and on

It is well established that there are overlapping customer bases and overlapping marketplace presence.

The fact that you are headquartered in Bangladesh doesn't matter. The United States is a major market for your products and services.

You need to do a better job with how you come up with brand names. You can't just rip off the competition the way you have been doing.

You've done great things with the Fluent name.

With that in mind, I'm asking you to do the right thing. It's my understanding both GravityKit and Gravity Wiz will be reaching out to you regarding this if they haven't already.

I hope you correct course. You are better than this.

[Keith @keetmuise]

Nothing "Mild" causes brain damage.
Nothing "Mild" causes immune damage.
Nothing "Mild" damages your heart.
Nothing "Mild" causes strokes.
Nothing "Mild" causes blood clots.
Nothing "Mild" causes chronic illness.
Nothing "Mild" is spelled C O V I D.